From Sofia to Michigan: here’s why we must stand up against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism

There are many blameless people who hate Israel, euphemistically ‘criticising’ it, wrongly regarding it as a colonial state, a pure power, a country tragically different even from its Zionist-socialist origins, a nation corrupted by the Likud, by the Begins, the Sharons and the Shamirs, which, through the electoral process, propels criminals of biblical proportions such as Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich, who are being used by the much-hated Netanyahu to resist – through war, and what a destructive war it is – the pogrom of 7 October 2023, and who may well enable him to remain in power after the next elections to do exactly what his more respectable (for now) political rivals would do without him: disarm Hamas in Gaza following its decimation, destroy Hezbollah’s roots on the northern front, strike a heavy blow against Iran and its genocidal nuclear ambitions, and face up to international isolation and the ‘souls of goodness’ from all over the world. These spotless individuals ought to take two educational trips: to Sofia in Bulgaria and to Michigan.

It is not enough to read Philip Roth or his literary alter ego, Moishe Pipik, that magnificent yet treacherous treatise on diaspora life that is "Operation Shylock", recently republished by Adelphi. The project of this American Jew from New Jersey – and indeed of all those who identify with the diaspora – is the repatriation of Jews to Europe, a gentle end for Israel in order to avert the tragic, genocidal fate of a people who have consigned themselves to a nightmare: dominating Palestinians and Arabs by any means necessary to avoid destruction, after having created what has been created, starting with the biblical Hebrew language, miraculously revived in place of the glorious but dusty spoken Yiddish. There is the Israel of 1948, the Israel of independence that won the war for its very existence, waged by three hundred million Arabs, and there is the Israel of 1967, the one that occupies the West Bank and now wishes to annex it, calling it Judea and Samaria – historical names that spell the death knell for a dual Jewish-Palestinian state, in an era of denialist political Islamism, which was rumoured to have been discussed in Oslo and which the Palestinians rejected en masse. Reading is always good, but those who can should go on those two little trips.

In Sofia, a group of Jewish youths was besieged at their summer residence whilst people shouted ‘Sieg Heil’. They avoided being beaten up or worse, but it was a very instructive spectacle – just as instructive as all the little anti-Semitic incidents scattered across the countries that, according to Roth’s double, Moishe Pipik, should be welcoming Jews back and pretending that nothing ever happened, as if Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Dachau and so on are merely a myth concocted to subjugate the Arabs of Palestine with the power and force of apartheid. As the UN ambassador—whom I shall not name out of decency—explains to us every day, the very same woman who told a mayor of the glorious Reggio Emilia, thereby sullying its name, to repent for having mentioned the hostages of 7 October, still trapped in the tunnels, whilst assuring him of her forgiveness in that instance. Or as Pankaj Mishra puts it, a sophisticated ‘diasporist’, rather like his darling and my friend Gad Lerner. From Sofia, one must then move on to Detroit.

Democratic primaries, with a seat in the US Senate at stake. The Democrats have historically been – or rather, were – a bulwark for Jews in the diaspora and those in Israel. Funding, donations, activism, speeches, commitment: anti-Semitism will not prevail. Now, in Michigan, the primary has been won by Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim Democrat and doctor born in Egypt, with links to the Muslim Brotherhood – the organisation that gave rise to Hamas and Islamic Jihad – a doctor who does not practise medicine, who is in politics and brings his own rhetoric to the political arena. First point: defund Israel, withdraw all support from it, follow the example of New York’s Mayor Mamdani, who wants to arrest Netanyahu. Second point: I’m not here to start a row; I’m here to end it. And standing alongside me is a Maoist who says: ‘The Americans deserved 11 September.’ And so on and so forth, with all the arguments that follow.

It prevailed, because the notion has taken hold that the Jews in Israel are a nuisance, drive up petrol prices, oppress those on this side of the colour line, are guilty of genocide despite Boy George’s sensible words (“you say genocide, I say war”), constitute a wealthy lobby that targets corrupt politicians, and deserve a lesson. And for now, they’ve had that lesson, in Europe and in America too. Perhaps it will have become clear – although it’s unlikely, though not entirely certain, that Abdul El-Sayed will then be soundly beaten in the November elections by a tough Republican, for whom I’d vote even if he were The Donald’s protégé or his golf ball – that the ‘diaspora mindset’ lacks a grasp of reality, and that Israel, with its governments, its criminals, its hateful settlers, its majority and minority MPs, its politics and its army, its democracy, its writers, singers, artists, doctors, scientists, businessmen and so on, must be defended – full stop.