June 15, 2007

British anti-Semitism?

By James Lewis

It sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? After all, isn't Britain the country with the longest tradition of tolerance in the world?

The answer is Yes, it used to be, and No, it isn't any more.

According to a UK Telegraph article entitled, "Anti-Semitism 'worst since 1936'", the House of Lords just saw a debate on anti-Semitism at British university campuses, triggered by the UCU university faculty boycott against Israel.

Allegations of anti-Semitism and racism can never be made lightly, so it is best to quote the Lords' members who spoke. We must assume they picked their words with care.

"A Jewish peer has warned that anti-Semitism is at its worst level in Britain since he fled here from Germany in 1936. ... Lord Moser said he was particularly concerned about anti-Jewish feeling in Britain's universities."

"Addressing a House of Lords debate on anti-Semitism on university campuses, the crossbench peer said: "It is just over 70 years since I came to this country and I have to say that I've never been more concerned about the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe, including this country.

"This is evident in many ways and among my greatest worries is what is happening on university campuses where there have been many examples of anti-Semitic outbursts and discrimination."...

Other members agreed.

"Baroness Morris of Bolton, for the Conservatives, attacked "a handful of (university) lecturers who seem to have hijacked their union".

She said the proposed boycott "makes us look, unfairly, biased and petty-minded and it plays into the hands of radical fanatics on campus. There is a time and a place for teenage gesture politics - this isn't it."

But of course the University and College Union (UCU) claims to speak for all university faculty in Britain in this boycott.

"Lord Patten, the former Conservative education secretary, described the idea of a boycott as "entirely abhorrent - engagement is always better than exclusion"."

"Baroness Walmsley, a Liberal Democrat, also opposed a boycott, saying: ‘I abhor the idea of limitations on legitimate academic freedom within reasonable limits.'"

"Lord Adonis, the education Minister said: ‘The Government unequivocally deplores any proposed boycott....'"

All that makes it sound as if sanity is breaking out in the United Kingdom. Wonderful. But will it make a difference? The academic boycott campaign has been on the boil for years, almost surely funded by Arab oil money. The Hard Left has been pushing a hate-Israel campaign on British campuses for half a century. And the British body politic has simply responded by drifting farther Left, Left, Left. Today, the biggest voice of biased anti-Zionism is the fabled British Broadcasting Corporation, perhaps the most powerful organ of propaganda in the world.

So the traditional British values expressed in the House of Lords are encouraging --- but much, much more needs to be done for Britain to rediscover herself. You can't have multicultural commissars take over your education system, your tax-funded broadcasting empire, and the chattering classes, without losing your cultural foundations. You can't import two million indoctrinated Islamists from the NorthWest Territories of Pakistan and expect them to act like Anglican clergy. And you can't capsize Parliamentary sovereignty and surrender to unaccountable Brussels bureaucracy without some terrifying consequences. None of those trends are being reversed. So it seems that we've only seen the beginning of Britain's cultural and political decline. It's tragic but true.

Those lessons apply just as much to America. Our culture needs to be fostered with love, and communicated to new generations if it is to survive; we cannot flood the country with alien ideologies; we cannot fail to control our borders; and we cannot allow foreign powers to make laws for us. If we fail in any of these basic tasks, we will go the way of Carthage and Rome.

Are you listening, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, and President Bush?

James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com