We’ve all been shocked by the escalation in open antisemitism since the October 7 massacre. In the first few days after the attack, the Community Security Trust (CST) recorded an immediate 324 per cent increase in antisemitic incidents compared to the same period in 2022.
The regular hate marches have solidified the normalisation of antisemitism, and as the Heaton Park murders and Golders Green attacks have shown, the genie is now well and truly out of the bottle.
It’s understandable that such a shocking acceleration in the scale of open Jew hate has led to clutching at straws, as if there has to be some sort of explanation beyond the stark fact that some people simply hate Jews – a hatred that lay buried in the decades after the Holocaust until it first re-emerged when Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader.
In that context, one of the most widespread so-called explanations for the rise in antisemitism can be summed up in two words: Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s striking how the notion that Israel itself is responsible – and thus the Israeli prime minister – is shared by both rampant anti-Zionists and some Israelis, as well as being an idee fixe of so many of our communal leaders.
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