Full Comment - Making our streets unsafe for Jews is part of the plan

00:00:00.000 a pogrom is brewing that was a headline that i saw a little while ago and at the time people

00:00:07.660 thought maybe that's a bit harsh perhaps over the top not any longer especially not since may 21st

00:00:14.320 2025 that was the evening that two staffers from the israeli embassy were shot to death in cold

00:00:19.640 blood in washington dc the murderer who carried out the shooting was a young radicalized man

00:00:24.960 named elias rodriguez he yelled out free palestine as he was arrested you wanted a globalized

00:00:30.960 intifada this is what it looks like hello and welcome to the full comment podcast my name is

00:00:36.380 brian lily your host the conversation you're about to hear was recorded on may 8th long before

00:00:42.280 yaron leshinsky and sarah lynn milgram were shot and killed leaving a cultural event in the american

00:00:47.780 capital that act of terror has obviously and understandably put a chill on the jewish

00:00:53.700 community around the world the day after the shooting i was at toronto city council as they

00:00:58.340 debated a bubble zone bylaw to protect mostly jewish schools daycares and synagogues that would

00:01:04.180 protect others but that's the intent and even the day after that shooting hamas supporters were there

00:01:09.920 at council to oppose the idea which thankfully in the end did pass later that day at the annual

00:01:16.200 action gala run by the canadian jewish political action committee the shooting and rampant anti-semitism

00:01:22.640 were frequent points of discussion we've had more than 18 months of people marching in the streets

00:01:28.240 screaming about freeing palestine chanting that there is only one solution intifada revolution

00:01:34.580 praising martyrs so what we saw with this shooting shouldn't be surprising disturbing yes but not

00:01:42.020 surprising we will see more of this unless we change unless western societies begin confronting this

00:01:48.160 rot of anti-semitism unless we fight back against the very illiberal ideas these radicals continue to

00:01:54.060 spread well that's what the discussion with brendan o'neill was about in why it's still relevant brendan

00:01:59.980 o'neill is someone who's written extensively on this issue we've spoken to him in the past on the full

00:02:04.920 comment podcast about other issues but in this episode we wanted to bring him in to talk about how we

00:02:10.960 fight back he is of course the editor and columnist that spiked in the uk he's also the author of the book

00:02:16.220 after the pogrom 7th of october israel and the crisis of civilization here is our conversation

00:02:23.120 brendan thanks so much hi brian how you doing i well i'm a little depressed uh when i think about

00:02:30.100 this and i try not to think about it uh i don't have to think about it as much as some of my friends

00:02:35.800 and colleagues you know brian lily and brendan o'neill aren't exactly two jewish names but as my

00:02:42.900 friends like to say uh anti-semitism is not a jewish problem it's a problem that the rest of us have to

00:02:48.100 deal with uh how are you feeling i mean you you wrote your book last fall or it was published last

00:02:53.680 fall um but in in my view things haven't gotten better they seem to get quieter for a little while

00:02:59.620 and for a couple of months during the winter but it's back in full force and full rot as far as i can

00:03:05.680 tell yeah i think that's right it comes it comes in waves i think and at the moment i think it's

00:03:12.420 getting worse i mean that's a depressing way to kick off a podcast i'm sure but that is the reality

00:03:18.100 of it and you think it's going to peter out eventually you think how long can this new

00:03:23.240 anti-semitism go on for you know it's been 18 months now since the 7th of october pogrom um

00:03:28.860 you know people surely have got fatigue about hating israel as much as they do but actually

00:03:34.620 it just seems to get more and more intense and i find it incredibly depressing incredibly worrying

00:03:40.560 uh you know one of the reasons i wrote my book after the pogrom is not because of what happened

00:03:45.640 on 7th of october but because of what happened on the 9th of october and on the 9th of october 2023

00:03:51.120 there was a celebration of hamas's pogrom outside the israeli embassy in london people were dancing

00:03:58.600 in the streets they were playing pop music they were burning the israeli flag and i saw that and

00:04:04.280 i thought to myself look people are celebrating the murder of jews on the streets of london in 2023

00:04:11.480 people are dancing because jewish people were raped and murdered and that's when i knew that the

00:04:17.720 response to 7th of october was going to be pretty awful that it was going to reveal something rotten

00:04:23.020 about our societies and about the state of western civilization itself and that's been proven right

00:04:29.560 we've had that shown to us time and time again over the past 18 months and as i say it's not going

00:04:36.340 anywhere it seems to be getting worse this is a very different anti-semitism brendan um it's not the

00:04:42.720 kkk of days of yore it's not neo-nazis and while i'm sure you hear some of this in the uk as well i've

00:04:51.440 heard it in the united states and it's definitely pointed discussion here in canada well this is

00:04:57.160 what we get for mass immigration from certain countries where hating jews is just part of the

00:05:04.220 culture and as someone who's gone to a lot of these protests funny enough starting on october 9th

00:05:11.380 2023 um i've seen some of that yes there are is a portion of either the participants or the

00:05:21.180 leadership who definitely are immigrants to canada some refugees uh who come from islamic cultures

00:05:30.680 where being taught to hate jews is just part of the culture but there's also a large contingent

00:05:37.780 of people who would have described themselves as progressives for most of their adult lives and so

00:05:44.780 it's a strange mixture of folks coming together is that what you're seeing in the uk as well

00:05:51.220 oh absolutely it's there's an unholy alliance between kind of often quite upper middle class

00:05:58.860 so-called progressives people from the leafier parts of society along with radical islamists um some

00:06:06.260 of whom are recently arrived immigrants but others of whom have their families have been in the uk for a

00:06:11.900 long time but they've become radicalized recently around islamist ideas the islamist ideology so

00:06:18.380 the marches we've had in london and other parts of the uk since 7th of october 2023 there's been a mix

00:06:25.480 of those two types of people and it's the weirdest alliance i think it's you know it's it's so ridiculous

00:06:31.540 it's a suicidal alliance between so-called progressives and these radical islamists who

00:06:36.760 would throw half those people off the top of a tall building given half the chance you know it's best

00:06:41.760 summed up by the ridiculousness of queers for palestine and i make the point in my book that

00:06:47.180 if queers for palestine were ever to go to gaza their pronouns would be was were pretty damn quickly

00:06:52.800 and so it's it we have the exact same alliance and i think the thing that unites these two strange

00:07:00.600 very different groups of people is firstly an extraordinary animus for the jewish state

00:07:07.880 a hostility often towards jewish people who they see as privileged who they see as problematic as

00:07:13.980 a a group of people who've got more advantages than the rest of us and therefore they need to be

00:07:19.520 they need to be punished in some way but also what unites them is just a weariness with modernity

00:07:25.600 itself and a kind of anti-enlightenment sentiment a rejection of the values of western civilization

00:07:32.740 you know we know that radical islamists hate western civilization that's their driving force

00:07:39.120 of their ideology they think the west is the great satan and everything we've done is horrible

00:07:43.660 but increasingly progressives in the west itself hate western civilization itself these are people

00:07:49.900 who've been educated at universities in which you know you're discouraged now from reading the classic

00:07:56.560 texts because they're all too white and they're all too male you're encouraged to see countries like

00:08:01.540 britain and america and canada have as having been born in the sins of colonialism or slavery or some

00:08:08.600 other form of racism or the genocide of first nations communities you're constantly encouraged and in fact

00:08:16.200 educated to hate your own nation to hate your own history to hate your own civilization and i think

00:08:22.440 that's what's drawn these progressives especially younger ones into this deathly embrace with radical

00:08:29.820 islamists which is that both of them find themselves feeling incredibly hostile towards western

00:08:35.440 civilization and i think that's precisely what makes this movement of israelophobia so dangerous not

00:08:41.680 just for israel and jews but for the west more broadly well can western civilization the civilization

00:08:49.820 that we all built coming out of the enlightenment can that stand um without confronting this i

00:08:57.580 be blunt i think it's a cancer on our civilization can we stand and remain western liberal democratic

00:09:07.960 civilizations if we don't confront this if we just allow it to continue in the name of some

00:09:16.360 misguided view of uh well we're all equal and you know we have to allow everything no not all cultures are equal not all

00:09:26.040 viewpoints um are valid uh horrible viewpoints like anti-semitism deserve to be condemned

00:09:32.980 we're not getting that in in much of western civilization i want to talk about the the trump

00:09:40.000 administration what they're doing in a moment but you know so far in canada until recently in the

00:09:45.620 united states and so far in the uk i don't see the pushback from our society's leaders no um neither do

00:09:54.800 i sadly and i think you're right western western civilization can survive i think it can withstand

00:10:00.860 a lot it's an extraordinary achievement the greatest achievement of humankind so far

00:10:05.900 um but not if if it fails to confront this cancer as you aptly describe it then it won't survive or at

00:10:13.380 least it will at least be incredibly weakened it's already quite weak as things are um so it does need to

00:10:20.740 confront this problem and you know anyone who knows anything about modern history or even history

00:10:26.800 going back 800 900 years they should know that when anti-semitism rears its ugly head it's indicative of

00:10:34.480 a broader moral rot in society it's never just the return of racism it's never just a new racial

00:10:41.360 ideology and in fact i really dislike it when people on the left say i'm against anti-semitism and all

00:10:47.640 other forms of racism because anti-semitism is not just another form of racism i'm against all racism

00:10:55.880 call me old-fashioned i don't think you should judge people by their national heritage or their skin

00:11:00.240 color i think you should judge them as individuals but anti-semitism is something different anti-semitism

00:11:05.420 is an ideology of evil it is an ideology that searches for the nefarious elements in society that

00:11:13.080 are causing society's downfall so who do they blame it on they always end up blaming it on the jews

00:11:20.560 so the jews were blamed for the crop failures in medieval eras when things went wrong or the climate

00:11:27.820 spun out of control lo and behold there would be a surge in jew hunts and pogroms they were blamed for

00:11:34.600 germany's economic failures after the first world war they were held responsible for throwing germany

00:11:40.280 down the toilet of history and then they were blamed and punished severely for that accusation

00:11:45.600 and what we have now is a situation where israel the jewish nation rather than the jewish people

00:11:51.740 i i think it's it's a very uh it's not a distinction that is very fine anymore um but the jewish nation is

00:12:00.260 now held responsible for the world's ills and i'm so taken aback by the extent to which all the things

00:12:07.760 that were once said about the jewish people are now said about the jewish nation so the jewish people

00:12:12.800 were once seen as a very disruptive force in society now that's said about israel in relation

00:12:19.460 to world affairs the jewish people were once seen as a bloodlusting people who had a peculiar interest

00:12:26.180 in killing children we now hear that about israel all the time that's the cry of the left israel

00:12:32.060 kills children and in fact there was a march in essex here in england a few weeks ago where pro-palestine

00:12:38.400 marchers went through a jewish area carrying dolls covered in fake blood and bloodied shrouds so you

00:12:46.920 think to yourself right it's 2025 and the jews of england are still being accused face to face of

00:12:53.880 killing children that's a that's the blood libel that first emerged in norwich in england uh 900 years

00:13:00.400 ago and it's still here so the rehabilitation of that jew hatred the rehabilitation of those poisonous

00:13:06.960 old prejudices i think is reflective of western societies quite drastically losing their way

00:13:13.280 well what is really striking me in the last little while brendan is that

00:13:17.600 layered on top of the hatred of israel in the hatred of jews is that they don't even hide that

00:13:26.160 they support the terrorist groups who say they want to kill jews and think of the uh irish band

00:13:32.660 kneecap went to coachella uh and then quickly had their visas uh withdrawn and had to leave the united

00:13:39.760 states of america they were up there um denouncing israel but also chanting things like up hezbollah

00:13:47.180 up hamas i i used you know maybe to them it's just a a continuation of uh uh up the ra you know

00:13:54.680 maybe they're they're old-time ira supporters who decided that hezbollah is the next group to

00:13:58.940 to back but i hear that in the streets of toronto as well i i i see that in the uh protest that happened

00:14:07.100 just about a year ago in vancouver where they shouted death to the usa death to israel death to canada

00:14:14.860 at a a pro-hamas event you know they're not even pretending just to be pro-palestinian or

00:14:20.780 denouncing israel they are openly in support of terrorists and terrorism and this is something that

00:14:29.480 is you know as i say a cancer that will eat away at western civilization and our academic institutions

00:14:37.040 it will if it's not dealt with i mean how much faith can you have in police uh if they are doing

00:14:43.740 two-tiered policing yeah well exactly right you know it's we have a situation where on one of the

00:14:52.980 anti-israel marches here in london um a bunch of radical islamists were chanting for jihad against

00:14:59.640 the jewish state they were saying jihad jihad jihad um more jihad against israel and some people

00:15:06.240 complained to the police they said this looks like an incitement to violence and the police said well you

00:15:11.760 know jihad has many different meanings and we've consulted with an expert in islam and he said it

00:15:17.300 can mean a personal quest or in self-improvement it doesn't have to mean holy war and you just want

00:15:23.780 to grab them by the scruff of the neck and say listen when you have radicalized islamist youth on the

00:15:29.720 streets of london weeks after 7th of october chanting for jihad against the jewish nation we know

00:15:35.380 what that means they want more pogroms they want more 7th of october's they want more hamas attacks

00:15:41.360 on the jewish state uh but the police kind of made excuses for it you know because i think they're

00:15:46.420 probably quite scared of that element in society as well or they're certainly when you live in a

00:15:52.420 place where you can be arrested for facebook posts exactly and it's that two-tier policing as you

00:15:59.620 describe it there's currently a woman in jail here in the uk she's she was sentenced to 31 months

00:16:05.820 for writing a post during the southport riots last year that's when there was an outburst of violence

00:16:11.200 on the streets of england across england um after the southport massacre where three girls were killed

00:16:17.400 by the son of rwandan immigrants um and there were riots about this people were incredibly angry and the

00:16:23.560 riots were very ugly they attacked mosques they attacked hotels that have immigrants in them

00:16:28.420 there's no excusing their violent behavior but some people were imprisoned not just for violent

00:16:33.940 behavior but for things they posted on social media including this woman lucy connolly who wrote a

00:16:40.080 horrible post by her own admission it's a horrible post she said burn down all the hotels i don't

00:16:45.900 care uh i'm sick of all this and she got 31 months in jail for writing that as you say we then have

00:16:53.320 kneecap getting up on stage and saying up hamas up hezbollah so openly singing the praises of neo-fascist

00:17:00.440 militia both of which were founded with the express intention of killing jews and destroying the jewish

00:17:05.700 also kneecap said at one of their gigs the only good tory is a dead tory kill your local mp and what

00:17:15.040 we have is a situation where the cultural elites are bending over backwards to defend kneecap's right

00:17:20.760 to make those kinds of statements while turning a blind eye or openly supporting the imprisonment of

00:17:26.820 people like lucy connolly for her outbursts on social media i mean that's it goes beyond two-tier

00:17:32.980 policing it's two-tier morality it's a different morality system depending on what your views are

00:17:39.880 depending on whether you are politically correct or politically incorrect depending on whether

00:17:44.080 you are praising people who kill jews or praising people who are attacking muslims i mean that's really

00:17:50.860 what we're talking about here it's an extraordinarily racially divisive form of two-tier policing and two-tier

00:17:57.440 morality and if britain doesn't sort this out we're going to be in big trouble

00:18:01.080 i can tell you that i've heard from police here that they've been told well don't don't mess with

00:18:09.760 that group shouting what they are in the streets they may cause trouble and fight back but the jewish

00:18:17.560 counter protesters it's fine to arrest them because it won't cause trouble yeah that's direct from a

00:18:24.800 police officer frontline those are the marching orders and i feel for the frontline police officers

00:18:33.840 because most of the ones that i talk to don't see things this way they don't like that but i don't know

00:18:41.920 what it's like in the uk but here you know the saying is always well politicians can't direct police

00:18:47.700 they're independent i don't buy it because i've seen it too often the tone comes from the elected officials

00:18:53.360 like the mayor in toronto's case um and the police chief knows well we have to report to city council

00:19:02.940 and the council won't back us if we go in and start arresting people for flagrant violations of the law

00:19:10.300 that have been happening at these protests since october 2023 yeah it's very similar here and it's

00:19:19.300 it's really it's incredibly worrying i mean the kind of spectacles we've seen on the streets here in

00:19:25.340 britain um just carnivals of hatred carnivals of anti-semitism i went on a couple of these

00:19:32.480 demonstrations to observe them to see what was happening i went on one it was a few weeks after 7th of

00:19:38.100 october i was there for 20 minutes in those 20 minutes i saw someone who was waving the israeli

00:19:44.500 flag being chased down an alleyway and kicked and i saw a group of young radicalized islamists

00:19:51.280 chanting for the return of the army of muhammad to kill all the jews i saw that in 20 minutes so i kept

00:19:57.640 thinking to myself what are all these supposed progressives seeing what are they marching by and

00:20:02.500 turning a blind eye to and you see placards of course comparing israel to the nazis and saying

00:20:08.700 that the jews are the new nazis which as the great howard jacobson says you know the reason

00:20:13.700 anti-israel activists always mention the holocaust or the warsaw ghetto they never compare gaza to any

00:20:21.120 other war in history just to what the nazis did and he said the reason they do that is to wound jews

00:20:26.880 with their own pain to inflict on jews the the painful memory of their own people suffering it is

00:20:33.120 a form of racial targeting and demonization that's why they use those um completely inappropriate

00:20:40.980 holocaust analogies all the time so you see that on these demonstrations too and officialdom the police

00:20:47.160 everyone else they just kind of nod along or they say it's fine leave them alone we've even had a

00:20:52.600 situation here in britain where um the police have told jewish people to hide the symbols of their

00:21:00.460 judaism when there is a demonstration on so in scotland a police officer told a man to hide his star

00:21:07.380 of david necklace and he was told you might trigger the protesters we also have a situation where jews in

00:21:14.580 london have been advised to stay out of the center of town on days when there are demonstrations taking

00:21:20.360 place i'm sorry but if jews cannot go about their daily business if they if they cannot wear their

00:21:26.360 religious insignias and paraphernalia if they cannot wear their kippers if they feel they cannot do these

00:21:32.860 things in public then we have become institutionally anti-semitic societies and for me one of the most

00:21:39.020 depressing things that happened after 7th of october um where i live in london near close to where i live

00:21:45.140 there's a school called the jewish free school which is a secondary school i guess you guys would

00:21:50.420 call it a high school um an excellent school um for jewish kids and the jewish kids at that school

00:21:56.860 were given permission by their head teacher to remove their blazers on the way to and from school

00:22:03.120 which usually children who wear school uniform are not allowed to take the uniform off until they get

00:22:08.040 home um but they were given permission to remove their blazers on their way to school

00:22:12.420 so that no one would know they were jewish kids and this is this was days after we saw the largest

00:22:19.500 massacre of jews since the holocaust so there's a sickness in our societies and it's a kind of

00:22:26.640 two-way sickness between the people who are creating this culture of hatred and hysteria and bigotry

00:22:34.700 and officialdom which doesn't know how to deal with it and too often turns a blind eye rather than as you say

00:22:40.980 standing up for the values and virtues that are being explicitly attacked by these people

00:22:45.580 you know we've had um uh protesters show up outside of a jewish daycare center um outside of a jewish

00:22:56.180 senior center in ottawa jewish-owned businesses targeted and pretty much a blind eye we we've just

00:23:03.940 gone through our most recent election and thankfully a lot of the bigots and anti-semites were not elected

00:23:10.320 but more than 300 signed the palestine declaration uh denouncing israel um and you know it has become

00:23:18.320 normalized in the socialist new democrat party and the increasingly socialist liberal party of canada

00:23:25.740 for these views to be held we need to take a quick break here brandon when we come back

00:23:31.220 we've thoroughly depressed the audience so far let's see if we can talk about how we can turn

00:23:35.660 back the tide more in moments this is tristan hopper the host of canada did what where we unpack the

00:23:42.980 biggest weirdest and wildest political moments in canadian history you thought you knew and tell you

00:23:48.500 what really happened stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite

00:23:53.540 episodes if you don't want to stick around make sure you subscribe to canada did what everywhere you

00:23:59.560 get podcasts brendan you wrote about after the pogrom i mentioned off the top that you know casey babbs

00:24:05.880 just written this great piece for free press saying that there's an ongoing pogrom i know canadian jews

00:24:11.740 young and old who are looking at leaving we've got the fourth largest jewish population in the world

00:24:18.000 after israel the united states and france we're number four and people are saying they don't feel safe

00:24:23.280 is there a way to push back you know it's not popular to say donald trump is doing anything good

00:24:31.580 these days that that is not a popular opinion in this country but his pushback on anti-semitism i think

00:24:38.060 has to be applauded both with his his stand with the universities but also saying look if you are here

00:24:46.340 on a visa and you're participating in these so-called demonstrations that turn violent

00:24:53.240 whether it's columbia university of washington what have you you're gone you do not have a right

00:24:58.820 to be in the country this country i think we could be doing that in canada i'm sure you could be doing

00:25:03.180 that in the uk not you personally but the government beyond that how do you push back on this you know

00:25:10.740 um i agree i think trump is doing good stuff and in some ways it's not even necessarily the policies

00:25:17.300 he's he's enacting um on campuses or wherever because you can see the potential for those to

00:25:23.700 go in problematic directions you i do understand the arguments made by friends of mine in the u.s

00:25:28.780 um that it's it's essential to attack anti-semitism but we've got to be careful not to undermine freedom

00:25:34.700 of speech in in into the bargain and i understand those concerns but it's more the fact that he's

00:25:41.180 speaking so plainly on this problem and that he's speaking so loudly about it and he is saying listen

00:25:47.360 we don't want anti-semitism in this country we don't want anti-semites to have free reign on campus

00:25:53.380 we don't want them to be harassing jewish students which by the way happened at columbia and happened at

00:25:58.280 harvard at columbia during the gaza encampments there last year jewish students were prevented from

00:26:03.960 moving about freely some of them were told to off back to germany uh there was a placard um that

00:26:10.760 referred to israel as the pigs of the earth now you can people can try and convince me that's

00:26:16.400 anti-zionism if they want but to my mind that's just anti-semitism you know ivy league campuses

00:26:22.420 became hotbeds of anti-semitic action and i think trump is absolutely right to do something about it and

00:26:28.580 the that the democrats fail to do anything about it apart from make some woolly denouncements every

00:26:34.140 now and then is a real indictment of where the left currently is um you know in the uk kemi

00:26:39.940 badenoch who's the leader of the conservative party here she's making she's made some pretty

00:26:45.600 good noises on this issue too and she has said um we should not be welcoming immigrants who are

00:26:52.220 anti-semitic or we should be concerned about immigrants coming from anti-semitic parts of the

00:26:57.580 world and she said we do not want to import those hatreds because our jewish community is very important

00:27:03.040 to us i think she's absolutely right i think if you hate jews or if you have a hatred for israel that is

00:27:09.580 disproportionate to anything every israel has ever done then there's no reason we should have you in

00:27:15.100 our country we don't we don't want that um kind of apocalyptic race racial hatred in our nation we've

00:27:21.400 got enough of it already to tackle without bringing in more so we do need that more confrontational

00:27:27.500 approach but i think the starting point you ask is it possible to push back it absolutely is possible

00:27:33.640 but it takes a lot more it will take a lot more voices speaking up a lot more people speaking out

00:27:40.780 the people i am least inclined to forgive at the moment are the people who are not who are just not

00:27:47.200 saying anything who know that something rotten is afoot who know that something is gone something

00:27:53.500 has gone badly awry who know that there's racism racism has returned to our societies but they don't

00:27:59.400 want to talk about it because they fear cancellation they fear no longer being invited to those literary

00:28:04.740 soirees they fear their friends who who have a fashionable hatred for israel turning against them

00:28:11.700 or stopping inviting them to things so it's that kind of cowardice that really needs to be challenged

00:28:18.240 in order that there can be more voices denouncing this turn in our societies until that happens i don't

00:28:24.940 think things are going to get much better yeah i i can tell you that um we've seen some at our

00:28:33.380 provincial level several provincial governments have instituted increased uh education in the

00:28:42.320 elementary and secondary school systems on anti-semitism they have sponsored groups to go around with

00:28:50.140 buses that with a permanent display inside that the children can go in and learn about

00:28:54.880 it and i think that is all good uh and i think we need to see more of that i've already mentioned

00:29:01.260 the policing but you know we've got a a society you said fashionable anti-semitism it is completely

00:29:09.380 fashionable and it's casual and so we see events happen and a lot of political leaders will

00:29:17.620 instantly run to social media and put up a post denouncing islamophobia yeah and then an

00:29:24.440 anti-semitic act happens and there's silence from these very same people again um the conservatives

00:29:31.680 in this country tend to be a bit better uh but i i don't think it's a a partisan thing i think it's a

00:29:38.620 a societal issue but on the progressive side the so-called progressive side

00:29:42.580 we have just seen this become the default position um i i think we would have had a very different

00:29:51.720 discussion about this issue maybe 20 30 years ago on where anti-semitism came from on the political

00:29:58.200 spectrum yeah it's it's so true what you say about um the speed with which they will denounce

00:30:06.700 islamophobia and the slowness that they will talk about um anti-semitism that's very striking here in

00:30:13.200 britain as well and across europe in fact and actually you know even prior to 7th of october when i

00:30:18.680 whenever i did a media debate about anti-semitism in this country especially left-wing anti-semitism

00:30:23.960 because the labor party here when it was run by jeremy corbyn had a had a huge problem with

00:30:29.640 anti-semitism a huge problem problem with express open hostility towards jews and of course towards

00:30:36.040 the jewish nation um and i did lots of media debates and every time i was up against a left-winger

00:30:41.500 whenever i mentioned anti-semitism they would instantly say what about islamophobia what about

00:30:48.900 anti-muslim sentiment it was like this kind of tick they had it was like almost like a tourette syndrome

00:30:53.500 phenomenon where they couldn't hear the words anti-semitism without saying islamophobia and

00:30:59.480 you even had a situation where it became very difficult and it's still very difficult to talk in

00:31:05.400 europe about the problem of muslim anti-semitism which is a very serious problem uh there are

00:31:11.880 surveys show continually in britain and other european countries that anti-semitic ideas have

00:31:18.920 a stronger hold on certain sections of the muslim community not all of them of course but certain

00:31:24.640 sections of the muslim community are more likely to believe anti-semitic conspiracy theories

00:31:29.040 more likely to think that um jews are in some way problematic and of course more likely to hate israel

00:31:35.100 but you can't even talk about muslim anti-semitism anymore and if you do you'll be accused of

00:31:40.980 islamophobia so you have a situation where it's become islamophobic to talk about anti-semitism

00:31:46.700 it's become racist to talk about anti-jewish racism this is the kind of slippery orwellian

00:31:52.800 semantics that we're faced with where even to raise the problem of anti-jewish bigotry is to risk

00:31:59.040 being accused of bigotry yourself so they kind of lock you into this bizarre kafka-esque world

00:32:05.000 of twisted linguistics where it becomes almost impossible even to talk about the problem that

00:32:10.500 we face um you know here in the uk a couple a few years ago two or three years ago a school teacher

00:32:18.740 showed an image of muhammad to his school kids in a discussion about free speech and blasphemy and so

00:32:26.120 on and there was such a feverish response to him showing this image that he went into hiding and he is

00:32:32.700 still in hiding he feared for his life because he's still in hiding he still his name has not

00:32:38.860 been released he still is completely and utterly under the radar because he still fears for his life

00:32:44.720 because muslim fundamentalists turned up at the school protested threatened to kill him and he was

00:32:50.960 let go and he ran away with his young family um meanwhile we're we're in the middle of an actual

00:32:59.300 conclave for the catholic church to choose a new pope and what's one of the most popular streaming

00:33:05.560 movies right now a movie called conclave which is interesting in that it does show the politics that

00:33:13.200 go on behind the scenes to elect a new pope but then has the uh surprise ending where the the person

00:33:19.380 they elect is transgender that's right that that would not happen with a a movie about islam or

00:33:25.440 people would disappear oh wow that is yeah and you know the it's so extraordinary because you're

00:33:34.380 absolutely right that a movie like conclave couldn't be made about islam and in fact the movie was

00:33:40.280 released here in britain a couple of years ago called uh lady in the lady of heaven which depicted

00:33:46.620 muhammad and um there were protests outside every cinema showing it and every cinema capitulated and

00:33:53.700 remove that film so we are kowtowing to islamo censorship all the time and that is giving a

00:34:01.820 license to the fundamentalists it's green lighting their bigotry their censorious bigotry and it's in

00:34:09.920 it's in intensifying them and it's making them stronger it's such a foolish thing to do whenever

00:34:14.620 you capitulate to extremists you embolden the extremists and you weaken the virtues of society

00:34:19.700 yourself and there is a direct link between that and the anti-semitism that is growing that's right

00:34:26.040 so what you have is a situation where a country like britain and this goes for other european

00:34:30.580 countries too have spent the past 10 or 20 years emboldening islamist extremists telling them

00:34:37.400 essentially they have free reign that their religious views are so perfect that they should

00:34:43.060 be defended from criticism at all costs there should never be a joke about islam there should never be a

00:34:48.220 caricature of muhammad no mere mortal should be allowed to criticize islam because that's how

00:34:52.900 wonderful the religion is that's essentially what our societies say when they adopt the ideology of

00:34:58.060 islamophobia and what that does is it emboldens those groups of people who come to think of themselves

00:35:03.800 as unquestionable uncriticizable and anyone who does criticize them is instantly denounced and of course

00:35:11.120 if you embolden the islamist imagination you're going to give rise to anti-semitism because that's a

00:35:17.640 central part of the islamist imagination and so we now find ourselves in this terrible bind where

00:35:24.200 we've essentially greenlit islamist fanaticism for so long we've got a left and a progressive set

00:35:31.320 that thinks it's wonderful to hate israel in fact that's the only thing that gets them going

00:35:35.600 israelophobia is the only idea that really gets their juices flowing and lo and behold we end up in

00:35:41.560 a situation where anti-semitism returns with a vengeance to our societies we we made this bed

00:35:47.320 for ourselves and getting out of it and fixing the world around it is going to be a pretty difficult

00:35:53.100 thing to do at many of the protests i've not only heard people praise hamas and hezbollah but

00:36:01.000 they've carried portraits of some of the dead terrorist leaders like senwar yeah uh or uh the um spokesman

00:36:10.520 for hamas has been profiled as well that is as we've discussed earlier open support of terrorism and

00:36:19.760 yet most in the media in this country anyway won't call it what it is and they still call these

00:36:25.360 pro-palestinian protests it there are lobby groups set up to uh tackle any media person who

00:36:33.600 uh dares to call a spade a spade is it becoming more difficult for you to speak up i mean i know you

00:36:42.100 uh have been following your writing for years pretty fearless how um how is it for the rest of the media

00:36:48.020 in the uk it's just there's a lot of cowardice in the british media and you know we have the bbc which

00:36:56.780 is a disaster really on this issue it's been disastrous and our cbc is the same they won't use

00:37:03.080 the word terrorism unless someone else says it yeah that's the exact same with the bbc they they refuse

00:37:08.760 to call them as terrorists unless they're quoting someone um you know i was talking at a synagogue in

00:37:14.740 london um last night the night before we were talking on this podcast and people were talking

00:37:21.140 about the bbc and i made the point that what the bbc has done over the past 18 months is unforgivable

00:37:26.300 because every single night literally every night it has on the news it has pumped into millions of

00:37:33.900 homes the idea that there is only one war taking place in the world right now forget sudan forget

00:37:39.940 myanmar forget ukraine they don't matter anymore there's only one war taking place in the world

00:37:44.620 in gaza it's the worst war that has ever happened that's the impression they give all the time

00:37:50.100 the atrocities in this war are apparently unparalleled in human history they are we've

00:37:55.760 never seen anything like it that's the message they send all the time in their emotionally

00:37:59.880 manipulative distorted coverage that's really unforgivable because even if you have viewers who

00:38:06.000 don't particularly care about this issue and are not pro hamas but they might not be pro israel

00:38:11.120 either what happens you have this drip drip effect where where people are constantly told that this

00:38:19.020 is the most barbaric thing that's happened in decades if not centuries it's almost as it's as bad as the

00:38:25.120 holocaust it's nazi like it's uh you know the bbc shows footage of the dead of gaza all the time

00:38:32.900 really bloody stuff they show us they don't show us that from sudan where vastly more people have been

00:38:38.060 killed in war over the past two years they don't show us the starving kids in sudan because they're

00:38:42.560 not no jews no news no jews no news and it's it's so the bbc has created this impression for the people

00:38:50.700 of britain because the bbc is extraordinarily influential it's created this impression that

00:38:55.300 not only is this the only war in the world but it's the worst war in the world and israel is a sick

00:39:00.700 backward nation for doing what it's doing and so the media much of the media gives us that impression

00:39:08.000 of course there are pockets of common sense and you have obviously they're spiked and spiked is

00:39:13.820 firmly taking the line that hamas needs to be destroyed it's a pox on the holy land it's a pox on the

00:39:19.220 world um there's the telegraph there's the spectator there are outlets that are publishing pro israel

00:39:25.060 stuff and really calling into question the anti-israel hysteria but in the kind of broad sheet

00:39:30.540 press in the bbc in the liberal media all of which is very influential especially on the political class

00:39:36.980 itself um there is this impression that israel is the israel is a modern day manifestation of

00:39:45.420 fascism that is the impression we're given and i think it is utterly unforgivable that that libel

00:39:51.640 against the jewish state has become so fashionable in in media circles

00:39:55.960 it's been a depressing conversation at times brendan uh and i'm not sure that we've uh solved it but i i

00:40:03.480 do appreciate your voice continuing to speak up and i encourage everyone to to keep reading follow

00:40:09.920 brendan on social media but also read his uh his uh work in spiked and check out after the pogrom

00:40:15.800 7 of october israel and the crisis of civilization thanks so much my friend thanks brian

00:40:21.480 full comment is a post media podcast my name is brian lily your host this episode was produced

00:40:26.280 by andre prude theme music by bryce hall kevin liban is the executive producer please hit that

00:40:32.040 subscribe button leave us a comment or review and tell your friends about us until next time i'm brian lily

00:40:38.140 here's that clip from canada did what i promised you

00:40:45.600 in the late 1960s you have members of the montreal police who can spend their entire shift rushing

00:40:54.480 from one flq bombing to another here's how new year's eve 1968 played out for robert cote a member

00:41:02.560 of the montreal police bomb squad which put him at the forefront of fighting the flq during this period

00:41:08.240 he was supposed to be at home with his wife who had just miscarried twin daughters but instead at 11

00:41:15.120 pm he's called out to montreal city hall to investigate a bomb that had just gone off he's

00:41:20.560 en route with sirens blaring when he's told actually don't bother with the exploded bomb

00:41:25.760 there's an unexploded bomb on the other side of city hall you have to defuse

00:41:31.120 and then right after snipping the wires on the city hall bomb cote has to speed west where a third

00:41:37.600 bomb has just exploded outside a federal building the bombing started in april and may of 1963 that's

00:41:46.640 when the first bombings took place and the mailbox bombings were the most famous part of the whole thing

00:41:52.960 which was basically on the thursday night and friday night leading into the victoria day weekend in 1963

00:42:01.120 so and initially they they started attacking these symbols of federalism federal institutions whether it

00:42:07.520 was a montreal post office or a revenue canada uh but the bombings escalated as time went on

00:42:14.480 uh in terms of the size of the bombs and the powerfulness of these bombs

00:42:20.960 if you want to hear the rest of the story make sure you subscribe to canada did what everywhere you get your podcasts

Full Comment - May 26, 2025

Making our streets unsafe for Jews is part of the plan

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