When free speech becomes weaponised and tribal, everybody loses

“Globalise the intifada” It’s a phrase that could now land you in jail. “Words and chants ... have real world consequences”, warned Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Stephen Watson, chief constable of Greater Manchester, in a joint statement last week.

- Kenan Malik

“The context has changed” after the Bondi beach horror, and given the concern of Jewish communities “about placards and chants such as ‘globalise the intifada’ .. we will act decisively and make arrests.”

‘And they did. Ata protest in London about the proscription of Palestine Action last Wednesday, two people were arrested for “racially aggravated public order offences” after allegedly chanting the now forbidden slogan.

After the brutal killings of 15 Jews attending a Hanukah celebration on Bondi beach, following on from the murderous attack on worshippers at Manchester's Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation during Yom Kippur, which left two dead, the context of the debate over antisemitism has indeed changed.

The killings have left Jews feeling beleaguered and fearful - whether or not they wear a kippah or a Star of David necklace. A survey by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, published in October, suggested that more than four out of five British Jews regarded antisemitism as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem.

Violent Jew-hatred has been exacerbated as increasing numbers slip into the mire in which all Jews are held accountable for the actions of the state of Israel. Equally, many Jews now view the very expression of Palestinian solidarity as fuelling antisemitism. The conflation of Israel with all Jews is less a case of Palestinian solidarity being inherently antisemitic, than of antisemites seizing upon the actions of Israel to justify their Jew-hatred and of too many on the left failing to challenge such bigotry within their ranks.