OPINION: Between a rock and a hard place in Finchley
Jews are often at the forefront of standing up against racism, writes Sunder Katwala, but the message that that Zionists were unwelcome in Finchley meant most Jews felt unwelcome in this fight
Wednesday was a day of fear across many parts of Britain. Almost forty specific addresses were proposed as targets – focusing on asylum seekers and the immigration lawyers who defend them – to fan the flames. This was mostly a violent fantasy: a google-generated hit list of where to find the enemies within.
Once thousands of users had shared that call for action in virulent Telegram networks, there were fears it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But this was a call for violence and pogroms where nobody came. Small numbers of far-right protestors – not even a couple of hundred nationwide – attended demonstrations, while about fifteen thousand people took part in solidarity demonstrations.
That national sense of unity and defiance felt much more fractious in Finchley. A local solicitors’ office was on the list. As elsewhere, there were plans for a counter-protest to protect it. A thousand people rallied around. But one group, calling itself ‘Finchley against fascism’, decided to promote its participation by declaring that it was time to “get fascists, racists, Nazis, Zionists and Islamophobes out of Finchley”.
Many people in Finchley felt between a rock and a hard place. British Jews often feel at least as committed to everybody else, if not more so, to ensuring the spectre of fascism and street violence does not now recur, yet actively sent a message of being unwelcome. It was an important and unfortunate breach in the message of solidarity.
“I felt uncomfortable there knowing there were people around me who don’t like me or want me there but I had to be there to show solidarity with refugees + local Muslim community”, Raymond Simonson, chief executive of JW3 said on X of his decision to attend anyway. “There was a real edge though”. Others chose to stay away, feeling that an event with an ostensible message of inclusion had declared them as part of the out group to be banished from the area.
Now, not all Zionists are Jews. Not all Jews are Zionists either. But “Get Zionists out of Finchley” should certainly be considered an antisemitic message. It does mean, rhetorically at the very least, that most Jews (and many others) should leave the most Jewish area of London if they hold the wrong political views. “We will not be standing with liberal Zionists, Zionist sympathisers, two-state solutionists,” an organiser of “Finchley against Fascism’” explained in an online forum, just in case anybody might read the rhetorical call for Zionists to leave Finchley as intended to apply more narrowly to far right advocates of settler violence, or even just vocal advocates of the Netanyahu government.
British Jews hold many different opinions about Israel and the ongoing conflict too. Rejection of Israel’s right to exist does exist on the fringe. Many are mainstream moderates, who support a Palestinian state alongside Israel – because of their idea of what Zionism should mean, rather than in spite of it. Abhorrence at Hamas’s pogrom is combined with a recognition that the Netanyahu government’s rejection of a Palestinian state is a barrier to the resolution that is needed. ‘Two state solutionists out’ would apply to at least 80% of the British public, as well as the overwhelming majority of British Jews.
Stand Up to Racism, the main protest organiser, stated that they did not support or share that Finchley against fascism message. “Our message was a simple one: refugees welcome, unity against the far right”, they said. Indeed, there was an unusual consensus across the national newspaper front-pages on Thursday morning: the decent majority standing up to the far right turned out to be something that the Daily Mail and Daily Express could agree on with the Daily Mirror and the Guardian. Anti-fascism as a British value has the potential to unite the mainstream left, right and centre, drawing on narratives about the defeat of fascism in the Second World War. But it can only do so only when we tackle every strand of racism and prejudice, and everybody is invited to take part.
There will be more difficult arguments to come. Those who can condemn the racist violence in our streets have different views in much more contested debates about the underlying causes at home. Legitimate policy debates about how we handle immigration and asylum need to be combined with concerted action to address the causes of fear, hatred and every strand of prejudice in our society.
- Sunder Katwala is director of British Future
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