OPINION: It is antisemites who don’t understand irony

The response to Stephen Fry’s Alternative Christmas Message has been so telling, and so very depressing.

The actor offered a heartfelt plea for tolerance and resolution in the face of mounting antisemitism. He reminded listeners about the terrible spike in antisemitic incidents, including the ‘venomous slurs and hateful abuse’ against Jewish people, and asked people to acknowledge the ‘real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain’.

Fry’s broadcast has generated a spiteful backlash that illustrates the whole point of his broadcast. One user of X juxtaposed a photograph of the smiling and elegantly dressed comedian, sipping tea, with images of bloodied and suffering Palestinian children. Accompanying it was the caption: ‘Thank you Stephen Fry for reminding us who is the real victim’.

Lowkey, the controversial rapper, told followers that Fry had ‘imaginatively smeared opponents of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza as being motivated by racism’. Another popular Twitter user decried Channel 4 for inviting Fry to deliver a ‘pro-Israeli propaganda piece’, even though Israel was barely mentioned in the broadcast. Another Twitter user said that ‘deflecting criticism of Israel by using Jewish people as a smokescreen’ was ‘appalling behaviour’.

Alexei Sayle’s ‘Alternative Alternative’ message was also revealing. Instead of supporting the entire Jewish community, he would stand with that small number of Jews who were part of the united demonstrations for Palestine.

For Sayle, these are presumably the ‘good Jews’, the virtuous ones who deserve a modicum of sympathy, as opposed to the ‘establishment’ Zionists who support ‘genocide’ and ‘mass murder’ in Gaza.

All these people assume that mentioning Jewish suffering is a political gesture born of deception and connivance. They liken it to weaponised victimhood, designed to hide the excesses of Israeli ‘criminality’ and to fool the world. It is what academic David Hirsh calls ‘the Livingstone formulation’.

These commentators also try to force people into make a binary choice between accepting that Jews are victims of racism, and showing sympathy for Palestinian suffering. To be sure, thousands of Palestinian civilians have suffered in this war, and it is right to grieve for them, even though responsibility lies ultimately with Hamas.

But Fry was not opining about the rights and wrongs of the conflict. He was not offering a victory speech for the Likud party, nor would he. Fry has been a critic of Israeli policies in the past and here, he expressed sympathy for all innocents killed in this conflict.

He was reminding people about anti-Jewish racism, the kind for which some are all too ready to ignore or excuse. The backlash proves his point: these militant ‘anti-racists’ hear antisemitism and cry foul, accusing the Jews of lying and manipulation. Do antisemites have no sense of irony?

Alexei Sayle’s ‘Alternative Alternative’ message was also revealing. Instead of supporting the entire Jewish community, he would stand with that small number of Jews who were part of the united demonstrations for Palestine.

These leftists suggest that one cannot even have a conversation about antisemitism without invoking the issue of Palestine, as if the two are now inextricably linked. Someone should remind them that there is a reason why we call this ‘the world’s oldest hatred’: old as in ancient.

In fact, they are attempting to erase discussion of Jewish suffering altogether. If Jews support Zionism, which is absurdly branded as genocidal, then they no longer deserve sympathy and compassion, except those who march against Israel of course (the good Jews).

Indeed, if the only reason that Israel generates support is through memory of the Holocaust (another false claim), then that commemoration is also invalid in their eyes. This is precisely why Karen Pollock, CEO of the Holocaust Education Trust, has recently reported so many antisemitic comments on the trust’s webpage, including ones which reference ‘Israhell’ or which celebrate Hamas’ ‘resistance’.

Those noxious remarks were not responding to any post about the Middle East. They came under an article about the 85th anniversary of the arrival of Jewish children in the UK on the Kindertransport. It seems that even dead Jews cannot rest.

Jews are regularly accused of weaponising antisemitism for their own nefarious purposes. In reality, it is comments like these, reflecting an age-old, obsessional hatred, that show just who is doing the weaponising.

Never was Stephen Fry’s message so vital.

• Jeremy Havardi, director of the BBUK (B’nai B’rith) Bureau of International Affairs, writing in a personal capacity for Jewish News.