Opinion: Why attacking British Jews for the Gaza War is nothing like Northern Ireland

Yesterday I reported that Sky News presenter Eamonn Holmes seemed to justify Palestinian antisemitism against British Jews.

There is no doubt that Palestinians (and pro-Palestine groups, and Muslims, and left-wingers), all feel justified in attacking British Jews, British-Jewish institutions and British-Jewish businesses, as a 'response' to the Gaza War.

There is also no doubt that British media, including Eamonn Holmes, encouraged such attacks, with their biased and exaggerated reporting about the Gaza War.

But what caught my eye was something else Holmes said.  "I've lived through this in Northern Ireland where being Catholic doesn't necessarily mean being Republican, and people who are held responsible for Republican attacks.  So we do understand the [???] of all of this, but the fact of life is, people do not separate those things."

Holmes is saying that attacking British Jews for something Israeli Jews supposedly did, is just like any other case where a whole group is attacked for something an individual or sub-group did.

But that is a completely wrong comparison.

I might be mistaken, but were Irish institutions in the UK ever targeted?

Let's even say that Irish in the UK had to be on guard after IRA attacks, certainly Catholics in France had no need to fear.  The Vatican did not have to raise its alert level and worry about Irish visitors who might blow up the place.  In general, Catholics all around the world could go about their daily business, even though they met many Irish and Protestant people.

And that is exactly the difference.

Let's take another example people like to bandy about: Attacking European Jews for "Israeli crimes" is just like attacking European Muslims for terror attacks."

Again, it sounds like a proper comparison - attacking a whole group for the crimes of an individual. But note what happens in reality.  European Muslims are not attacked after terror attacks in Afghanistan, or Morocco or anywhere else in the Muslim world.  Muslim Europeans are attacked after Muslim Europeans commit terrorism.

Yesterday I also happened to run across this little clip:

Dutch Muslims are not seen as terrorists because 'they look like' terrorists.  They are not expected to apologize for Muslim terrorists around the world.  They are expected to reject acts of terrorism committed by other people belonging to their group (Dutch or European Muslims) in the name of their commonly-held belief (Islam).

If a Dutch supporter of Islamic State says that all Dutch Muslims agree with him, then Dutch Muslims are expected to take a clear stance against it.


Jews are the only group in the world who are being attacked for something their fellow coreligionists do half-way around the world.   (and that's besides the point that Israeli Jews are not even doing anything wrong).