Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, @ The Telegraph:
[...] I imagine that you are shocked to read about such behaviour. No decent person could fail to be. But Ms Berger won’t have been. I certainly wasn’t. Nor will any prominent Jew. Not because the behaviour is in any way acceptable. Rather, because it is so run-of-the-mill.
Ms Berger receives anti-Semitic abuse every day. In spades. Indeed, you will not find a single prominent Jew with a Twitter or Facebook account who does not regularly receive anti-Semitic abuse.
When I wake up and check my Twitter feed it rarely contains fewer than ten anti-Semitic messages. More often than not it’s far more.
Another 20 or so come during an average day. And that’s after I have blocked over 300 different tweeters – a number that increases every day.
Some even amuse me, such as the recent claim that I “lead British Zionists with their propaganda to enable them to control UK.” Another tweet informed the world: “Pollard is the chief protagonist of Zionist supremacism in UK. He controls MSM.”
MSM is an acronym for mainstream media – which means I apparently control all British media. Which would be really useful, if it were true. Sadly, I can’t even control my own kids.
Some are threatening. One notorious anti-Semite that I had previously blocked started informing her followers that I was in the habit of ringing her voicemail and had left abusive messages threatening to rape her. She also posted a tweet suggesting that someone “pop” me off.
In my experience, the police have been entirely useless. Last year I had to explain what Twitter was to two PCs from the Met who had been sent to talk to me about a threat I had reported. Though they had heard of it, they had no real idea what it was.
This is an epidemic of hate. And with the odd exception, such as the clear death threat to Ms Berger, nothing is done about it. Certainly not by Twitter. I have given up reporting the culprits, since not once has Twitter taken any action against them. Free speech, innit?
But one thing puzzles me. Have the likes of Nimmo always been with us, and has social media simply given them a tool and a voice they didn’t have before? Or has social media itself raised the temperature and itself caused much of the epidemic?
For most of my 51 years, anti-Semitism was something I encountered only fitfully; the odd unthinking throwaway remark or “joke”. Certainly nothing that would give me pause for thought. But the past few years have been different. I have not gone a day without encountering it.
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