You don’t fight antisemitism by feeding the prejudices of Trump and the world’s worst anti-Muslim bigots

The difference between anti-racism and communalism

Jan 16, 2024

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At the weekend, as tens of thousands marched in London to protest against antisemitism, a charity which calls itself the Campaign Against Antisemitism managed to split the Jewish community.

It went for London’s mayor by insisting that the London where supporters of radical Islam chant and preach was “Sadiq Khan’s London”.

It was not the London of a Conservative government that has been in power these past 14 years. It was not London, the capital city of a free country, where people are entitled to demonstrate peacefully. But Sadiq Khan’s London, where according to a video put out by the campaign (see above) fear and hatred is the fault of London’s Muslim mayor.

Forgive me, I am so sorry, I forgot to mention Sadiq Khan’s religion, although to the worst people on the right his religion is the single most significant fact about him.

“Here are some of the things you can look forward to in Sadiq Khan’s London,” the commentary begins. “Being harassed in McDonald’s” – the film cuts to shots of demonstrators shouting “shame on you” in a McDonald’s, possibly because McDonald’s has an Israeli franchise, but who knows?

The screen changes to shots of demonstrators calling for an intifada, comparing Israeli Jews to Nazis, and chanting for a Palestinian victory from the “river to sea”, a slogan, which contrary to the soothing claims of western apologists, means and is meant to mean the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

And all of this is Sadiq Khan’s fault, apparently, for not denouncing the protestors loudly enough.

There are two ways of fighting racism. You can either embrace liberalism or communalism. The liberal response in this case is to oppose anti-Jewish racism because conspiracy theory and prejudiced hatreds are antithetical to a free society. The communalist response is to embrace sectarianism, and combat prejudice against blacks with prejudice against whites; prejudice against Jews, with prejudice against Muslims.

You do not have to look too deeply into anti-Muslim prejudice before you run into the global phenonmenon of the irrational hated of Sadiq Khan.

To be fair to the Campaign against Antisemitism there is plenty of anti-Jewish racism to oppose. Since Hamas attacked Israel abuse of Jews in the UK and across the West has exploded. Many people, and not only Jews, are frightened about a revival of Islamist terrorism.

But like so many on the right, the campaign goes beyond fighting prejudice and confronting legitimate fears.

Liberal Jews were angered by the Campaign’s claim that the mayor was failing to challenge “antisemitism, glorification of terrorism and incitement to intifada”. They knew that, unlike his Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone, whose rule as Mayor of London anticipated the far left takeover of the national Labour party by Jeremy Corbyn, Khan has befriended London’s Jews

London’s old rulers would have been chanting “from the river to the sea”, and allying with Hamas and every other misogynist, racist and homophobic group. Khan has gone out of his way to build good relations with Jews. When Jeremy Corbyn was in charge of Labour, Khan spoke out against anti-Jewish hatred, and showed as he did it more political and moral courage than most people on the British left could muster in the 2010s

Khan is a liberal Muslim and as such faces the scorn of Islamists. He received death threats after he supported same-sex marriage. No serious organisation combating antisemitsm would hold him responsible for the pro-Hamas wing on the streets of London. The Islamist right hates his politics.

Nor while we are about it does Khan have sole oversight of the Metropolitan Police. He shares the task with the Home Secretary, who has been a Conservative politician since 2010. In any case, as everyone knows or ought to know, no politician has the right to ban demonstrations in the UK.

Rishi Sunak and then Home Suella Braverman tried to prevent pro-Palestinian protests in the autumn, and were told by the police that marches could only be stopped if there was a threat of serious disorder, and that the "very high threshold" has not been reached.

Shouldn’t we be grateful for that, incidentally? By which I mean we should not only be grateful that politicians cannot arbitrarily constrain our civil liberties but that, for all the fears of terrorist violence, there has not yet been “serious disorder” on the streets.

It’s not just the pathetic jabs at Khan that has caused such anger. I hope for the sake of the reputation of the Campaign Against Antisemitism that they did not know it, but linking Khan with terrorism takes British conservatives into the darkest corners of right-wing politics.

When I interviewed him I was staggered by the level of security Khan needed. The police’s concern for his safety is up there with their concern for the king and prime minister. Fifteen armed officers, trained in counter-terrorism and emergency medicine, are on his security detail because Khan is a Muslim, on the receiving end of the paranoia generated the Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory.

The hate he receives is astonishing. I am not belittling Khan when I say that he is a standard social democratic politician. His political priorities are building more social housing, controlling traffic and limiting pollution. If he were a white politician, no one would trouble him

As it was, Khan’s staff told me that the police took one bomb threat so seriously, they had Khan conducting online meetings while dogs sniffed for explosives in the mayoral office. Officers routinely put 24-hour surveillance on his family home because of credible threats against him and his wife. And a Nazi sympathiser from Surrey, who threatened to “do something” to Khan, which would mean “we will see him in the news” was sectioned under the mental health act.

So great is the hate staff at City Hall receive, they are offered counselling to help them cope with the volume of racist, Islamophobic, violent and abusive messages they see.

Khan is at the centre of global conspiracy because he is a Muslim politician running a great western city.

That’s all there is to it.

While he was president in 2019, Donald Trump took time out to attack Khan, claiming that he had turned London into a violent hell hole. Trump went on to befriend the British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, a reality TV star turned mob raiser, who said that London was now "Khan's Londonistan."

You need to take a step back. No previous US president would have wasted his time with an obscure, foul-mouthed commentator like Katie Hopkins or thought that the mayor of London was a worthy opponent.

But in our world their warm embrace makes a hideous sense. Trump has a fascistic appeal and relies on conspiracy theory to drive up his support. The modern far right, which may be back in power in Washington DC this time next year, is powered by the belief that the globalist elite is plotting to destroy the white Christian West by flooding it with migrants.

I can’t think of a better symbol of the new world than the willingness of the President of the United States to befriend and amplify an obscure propagandist from the other side of the Atlantic or for Khan to become an object of their mutual and mutually advantageous loathing.

The incitement to violence is real. As Brenton Tarrant prepared to massacre 51 people in Christchurch mosques, he found the time to urge his supporters to show their commitment to a “white rebirth” by removing the “Pakistani Muslim invader [who] now sits as representative for the people of London”.

“Why would a terrorist in New Zealand know about me?” Khan asked at the time

Because fascism in one of its modern variants has found him to be a perfect target was his answer.

It is a sign of how we have normalised extremism that Khan must be surrounded by teams of bodyguards and the British media barely find that fact worth mentioning. It is a sign, too, that apparently respectable right-wing newspapers, politicians and indeed anti-racist organisations don’t stop to think before joining the pile on.