On Thursday the 29th March, @LeaveEUOfficial tweeted out a meme that suggested The Labour Party were less than motivated to stamp out antisemitism due to reliance on three million muslim votes. The inference being that muslims are more likely to have antisemitic views, and as they outnumber Jews by ten to one, Labour are simply playing a numbers game.

Whenever Islam or muslims are mentioned in a negative context, it creates a backlash like no other. Politicians and journalists were quick to jump on twitter and tweet their disgust and horror, even demanding police action and using the tweet to attack high profile Brexiteers that have nothing to do with @LeaveEUOfficial.

Leading the way was Labour MP David Lammy, calling for police involvement. Seemingly forgetting his previous comments about the overstretched police force, he appeared to be calling for police resources to be used on a meme and an opinion.

Labour MP Jess Phillips went on to call the meme ‘horrendously racist’ for suggesting that muslims are not horrified by antisemitism. Ignoring the fact that Jess does not appear to understand the difference between race and ideology, published research and statistics does not support her statement, as we shall see.

Sajid Javid also jumped on the ‘racist’ bandwagon. Javid has been under pressure for tweeting a picture of a letter he claimed to receive about “punishing a muslim” (which proved to be a cropped photoshop), claiming it was a picture of the actual letter. He then backtracked when it was pointed out that the picture was a copy. There has been no further statements about the letters, raising concerns that may have been another one in a number of high profile ‘fake hate crimes’.

The point being overlooked or willfully ignored is that all data points to antisemitism rising in countries where the Islamic population increases. This is hardly surprising, with many Islamic schools and mosques in the Middle East teaching hatred for Jews, and so it is moral cowardice to overlook this, then pretending to wonder why the Jewish population in Europe is suffering a sharp increase in antisemitism. Some media outlets have tackled the issue, The Times published an article in December 2017 which Lammy, Phillips et al didn’t classify as ‘hate crime’ worthy of police investigation. But it is essentially making the same point. The Times Article here

In a poll published by The Jeruslamen Post, 90% of Middle Eastern muslims stated ‘unfavourable’ views of Jews. It is unrealistic to expect these prejudices to be dropped when muslims enter Europe. Jerusalem Post article here The qur’an extensively refers to Jews in a negative light, and the statistics point to a direct correlation between antisemitism and an increased muslim population. Many Jews are considering leaving Europe, such is the scale of the issue, and prominent Jewish figures have expressed serious concern around Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. This culminated in the recent protests outside Westminster. The Express Article here which themselves have produced a backlash from far left Corbyn supporters. 

The media seems unwilling to fully tackle the issue; on the 28th March 2018 The New York Times published a story of the murder of 85 year old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll, focusing on Marine Le Pen being at the funeral. This appeared to be an attempt to muddy the waters by claiming she is a ‘far right leader’ and was booed. The inference is this antisemitic murder was something different to the facts that the two suspects are muslim – a detail not reported by the paper. NY Times article here

The @LeaveEUOfficial tweet was blunt and crass, but the intention was to provoke debate about the ‘elephant in the room’. It is a debate that must be had, without one side shouting ‘racism’ because we owe it to the Jewish community to understand the cause of their frustration, fear and anger. There is a problem in Islam when it comes to Jews, this isn’t a controversial point, it has been known for centuries. If the Labour Party is overlooking it because they fear that it may cost them votes, then that should be brought to light and discussed in an open forum.