Tommy Robinson, the British far-right agitator whose correct title is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, visited Israel on the invitation of Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs. Chikli and Yaxley-Lennon introduced the latter’s journey as representing solidarity with Israel in opposition to Islamist extremism. British Jewish organisations condemned it outright.
Anybody who noticed the Channel 4 Information report by Lindsey Hilsum on this go to, which included many profoundly contemptuous feedback by Yaxley-Lennon, will know that Robinson himself is unimportant, being little greater than a thug posssessed of the deliberate intent to wind up crowds to an eagerness of hatred, however that what occurred can also be essential due to what it reveals, which is a rising alignment between elements of the far-right, components of Zionism, and sections of the Israeli authorities, all united by the language of concern.
Throughout Europe, far-right actions have found a shocking and politically handy enthusiasm for Israel. They think about it as a mannequin ethno-national state defending its borders in opposition to a Muslim “different”. Supporting Israel does, in that case, enable them to disclaim racism whereas selling anti-Islamic sentiment. For Robinson, it presents legitimacy: if an Israeli minister welcomes him, how can he be referred to as an extremist?
For these in Israel’s authorities selling this hyperlink, cultivating individuals like Yaxley-Lennon is tactical. As criticism of Israel grows amongst progressives, they’re searching for new allies who’re nationalist, populist, and uncritical. Such alliances do, nonetheless, come at an ethical value. They affiliate Israel with intolerance, and in doing so, they alienate the diaspora communities whose security is determined by pluralism, not populism. That can’t assist the Jewish trigger.
The proof that it doesn’t already exists. British Jewish leaders have been clear that Robinson’s method endangers Jewish safety and doesn’t defend it. He was contemptuous of them within the Channel 4 report, asking who elected them when nobody did, after all, elect him. He as a substitute rated recognition on the variety of YouTube views his movies may safe.
That, after all, intentionally misses all points round legitimacy when his motion thrives on division, and never solidarity. It’s a part of a wider Western grouping of populists buying and selling in concern for whom decency is sacrificed for short-term achieve. Trump suits firmly into the sample, his contemptuous responses to these marching in opposition to his try to seize absolute energy within the USA this weekend being precisely of this sort.
Actual security, whether or not that be for Israel, the USA, Britain or anybody, lies not in exclusion however in justice and cooperation. When democracies seem to endorse those that arise for violence and exclusion, they blur the boundary between defenders and destroyers of freedom. That, in the long run, is the true hazard. And what’s worrying is that some in authorities within the USA, Israel and even right here within the UK could already be blurring that boundary.
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