By minor serendipity these two things happened on Tuesday of last week. First there was the laconic posting in the comments section accompanying my column in the online edition of The Times. I’d written about the row over the oath. Anyway, in amongst the “I am British and they’ll have to force me to take an oath over my cold, dead body” stuff, was this from “Edward” of Lincoln. Repeating a line that I’d used, Edward simply appended: “Ah the international people. Don’t you just love them?” The comments moderator didn’t see it, and nor would many of the readers. But Edward knew and I knew who “the international people” were; his opening “ah” was one of confirmation (yes, this is what they are like) — and “don’t you just love them?” meant more or less the opposite.
An important insight from David Aaronovitch, writing in the Jewish Chronicle. I'm not sure this kind of antisemitism is new, but I recognise it, too. I think some antisemitism these days hides behind attitudes to Israel and Palestine (I always think the tone is the giveaway - some people use violent, extreme language about Israel). The Iraq war has gifted antisemites a popular way of attacking America and Israel and a way of merging in with a respectable crowd, and I think the coming American and likely British recessions will feed this latent antisemitism still more, especially among critics of capitalism on the left as well as the far right. Watch out for intemperate criticism of "international finance" in the coming months. Banks, hedge funds and so on certainly are deserving of criticism for some of what's happened - but again, it's the language that'll be the giveaway. I reckon antisemites often talk in intemperate terms, they love phrases that echo the rhetorical translatese of the past, will tend to imply malevolent conspiracies and will tend to single out Jews and Jewish-sounding firms for castigation.
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