Melanie Phillips: Paying the price for Gaza

I borrow from this HonestReporting post to note that Prominent British commentator Melanie Phillips addressed a crowd of nearly 300 people in Jerusalem’s Heichal Shlomo building on August 27 to address the subject: “The Jewish Diaspora: Paying the Price for Gaza.”

Referring to Israel as a “life-affirming place of hope where Jews are not on their knees but are fighting for the defense of civilization against barbarism,” Ms. Phillips noted how, in the discourse surrounding the Gaza conflict, anti-Israel attitudes had morphed into overt anti-Judaism in a “tsunami of bigotry and hatred.”

Using the UK as a case study, Phillips addressed attitudes towards Israel from both Muslims and left-wingers and so-called liberals before criticizing the UK Jewish community for failing to respond adequately and preferring to keep their heads down.

Although her speech is addressed to a Jewish Israeli audience and she takes the British scene as her point of reference, Ms. Phillips is an exceedingly clear-eyed observer and her lecture is of interest in its entirety. I think many readers will find her remarks worth the time to take them in via the video below.

Quotable quote, as to the President of the United States: “He claims to have Israel’s back, but I think it’s more like a knife in the back.”

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