Antisemitism is real. We don’t need to invent shit
The Daily Telegraph and their stuntman from Sydney’s Jewish community did their utmost to create an antisemitic moment that they could film and catastrophise on February 14.
Ofir Birenbaum donned his Star of David cap and went into Newtown’s pro-Palestine Cairo Café, hoping to cop some abuse. Instead, he was politely served and otherwise ignored.
See also
Jews for Palestine WA: ‘No to Netanyahu-Trump ethnic cleansing plan’ Green Left News Podcast Ep 64: Jews for a free Palestine with Janet Parker Inquiry into antisemitism a Trojan Horse for the Israel lobbyThe Daily Telegraph team, who had come to film the hoped-for incident, was sprung, leaving Birenbaum looking very foolish.
You may recall the Insta reel in April last year of the Jewish woman on Yale University standing in the middle of a pro-Palestine sit-in with a T-shirt brandishing the single word “Jew”.
She was hoping to provoke an antisemitic sentiment. But there was none.
Then there was the episode in Britain, again in April, when Gideon Falter, head of Campaign Against Antisemitism, tried multiple times to walk across a huge pro-Palestine demo wearing a yarmulke.
The police suggested he leave or wait until the protest had passed. They correctly inferred he was deliberately trying to stoke controversy. None eventuated.
Then, last week, Israeli influencer Max Veifer actually succeeded in entrapping a couple of young health workers in a call, where they end up making antisemitic remarks on video.
Veifer, a content creator using online video chats, acknowledges that he works to “expose people”. This time, the bait did its job.
I do not seek to excuse the words of the two nurses, who naively walked straight into Veifer’s trap. It is one of those cases, where people who sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians lapse into antisemitism or, in their case, make a specific reference to killing Israelis should they be in their........
© Green Left Weekly
