Rip off keffiyeh, and ‘solidarity’ is bigotry in disguise

The whipped-up halfwits waving Palestinian flags and screaming at Israelis whose loved ones are being held hostage by Hamas sum up the unhinged global rage against Israel.

Pro-Palestine activists sparked outrage after they ambushed visiting friends and families of Israeli hostages at their Melbourne hotel.

The more you think about it, the more horrendous it gets.

A delegation of Israelis whose loved ones are being held hostage by Hamas arrives in Melbourne, only to be greeted by a baying Israelophobic mob. They land in Australia to share their distress, only to have more distress heaped on them by fuming protesters.

They travel thousands of miles for some of that famous Aussie solidarity and they’re confronted by whipped-up halfwits waving Palestinian flags and screaming into megaphones.

It gets worse. The anti-Israel agitators also were waving a banner that said “Zionism is fascism”.

Think about that. Here we have people whose family members were violently snatched by actual neo-fascists and it is they who are being likened to fascists.

You lot from that horrible Zionist country are the true Nazis, the low-life protesters essentially were saying to men and women desperately awaiting news of their loved ones who are in the clutches of a medieval gang of anti-Semites.

Bullet shells are left at a Star of David memorial in Urim, Israel, symptomatic of the anti-Israel sentiment. Picture: Getty Images

This might have been the nadir of the unhinged global rage against Israel – and that’s saying something. The vile targeting of the Israeli families took place in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza on Wednesday. There were 20 anti-Israel protesters – which is 20 too many – and so menacing was their din that the Israelis had to be spirited away to a police station for their own protection.

Their family members were not safe in southern Israel – now they don’t feel safe in hip Melbourne. This shames a great city.

The Prime Minister said the protesters were “beyond contempt”. He’s right. There was a double horror in this foul flashmob of hate. First, there’s the fact that it targeted ordinary people. People whose only sin is that they are citizens of Israel.

The left loves to bandy around words such as xenophobia, but what could be more xenophobic than harassing people on the basis of their national origin?

Then there’s the fact these people are in serious anguish. Their families have been torn apart by the worst anti-Jewish pogrom since the 1940s.

To demonstrate against ordinary people is bad enough. To demonstrate against people in deep pain is sick.

A pro-Palestinian rally at Makhachkala Airport, Dagestan, after the arrival of a scheduled flight from Tel Aviv. Picture: TASS/Sipa USA

At first, the despicable Melbourne mob reminded me of those men who ran riot in an airport in Dagestan at the end of October in search of Israelis arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv.

Then I thought: actually, the Crowne Plaza crew were worse.

Sure, their wicked haranguing of Israelis may not have felt as threatening as those hordes of blokes who effectively went on a Jew-hunt in an airport.

But the fact they targeted people who have suffered at the hands of Hamas makes this feel even more unconscionable than Dagestan’s mini-pogrom.

There was a special cruelty to the Crowne Plaza stunt. They were rubbing salt into the mental wounds inflicted by Hamas.

Some will say it was only a small protest, so what’s the big deal?

Here’s the big deal: under the banner of “Palestine solidarity”, ever more questionable things are being said and done.

Beneath the “pro-Palestine” mask there seems to lurk a loathing for Israel and its people that just isn’t normal; that feels visceral, not political. Hateful rather than analytical.

When you find yourself bellowing about fascism in the faces of foreign visitors, it is time to ask yourself if you have crossed the line from political critique into boilerplate bigotry.

The hotel protest matters because it suggests the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is now very thin indeed – if it exists at all any more.

A Brisbane pro-Palestine rally on November 26 included teachers, students and education workers. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/Courier Mail

It seems if you put on a keffiyeh and wrap yourself in the Palestinian colours, you can get away with as much Jew-baiting as you like.

We’ve been building to this point for some time.

The singling out of Israel for uncommon disdain, for extra-special animus, has been all the rage in right-on circles for years.

The pseudo-virtuous of the West boycott Israeli goods. They damn Israel for its alleged bloodlust. They depict it as a uniquely malevolent force in global affairs. They claim it has the Great Powers in its back pocket. They accuse it of operating nefarious lobbies to influence political life.

Wearing a keffiyeh and wrapped in Palestinian colours ... a protester in Glasgow, Scotland. Picture: Getty Images

If this sounds familiar, it’s because the same things were once said of the Jews. That their shops should be boycotted. That they loved spilling blood and maybe even drinking it. That they were the puppetmasters of power.

What was once said of Jewish people is now said of the Jewish state.

As novelist Howard Jacobson put it: “All the unsayable things, all the things they know they can’t say about Jews in a post-Holocaust liberal society, they can say again now.” So long as they remember to say “Israel”, not “the Jews”.

And so we end up with citizens of the Jewish state being cornered, mocked and demeaned even in a civilised city such as Melbourne.

This must be a wake-up call. Old hatreds clearly cling to the new fashion for being “pro-Palestine”. Bigotry is bubbling up from the well of “Palestinian solidarity”.

We need a reckoning with the Israelophobia blighting our societ­ies.