Mr Fry, who has Jewish heritage himself, is absolutely right to speak out. Anti-Semitism has indeed become “the one acceptable form of racism”. What’s especially striking about this, however, is that it seems to be considered “acceptable” by the sort of people who are first to condemn all other forms of racism. That is, progressives.
The author and comedian David Baddiel wrote an entire book on this subject, Jews Don’t Count, which was published in February 2021 – barely three months after the Equality and Human Rights Commission published the results of its inquiry into anti-Semitism in the Labour party.
Mr Baddiel pointed out that many otherwise right-on people appear to experience uncharacteristic difficulty identifying this one form of prejudice.
The truth of his words has become all the more obvious in the past two months. On October 7, the terrorist group Hamas carried out the rape and slaughter of 1,200 Israeli Jews. And, every Saturday since, Britain’s most righteous progressives have marched in defence not of Israel, but of Gaza – seemingly oblivious to the fact that, alongside them, are people waving anti-Semitic placards, and bellowing anti-Semitic chants.
If any other minority were being abused in this way, you can be sure the progressives would notice, and immediately condemn it. Yet in this instance they either don’t notice it – or make excuses for it, denying that it’s anti-Semitic and wittering on about “context”.
To be clear: I’m not suggesting for a moment that British progressives are secretly Nazis. I just think they’re suffering from unconscious bias. Which is a peculiar irony, because “unconscious bias” is a crime that they’re forever accusing everyone else of committing.