It's antisemitic to call out Israel's genocide, says the Guardian

The band Primal Scream had the audacity to tell its audience that the British government is complicit in genocide. They have been reported to the police for doing so

On the matter of “antisemitism”, we are now so far down the rabbit hole that the word no longer need have any reference to “hating Jews”.

Even the supposedly liberal Guardian uses the term unquestioningly to mean “being nasty about Israel” – a state whose genocidal behaviour towards the Palestinian people over the past two years should mean it is almost impossible to say anything too nasty about it.

Take the following absurd headline from the paper: “London venue ‘appalled’ after antisemitic imagery allegedly screened at Primal Scream gig.”

Let’s deconstruct this headline. Notice there are no quote marks around “antisemitic”, meaning the paper takes it as read that the imagery is indeed antisemitic.

There are quote marks around “appalled”, indicating that the London venue, the Roundhouse, is being directly quoted rather than paraphrased. And the word “allegedly” is included throughout the article for legal reasons, and relates to the matter of the screening not the imagery, presumably in case the Roundhouse’s claim that the band Primal Scream displayed the image turns out to be factually incorrect.

So what was this unquestionably “antisemitic” imagery?

The story explains that Primal Scream projected a video on to a screen behind the band during their concert earlier this month in which a swastika merged with a Star of David, the symbol on the Israeli flags flying from tanks in Gaza.

The Guardian uncritically reports: “A spokesperson for the Roundhouse said they were ‘appalled that antisemitic imagery was displayed’ at the venue’,” and that it had apologised to “the wider Jewish community”.

The paper does nothing to distance itself, as it should have done, from this accusation. For example, it could have reported the incident as follows: “A spokesperson for the Roundhouse said it was ‘appalled’ at what it claimed was a display of ‘antisemitic imagery’.”

One can debate whether entwining the swastika with the Star of David is in bad taste, given that Israel chose to turn a Jewish symbol, the Star of David, into its national emblem, on its flag and on its warplanes. Remember, though, that it was Israel that intentionally created this confusion – not Primal Scream, not Israel’s critics.

One can also accept that Jews who identify with Israel probably found the screened image offensive.

The question is whether we should prioritise caring about offending those Jews and non-Jews who identify with Israel, even as it continues to slaughter and starve children in Gaza, more than we care about the Palestinians being murdered by the state worshipped by Israel’s supporters.

I would suggest those priorities are utterly back to front.

But even so, nothing indicates that Primal Scream were using “antisemitic” imagery. It is clear from the rest of the article that they were not doing what their critics – including the Roundhouse and the Guardian – are actually doing, which is conflating Israel with Jews.

From the description, the band’s intentions are evident. The Guardian reports that “images of the destruction in Gaza” were screened, and the video concluded with the words: “Our government is complicit in genocide.”

Primal Scream were using the Star of David to refer to the Israeli government, just as one would use the Union Flag to refer to the UK government.

In other words, Primal Scream’s message wasn't “Hate Jews”. It was that Israel is committing a genocide, like earlier genocidal regimes, and it is shameful that the British government is colluding in these crimes.

That seems a pretty reasonable assessment of the past two years to me. There is no reason to doubt it will have been understood that way by anyone in the audience who is not fanatically blinded by their support for Israel.

It should be incumbent on any person whose moral compass is still intact to denounce what Israel is doing, as well as western governments’ complicity in its crimes.

Genocidal monsters – whether Germany in the 1940s, or Rwanda in the 1990s, or Israel in the 2020s – cannot be vilified. Why? Because they are the worst sort of villains. It is not a crime to denounce these genocidal regimes. The crime is not characterising them as monsters. That only normalises their behaviour.

That is why every major human rights organisation and the international association of genocide scholars have spoken up against the genocide, and why the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for committing crimes against humanity.

It is our governments and the media that are pretending none of this is happening. They are the ones still trying to persuade us that anyone who speaks up is driven by Jew hatred rather than a moral core that screams: “This is wrong!”

A fervently pro-Israel lobby group, the Community Security Trust, has reported Primal Scream to the police, warning that the display “encourages hatred of Jews”.

No, it encourages hatred of genocide, which is a good thing.

It encourages opposition to a depraved ethno-nationalist state that, according to a ruling last year from the International Court of Justice, has been carrying out a decades-long, illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory; denied the Palestinian people a state; ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland while illegally transferring Jewish militias on to their lands; and is operating a system of apartheid rule.

Oh, and the same court is currently investigating Israel for genocide, having also ruled last year that South Africa made a “plausible” case that Israel was committing this ultimate crime against humanity.

The only people encouraging hatred of Jews are the Community Security Trust and complicit media like the Guardian that normalise the false idea that all Jews support Israel and its genocide.

They have turned the world upside down. They wrongly make Jews appear to be genocidal monsters for being Jews, rather than the truth. Which is that the genocidal monsters are all those – whether Jews or non-Jews – who deny or excuse the mass slaughter of Gaza’s people. That includes ministers in Keir Starmer’s government and Britain’s repugnant Chief Rabbi, a man who praises Israel’s genocidal army as “our soldiers”.

They all deserve their place in the dock at The Hague. And if there is any justice, they will one day end up there.

Primal Scream, meanwhile, deserve our respect for refusing to cave into the establishment campaign of pressure to silence those reminding us that there is a genocide going on – and exactly who is responsible for it.

Update:

Good to see Primal Scream holding their nerve, so far, against the establishment onslaught.

This appears to be the image that has caused so much “offence”:

Primal Scream responded on Instagram to the furore: “The film is a piece of art. It clearly draws from history to question where the actions of current world governments sit in that context.

“It is meant to provoke debate, not hate. In a free, pluralistic and liberal society freedom of expression is a right which we choose to exercise.”

[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]

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