The hypocrisy in the west

In the current global political climate, few have cut through the noise with the abrupt clarity of British author and political commentator Brendan O’Neill. The Spiked.com chief political writer, whose pieces have appeared in mainstream newspapers worldwide, taking aim at cancel culture, “woke” activism and critical race theory, has also spoken out strongly against antisemitism and antizionism since October 7.

On a recent visit to Australia – where he spent time at Bondi, attending a vigil in memory of the victims of the December 14 terrorist attack – O’Neill also took the time to speak with The AJN.

Asked if he had seen a general change in attitudes and a realisation that antisemitism and antizionism are one and the same since the massacre that left 15 dead, he said that, to the contrary, the “activist left” and sections of the media have “doubled down” since the tragedy.

“That’s the thing that was really horrifying to me,” he said. “In the days after Bondi, there was a lot of angry reaction amongst those people to any suggestion that their antizionism was feeding this more old fashioned form of antisemitism. They became incredibly defensive about that.

“The argument was, don’t weaponise antisemitism to silence our criticism of Israel. And I always think it’s so interesting that the only people who ever get accused of weaponising their suffering are the Jewish people.”

O’Neill said it is a “cast iron fact” – that some refuse to confront – “that if you spread this unusual, extraordinary global hatred for the world’s only Jewish nation, you are going to indeed endanger the Jewish people”.

“It is so logical, and in my mind, it’s unarguable, and we’ve seen the rotten fruits of that over the past two and a half years across the Western world,” he said.

“I don’t think there is, there isn’t yet sufficient anger amongst ordinary people about the demonisation of Israel. I’ve been waiting for two and a half years for the silent majority to be less silent, and sadly, that’s not happening yet.”

O’Neill observed that “all the things that used to be said about the Jewish people are now said about the Jewish state”.

“Because if you go around saying that the Jewish state is uniquely bloodthirsty, that it loves to kill children, that it has its fingers in every single political pie, that it controls world affairs,” he said, “We’re expected to think that’s a coincidence. But I don’t believe that that’s a coincidence, that all the medieval ideologies that were imposed on the Jews are now imposed on the Jewish nation.”

O’Neill said there is also a tendency in the West, after an Islamist terror attack, to turn a blind eye towards the ideologies behind it.

“I always remember the Manchester arena bombing in 2017, when 22 mostly young people were blown up,” he said. “And the big slogan back then, the song that everyone sang at the vigils, was Don’t Look Back in Anger, the Oasis song.

“There’s this kind of amnesia industry around Islamist terror attacks … we’re encouraged to move on very swiftly. We’re encouraged not to ask awkward questions about society and how society may have paved the way unwittingly for this kind of violence.

“We have been almost conditioned to not get angry about Islamism, because then we ourselves risk being accused of being Islamophobic.”

On the inaction of governments and civil society in countering antisemitism before it becomes deadly, O’Neill drew parallels between the Bondi Beach attack and the Manchester synagogue attack in the United Kingdom last Yom Kippur.

“I heard the exact same thing from all my Jewish friends in the UK … they knew it was coming, and no one listened to them,” he said. “It’s so interesting to me that we live in societies that see racism everywhere. And yet, when we see actual, real, physical, violent racism against Jews, it tends to get played down.

“All those influential sections of society, I think, have played a role in allowing antisemitism to fester. The media elites have not treated it with the seriousness that it deserves. The government has looked the other way.”

He added left-wing social media “influencers” to that mix.

“They continually play down antisemitism. They continually accuse Jews of weaponising antisemitism, and they continually say that there is nothing racist about being feverishly obsessed with the world’s only Jewish nation and wanting to see it destroyed,” he observed.

“So their excuse making, their apologism, I genuinely think that has emboldened the violent antisemites … and the signal that our governments and our media have sent over the past two and a half years is that antisemitism is not really a big deal.

“AnN the current global political climate, few have cut through the noise with the abrupt clarity of British author and political commentator Brendan O’Neill (pictured). The Spiked.com chief political writer, whose pieces have appeared in mainstream newspapers worldwide, taking aim at cancel culture, “woke” activism and critical race theory, has also spoken out strongly against antisemitism and antizionism since October 7.

On a recent visit to Australia – where he spent time at Bondi, attending a vigil in memory of the victims of the December 14 terrorist attack – O’Neill also took the time to speak with The AJN.

Asked if he had seen a general change in attitudes and a realisation that antisemitism and antizionism are one and the same since the massacre that left 15 dead, he said that, to the contrary, the “activist left” and sections of the media have “doubled down” since the tragedy.

“That’s the thing that was really horrifying to me,” he said. “In the days after Bondi, there was a lot of angry reaction amongst those people to any suggestion that their antizionism was feeding this more old fashioned form of antisemitism. They became incredibly defensive about that.

“The argument was, don’t weaponise antisemitism to silence our criticism of Israel. And I always think it’s so interesting that the only people who ever get accused of weaponising their suffering are the Jewish people.”

O’Neill said it is a “cast iron fact” – that some refuse to confront – “that if you spread this unusual, extraordinary global hatred for the world’s only Jewish nation, you are going to indeed endanger the Jewish people”.

“It is so logical, and in my mind, it’s unarguable, and we’ve seen the rotten fruits of that over the past two and a half years across the Western world,” he said.

“I don’t think there is, there isn’t yet sufficient anger amongst ordinary people about the demonisation of Israel. I’ve been waiting for two and a half years for the silent majority to be less silent, and sadly, that’s not happening yet.”

O’Neill observed that “all the things that used to be said about the Jewish people are now said about the Jewish state”.

“Because if you go around saying that the Jewish state is uniquely bloodthirsty, that it loves to kill children, that it has its fingers in every single political pie, that it controls world affairs,” he said, “We’re expected to think that’s a coincidence. But I don’t believe that that’s a coincidence, that all the medieval ideologies that were imposed on the Jews are now imposed on the Jewish nation.”

O’Neill said there is also a tendency in the West, after an Islamist terror attack, to turn a blind eye towards the ideologies behind it.

“I always remember the Manchester arena bombing in 2017, when 22 mostly young people were blown up,” he said. “And the big slogan back then, the song that everyone sang at the vigils, was Don’t Look Back in Anger, the Oasis song.

“There’s this kind of amnesia industry around Islamist terror attacks … we’re encouraged to move on very swiftly. We’re encouraged not to ask awkward questions about society and how society may have paved the way unwittingly for this kind of violence.

“We have been almost conditioned to not get angry about Islamism, because then we ourselves risk being accused of being Islamophobic.”

On the inaction of governments and civil society in countering antisemitism before it becomes deadly, O’Neill drew parallels between the Bondi Beach attack and the Manchester synagogue attack in the United Kingdom last Yom Kippur.

“I heard the exact same thing from all my Jewish friends in the UK … they knew it was coming, and no one listened to them,” he said. “It’s so interesting to me that we live in societies that see racism everywhere. And yet, when we see actual, real, physical, violent racism against Jews, it tends to get played down.

“All those influential sections of society, I think, have played a role in allowing antisemitism to fester. The media elites have not treated it with the seriousness that it deserves. The government has looked the other way.”

He added left-wing social media “influencers” to that mix.

“They continually play down antisemitism. They continually accuse Jews of weaponising antisemitism, and they continually say that there is nothing racist about being feverishly obsessed with the world’s only Jewish nation and wanting to see it destroyed,” he observed.

“So their excuse making, their apologism, I genuinely think that has emboldened the violent antisemites … and the signal that our governments and our media have sent over the past two and a half years is that antisemitism is not really a big deal.

“In the current global political climate, few have cut through the noise with the abrupt clarity of British author and political commentator Brendan O’Neill (pictured). The Spiked.com chief political writer, whose pieces have appeared in mainstream newspapers worldwide, taking aim at cancel culture, “woke” activism and critical race theory, has also spoken out strongly against antisemitism and antizionism since October 7.

On a recent visit to Australia – where he spent time at Bondi, attending a vigil in memory of the victims of the December 14 terrorist attack – O’Neill also took the time to speak with The AJN.

Asked if he had seen a general change in attitudes and a realisation that antisemitism and antizionism are one and the same since the massacre that left 15 dead, he said that, to the contrary, the “activist left” and sections of the media have “doubled down” since the tragedy.

“That’s the thing that was really horrifying to me,” he said. “In the days after Bondi, there was a lot of angry reaction amongst those people to any suggestion that their antizionism was feeding this more old fashioned form of antisemitism. They became incredibly defensive about that.

“The argument was, don’t weaponise antisemitism to silence our criticism of Israel. And I always think it’s so interesting that the only people who ever get accused of weaponising their suffering are the Jewish people.”

O’Neill said it is a “cast iron fact” – that some refuse to confront – “that if you spread this unusual, extraordinary global hatred for the world’s only Jewish nation, you are going to indeed endanger the Jewish people”.

“It is so logical, and in my mind, it’s unarguable, and we’ve seen the rotten fruits of that over the past two and a half years across the Western world,” he said.

“I don’t think there is, there isn’t yet sufficient anger amongst ordinary people about the demonisation of Israel. I’ve been waiting for two and a half years for the silent majority to be less silent, and sadly, that’s not happening yet.”

O’Neill observed that “all the things that used to be said about the Jewish people are now said about the Jewish state”.

“Because if you go around saying that the Jewish state is uniquely bloodthirsty, that it loves to kill children, that it has its fingers in every single political pie, that it controls world affairs,” he said, “We’re expected to think that’s a coincidence. But I don’t believe that that’s a coincidence, that all the medieval ideologies that were imposed on the Jews are now imposed on the Jewish nation.”

O’Neill said there is also a tendency in the West, after an Islamist terror attack, to turn a blind eye towards the ideologies behind it.

“I always remember the Manchester arena bombing in 2017, when 22 mostly young people were blown up,” he said. “And the big slogan back then, the song that everyone sang at the vigils, was Don’t Look Back in Anger, the Oasis song.

“There’s this kind of amnesia industry around Islamist terror attacks … we’re encouraged to move on very swiftly. We’re encouraged not to ask awkward questions about society and how society may have paved the way unwittingly for this kind of violence.

“We have been almost conditioned to not get angry about Islamism, because then we ourselves risk being accused of being Islamophobic.”

On the inaction of governments and civil society in countering antisemitism before it becomes deadly, O’Neill drew parallels between the Bondi Beach attack and the Manchester synagogue attack in the United Kingdom last Yom Kippur.

“I heard the exact same thing from all my Jewish friends in the UK … they knew it was coming, and no one listened to them,” he said. “It’s so interesting to me that we live in societies that see racism everywhere. And yet, when we see actual, real, physical, violent racism against Jews, it tends to get played down.

“All those influential sections of society, I think, have played a role in allowing antisemitism to fester. The media elites have not treated it with the seriousness that it deserves. The government has looked the other way.”

He added left-wing social media “influencers” to that mix.

“They continually play down antisemitism. They continually accuse Jews of weaponising antisemitism, and they continually say that there is nothing racist about being feverishly obsessed with the world’s only Jewish nation and wanting to see it destroyed,” he observed.

“So their excuse making, their apologism, I genuinely think that has emboldened the violent antisemites … and the signal that our governments and our media have sent over the past two and a half years is that antisemitism is not really a big deal.

“And people pick up on those signals, and it can embolden them to do terrible, terrible things.”

O’Neill also said there was a “direct link” between unfair criticism of Israel by governments such as Australia’s and the UK’s, and the rise of antisemitism among the broader population.

“The obsession with Israel that we’ve seen over the past two and a half years, I genuinely think it’s one of the most unhinged moments in politics of my lifetime,” he said.

“It seems obvious, I guess, to people like you and me, but after Israel was attacked by an army of antisemites who carried out the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, the Western world should have stood with Israel, but we failed catastrophically to do that.”

Instead, he said, it did the opposite.

“We tried to contextualise the violence that was visited on Israel instead of condemning it, and all of that, especially, government criticisms of Israel, establishment media criticism of Israel, all of that, feeds into this idea that ‘there’s something wrong with those people’,” he said.

“The failure of our governments, the failure of those who pose as the conscience of the West, their failure to stand with Israel and to condemn its haters – that has got us into the mess that we’re in.

“And our governments should not be criticising an ally when it is fighting for its life against this pincer movement of antisemitic armies.”

O’Neill also spoke about attending a rally in Sydney of local Iranians protesting the bloodthirsty regime crackdown against demonstrators in Iran calling for freedom, and the relative public disinterest in their cause.

“They all said the same thing to me, ‘Where’s the media?’ And they said, ‘Please write about this. Please tell people about this. The media are not coming to these events,'” he recalled.

“And the left, it seemingly doesn’t give a damn about the destruction of life in Iran. And what it really shows is that what many of us suspected anyway, which is that these people don’t care about life in the Middle East, or justice in the Middle East, or the awfulness of conflict in the Middle East.

“All they care about is spreading hatred for Israel. That is their great motivating force, and we can see that now as clear as day, because thousands of people have been massacred on the streets of Iran for the crime of wanting freedom, and these people are saying absolutely nothing.”

He noted that a recent pro-Palestine demonstration in London saw people waving Islamic Republic flags and holding up pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei. A portrait of Khamenei was also held aloft in the so-called “March for Humanity” across the Sydney Harbour Bridge last August.

“They see the Islamic Republic as a great counterweight to Israel, to the West, to modernity,” O’Neill explained. “They really have embraced Islamism, the idea that it’s some kind of, you know, fly in the ointment of Western power. They’re so completely deluded in their sympathies for the Iranian regime.”

O’Neill was also asked about various politicians and activist groups opposed to Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia. This interview was conducted the week before Herzog’s trip.

“A lot of this really does smack of a form of fascism,” O’Neill said. “They obsessively create this kind of force field around themselves so they will never be stained by this ‘unholy’ nation.

“You know, the Nazis wanted to make Europe ‘Judenfrei’, and now we have these activists who want to make the Western world ‘Israel-frei’ – no Israelis, none of its politicians, none of its academics.”

In this way, he said Herzog was being treated as an unusually evil politician simply because he came from the Jewish state, and that if leaders such as China’s President Xi or Turkey’s President Erdogan visited, “you just know there would not be the same reaction”.

O’Neill later addressed the behaviour of anti-Herzog protesters in the Sydney CBD in a February 10 column for The Spectator, writing: “Even by the standards of the Israel-hating left, what happened in Sydney yesterday was despicable.

“The keffiyeh classes couldn’t take just one day off. They hollered about ‘war crimes’, seethed about ‘genocide’, dreamt of ‘intifada’. They did everything they could to drown out the mourning for the murdered Jews. I can’t remember the last time I witnessed such loathsome scenes.

“It is astonishing, and nauseating, that people howled for more ‘intifada’ as the Israeli President was embracing a woman who lost her husband to the ‘intifada’ at Bondi.”

Finally, The AJN asked O’Neill his thoughts on the future of the West if things continue on their current trajectory, and what needs to be done to correct course.

“I think about this all the time,” he said. “You know, we’ve educated the young, for example, to be anti-West, to look upon their own societies with contempt, to think that Australia is a nation born of genocide, Britain is a nation born of empire, and America is a nation born of slavery.

“And then we’re surprised when fascism rears its head once more, and they take the side of the barbarians over the Jews.

“But you know, we have created the conditions for something like that to happen. We have created the crisis of civilisation where the West is unwilling to defend itself, unwilling to stand up for the enlightenment, for the great gains of history, for the virtues of Western civilisation.”

The problems this created, he said, really rose to the fore in the wake of October 7.

“October 7 gave licence to people to express those anti-civilisational ideas, where they took to the streets and basically cheered on a barbaric army against a civilised, democratic nation,” he said.

He said the rot can still be undone, “but it will involve repairing pretty much every institution in society, from schools, to universities, to the media, to politics.

“It’s an uphill struggle, but it’s not impossible, and more importantly, it’s essential,” he said.

“The point I often make is there is an alternative universe out there where thousands of young people hit the streets after October 7 to stand with Israel. There’s an alternative universe where young people in the West wore T-shirts with the faces of the Israeli hostages on them.

“There’s an alternative universe where the young in the West are cheering on the IDF because they recognise that these 19, 20 and 21-year-old men and women are facing down fascism in a way that our ancestors did in the 1940s.

“All of that could have happened, all of that should have happened, but it didn’t because we’ve created this culture of self loathing – and tackling that culture of self loathing, repairing our view of ourselves and our civilisation, that probably is the only thing that might see off the scourge of antisemitism in the long run.”