Month: September 2018

I grew up in east London, in a working class Labour family. The Daily Mirror was the family newspaper. The family fought in Cable Street. So why now do I fear The Labour Party?
Why do I bristle when I hear reports about Israel? Why do I get angry about bias in the media? Why do I spend hours – OK, days, maybe weeks – arguing on social media?

In the last few years – well, let’s take a step back. Let’s be precise here. Since September 12, 2015, it seems that the climate has changed. Jew has become a subject. Antisemitism has become a subject. Switch on the radio, and invariably there’s something about antisemitism. Look at social media, it’s swimming in stuff about antisemitism. Drowning in opinion. Antisemitism and Israel. Everyone’s got an opinion about Israel. Everyone’s got an opinion, everyone knows and everyone cares. Everyone really cares about Israel and Palestine. They really care about Palestine. They’ve never been further from home than the local Waitrose, but they knew all about Palestine.

September 12, 2015 was when Jeremy Corbyn replaced Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party. But nothing comes out of nowhere and when it all changed was during the Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed before, but it seemed that suddenly in my world Gaza was everywhere. You couldn’t switch on the radio, the telly. You couldn’t log on. It was everywhere. It felt… it felt like a bombardment. It felt like an ambush. Lines were being drawn.

Friendships were lost, and I’m not just talking Facebook friends being unfollowed. It got really horrible. And the more horrible it got, the more Jewish I got.

So I’m back in England, it’s grey and drizzly. I’ve been back a few days and so far Lou has left for a new life in Falmouth, I’ve been trying to catch up on the work stuff – just the 4535 e-mails I’ve missed by going away, and I’ve got to arrange a funeral for a cousin I was looking after. Real life. It all feels a long way from the late night heat of Dizengoff Square.

Still. I wanted to do something special for my 60th and that’s that box ticked. But, a lovely time aside, did going to Israel change the way I think about things? Was it, as My Fine Wife asked, still so black and white?

That’s more a book proposal than a question but, in short, yes.

Firstly, I’ve got to say that my interest is much more in the response of the Left in the UK than in the geo-politics of the Middle East – largely because I am woefully under-qualified to speak meaningfully about that.

I have no depth of understanding and the situation is, almost inevitably, much more complicated and nuanced than anyone here knows.

Seems that the old joke – two Jews, three opinions – applies to Palestinians too.

The Palestinian position is more complicated than I realised. While the notion of “the Palestinian land” is flawed because there wasn’t ever really “a Palestinian land” in the simplistic way that people here talk about it, the reality is that loads of people were, post 1948, dispossessed and did lose their homes. I can’t imagine what that’s like. Homes, communities, lost. Your surroundings, your life, everything that’s familiar… gone. And to what? To where?

That the Palestinian’s were used as collateral damage in the post-war period is tragic and criminal. Were they swept aside by the international community caught up in the collective post-war guilt about what had happened in Germany and beyond? Possibly. But remember that “the Jews” had been in Israel long before that – and I’m not talking Biblical times.

Does the international community owe the Palestinians? Absolutely (in my view)

Is Israel solely to blame? No (in my view)

Is the current Israeli govt doing anything to help? No (in my view)

But – and saying this isn’t to absolve Israel or defend recent Israeli govts – what’s happened to the Palestinian people is as much the fault of the Palestinian Authority as anyone else. It’s been said that there’s never been a people so badly led as the Palestinians – and that seems true. What’s happened to the aid? What’s happened to the money? Millions, maybe billions, and the people haven’t seen a sniff of it.

Similarly, the surrounding Arab states don’t support or help the Palestinians. Everyone’s using them like footballs. But, again. To just blame Israel isn’t either logical – or indeed fair – and it isn’t going to be productive. It will just make the Israeli govt feel even more boxed in and protective. As it is, every country that surrounds it is dedicated to its destruction.

As the old joke has it “They want to kill us, we don’t want to be killed, and neither side is prepared to compromise”.

I don’t like Netanyahu’s govt, but then again, I’m struggling to think of a government I do like. I didn’t meet any Israelis who supported Netanyahu, but I live here, and I’ve never met anyone who supports Theresa May (let alone Rees-Mogg or Johnson).

After I came back, I wrote to my friend who lives in Efrat, telling him how lovely it was to see him and thanking him for his hospitality.

“To be honest, I’m still conflicted about it all and, in truth, about where you live”.

“As for you feeling conflicted” he replied “Welcome to the club. Most of us do, one way or another”.

Maybe in a land where there’s conflict, it stands to reason that everyone’s conflicted.

*************

I’m still deeply suspicious of the Left here. Too many people have a curious obsession with just Israel.

You can look around the world and make an argument that this country is bad or that country is bad, and there are certainly enough countries – in the Middle East alone – that treat people badly, abuse human rights etc. But to only talk about Israel which, having been there, I would happily argue isn’t even in the Top Ten Bad Countries, is just silly and, yes, racist. There are internment camps in Chechnya for gays – anyone want to talk about that?

It’s the same as that picture taken at the TUC conference in Manchester where all the delegates are holding Palestinian flags.

Leaving aside the question of “Really? The TUC conference is talking about Palestine?” Something like this, it’s orchestrated – you think they all turned up with flags, turned to their neighbour and “Blimey, you too, huh?” – and odds on, most of these people wouldn’t know their Abbas from their elbow but still, you’ve got to ask “Why only Palestine? Why aren’t they talking about Tibet, South Sudan, Kurdistan and on and on?”

What is it about Israel that so energises people? It’s great that they’re concerned about human rights, justice, human dignity and suffering, but why are they only concerned about Israel? You can look around the world and make an argument that this country is bad or that country is bad, and there are certainly enough countries – in the Middle East alone – that treat people badly, abuse human rights etc. But to talk about Israel and only Israel which, having been there, I would happily argue isn’t even in the Top Ten Bad Countries, is wrong and, yes, racist.

And it all comes back to the Labour Party. Whichever way you look at it, it must appear odd that Labour is so concerned about Israel. This whole summer they should have been being an Opposition, should have been talking about Brexit. But all they did was discuss antisemitism. Seamus Milne, Corbyn’s chief advisor, said that the antisemitism issue would be “the hill I die on”. Not the NHS. Not care for the elderly. Not public utilities. Redefining antisemitism.

I’ve got a friend – he’s Jewish – who is very anti-Israel because he thinks that it makes Jews look bad, and that feeds into the insecurities and paranoias of the immigrant, those immigrants who want to assimilate, who want to not cause waves and not be noticed. “Leave us alone, we don’t take up much space and we don’t make a fuss”.

It comes down to a fear of being kicked out again, and while I don’t agree with it, I understand it.

What I don’t understand is why the far Left – a section of society that’s supposed to be dedicated to helping people and of being on the side of the underdog – clearly and really doesn’t like Jews.

Corbyn, through his actions, associations and allegiances, has allowed the Labour Party to become the waterhole, the place where the various anti-Israel / BDS / racists meet. And it’s the waterhole because he’s shown that Labour is a safe house for those people.

Every day, seemingly, there’s another example of Labour’s obsession. Today (Sept 24) is Day One of the Labour Party conference and a ballot was taken by the CLP of the most important things to debate:

There are 40,000 more votes for Palestine than Brexit.
There are 67,000 more votes for Palestine than the NHS
There are nearly 100,000 more votes for Palestine than the welfare system.

There are nearly 115,000 more votes for Palestine than climate change

This is the Labour Party. They need to have a word with themselves.

****************

Our society has a curious relationship with Jews. Mostly it goes like this. Your immediate circle doesn’t care. You’re just you. Wider society mostly likes Jews – the humour, the wit, the warmth. But historically – and this is a contradiction but it’s seemingly undeniable – countries don’t like Jews.

This period – post WW2 – is just about the longest period we haven’t been kicked out of some country or other. Historically, the Jews in any country will be kicked out. As unlikely as it seems, as ridiculous as it sounds to me with my English rose wife, two perfect kids, house in the country, Audi convertible… it always happens.

The only people who say things like “That could never happen here” or “But we’re not like that here” are not Jews.

Those people, those NotJews – and it doesn’t how close they are or how sympathetic they are – will never understand the fear. In the same why that, however sympathetic, I’ll never really be able to know what it’s like to be black, I’ll never know what it’s like to be a woman.

And that’s why Jews – even Jews who don’t know why they’re Jews but just know that they are – will never feel 1000% secure. That’s why there’s that “always sleep with a suitcase under the bed” line on the front page of this blog.

So if the real question is “Do I still stand by Israel?” then the answer is unequivocally “Yes”. If the question is “Will I still stand up and support Israel?” then, again, “Yes”. Do I support the existence of a Jewish state? Absolutely, because simply the existence of these questions makes it clear that we need an Israel. And until I can unpack that suitcase, we always will.

******************

I’d like to go back. I don’t think I could live there – I’m culturally too English, I’d miss the gigs, the cinema, that sort of stuff – but I’d like to go back. Anyone fancy it?

The last day. It’s been a bit of a ride, but there was only one place to go on the last day.

Yad Vashem is an extraordinary place. It doesn’t matter how many people are there, it feels empty and silent.

Actually, that’s not strictly true. I was in the main hall when a small group of kids burst through, all noisy laughter and not taking it bloody seriously. I got really pissed off with them and it was only the English reserve that stopped me from telling them what I thought. But just as I was getting properly grumpy, there was a big display of some godforsaken kids in some godforsaken camp and I suddenly I flipped to thinking how refreshing it was to hear kid’s laughter, to see kids doing what kids should be doing.

Architecturally, it’s striking. You walk through the darkness and literally into the light and, while you might think that you’ve seen the pictures before, it still makes no sense.

What hit me was how quickly it happened. How quickly people turned from ordinary folk to absolute monsters. How they went from being a bloke who went to the shop to get a coffee and croissant to mass murderer capable of the absolutely unthinkable. I still have no idea and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know.

It didn’t take long to go back to Jerusalem.

*********************

I’d got to know Jerusalem – well, the three roads round Ben Yehuda where I lived – reasonably well, so headed back to the jazz cafe I’d spent most of my time in.

There was a old Hareidi bloke sitting in the corner by a chess board and beckoned me over. I’d seen him play last night while the band were on, maybe he was still here.

Being Hareidi, there wasn’t much in the way of small talk, but he seemed nice enough, chain-smoking and pointing at the board to get a point across.

As the club filled, cool young things came and went, and we all chatted and laughed and listened to jazz. And we all lost to the old Hareidi bloke who, from 5 till about 11.30, didn’t move from his chair, smoked around 3,000 fags and didn’t seem to take much notice of who he was playing or the band, who were good and played a folky, gypsy-ish jazz.

And then it was time to go back to the hotel and pack up. A 5am start is no one’s friend.

Most of my life has been on the Left of the political spectrum. Like most people I know, I was always more devoted to talking about doing rather than doing. Ideas, I had. Lots of ideas. And they all came with a glass of something. Action, not so much. I was a member of the Labour Party for a while. I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party for a short while. And, as I tell my students now, I’ve worked on every national newspaper except The Sun and The Daily Mail.

The liberal left. That’s me. Worked in the media then in academia. Lived in north London then in Brighton. Cut me and I bleed sourdough.

But in recent times it’s seemed that the climate has changed. And it feels like a cold wind is blowing.

Last week I got kinda grumpy. And I’m not a grumpy person. I’m a happy person. Glass half full? Half empty? I’m happy to have a glass. So anyway, last Monday (July 16) I turned on the radio, the Today Programme, and there was a report about fighting in Gaza. John Humphrys introduced the piece “Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in an attack by Israel on Gaza. They were pupils at a school run by the United Nations Relief Agency”.

Humphrys introduced Chris Gunness from the UN Relief Agency. He spoke with an emotional urgency, voice quivering. “There was an Israeli air strike on a popular gathering place in Gaza City, a park where many families go, two children were killed… Imagine a foreign power using massive air power on a building in central London and two British children are killed… There should be international outrage and condemnation”.

There wasn’t a discussion about why what had happened had happened. There wasn’t any talk about what had inspired the Israelis to do the terrible things they’d undoubtedly and unquestionably done. No dispute that there should be international outrage and condemnation.

To the casual listener – and most listeners of the Today Programme are casual, listening with one ear as they’re getting up, getting dressed, getting the kids ready, getting ready for work – it sounded extraordinary. The might of the Israeli army bombarding people living in tents, dropping high grade bombs, killing children.

The next day – on the radio again – and there was a report about the Labour Party and a new definition of antisemitism. Seems that Labour had come up with a new way to define antisemitism and the Jews didn’t like it. Seems that 68 rabbis had written a letter to The Guardian to complain.

There wasn’t any discussion about why there needed to be a definition of anti-Jewish racism. There wasn’t any discussion about why the Labour Party had decided that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, a definition that had been adopted worldwide, was not good enough. No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell Black people what was and what wasn’t racism?”

No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell women what was and what wasn’t sexism?”

To the casual listener, it sounded… Jews again. Jews complaining again.

Two days but it could have been any two days. Israel doing terrible things. Jews complaining. And the two things are seemingly inter-linked.

Doesn’t matter that I’m from east London. Doesn’t matter that my ancestral roots are in eastern Europe. Doesn’t matter that I last went to Israel when I was 17. It seems that, in the world’s eyes – in your eyes – I am linked to Israel. And Israel is linked to me.

What I can’t quite work out is… why. Has the climate changed or have I? What would the 18-year-old me make of Corbyn? What would the 18-year-old me make of the Today Programme?

I used to argue that the IRA were right. In 1981, during one of the last great battles for the soul of the Labour Party, I was devastated (well, maybe not devastated, maybe more pissed off) that Denis Healey beat Tony Benn to the deputy leader post. Odds on, the 18-year-old me would be a Corbyn supporter – though he’d be far too cool to ever sing “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn…”

Now I think the 18-year-old me was a twat. In fairness though, for the 18-year-old me, supporting Corbyn wouldn’t have been in the “Top Ten Twattish Things” I was doing back then.

Another day, another outrage.

Who is this woman? She’s been on some demo, marching against Brexit or Trump or some other gluten-free cause. She’s probably nice. I probably know her. Definitely seen her. Odds on, a Facebook friend.

Looking at her idly tapping on her phone. What’s she doing? Making a list of things to get on the way home? Making an arrangement for later tonight? Doesn’t matter. She’s been on the demo, made the effort. She means well. Or, she thinks she means well. She’s on the side of the oppressed, the victims, the down-trodden, the poor people. She’s probably a nice person, trying to do the right thing.

On the other hand, she could be an anti-semitic racist. Who knows. I doubt even she knows. She doesn’t know cos she hasn’t engaged her brain. She hasn’t stopped to think what it – what any of it – means. All she knows is “Palestine, good. Israel bad”. It’s part of the essential package of being concerned: anti-racist, anti-corporate, anti-colonial, anti.

Last week it was about Monsanto. This week it was Jamie Oliver and “cultural appropriation”. A few weeks ago there was a “Stop Trump” march and in amongst all the placards and posters about Trump, there were the Palestinian flags, the “Free Palestine” placards, all that. Probably placards about stopping the Judaisation of Jerusalem. This woman was probably there too. Stopping Trump and freeing Palestine.

“Stop Judaisation of Jerusalem”. What does it even mean? You couldn’t stop the “Judaisation” of Jerusalem any more than you could stop the Frenchification of Paris or the Englandification of England, but I’m not sure that’s the point. It’s a slogan. It looks good from a distance and has the word “Stop” in bright red letters. (It’s essential for a slogan to advocate stopping something).

Every day there’s stuff in the papers about the Left and about Corbyn and the Corbyns. Laying wreaths at the graves of murderers. Sharing platforms with right old scumbags. Whatever. And I get annoyed about it and upset by it and say to myself “Oh, I must write a blogpost about that” and by the time I get around to it there’s another thing. The vicious, vicious stuff that was thrown at Margaret Hodge by the caring, concerned Left. But this picture stayed with me.

It’s that word. Judaisation. They’re not messing about any more saying it’s Israel. This is about Jews. The poster is about Jews. There’s no pretence about Israel or Palestine or any of that other bollocks.

I spent long enough working on newspapers, writing headlines, to know that in a headline the most important word is the first word, the biggest word. That’s the one that catches the eye. And that word here is Judaisation. That’s what catches the eye.

This woman, idly tapping on her phone. I find it so hard to believe she has an idea of what she’s carrying and what it says, that she’s given it a minute’s thought, that it’s anything other than essentially a fashion accessory. And maybe that’s what I most resent about this incarnation of Labour and the Left. They’ve made hating us fashionable.

So I was thinking. If I ever say that Corbyn is an antisemite, I generally get one of three responses. 1) Yeah, but Palestine. 2) He can’t be. He’s a man of principles. He’s fought racism all his life. 3) Lalalalalalalalalala can’t hear you. We need to get rid of the Tories.

And I generally say the same thing. Actually, I don’t care about him. I care about him about as much as he cares about me. It doesn’t matter whether he’s antisemitic. It doesn’t matter cos he’s an enabler.

What does that mean?

I am, what My Fine Wife calls, an enabler. I support her in her endeavours. I provide support. I help create an environment where she can be what she wants to be. It’s a lovely thing to be called.

The reason I mention this isn’t just to point out that I’m a lovely bloke – though possibly talking about that would be more interesting than banging on about Corbyn again, but… What can I do?

So far what we’ve learnt is that seemingly every day there’s another thing, another racist crawls out of the pit Labour’s descended into. Today is the turn of Peter Willsman, the secretary of The Campaign for Labour Democracy, and this is the story that greeted us today.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/bombshell-recording-proves-corbyn-ally-blamed-jewish-trump-fantatics-for-false-antisemitism-clai-1.467802

So, swiftly moving on from the question of whether or not I’m a Trump fanatic in the pay of Mossad, what does it mean? And how does it relate to the question of whether or not Corbyn is an anti-Semite?

Well, it doesn’t matter what Corbyn thinks. And we don’t know what Corbyn thinks because he never actually says anything. Or if he does say something, he doesn’t follow it up with an action, so the words are empty and meaningless.

But by saying nothing and doing nothing, Corbyn has become an enabler. He enables people like Mary Lockhart (yesterday) and Peter Willsman (today) to be in a safe environment where their rubbish racism to flourish.

By the way, the answer to the three responses is 1) You’re also a racist, 2) I’m not so impressed by principles. Thatcher had principles, wasn’t too keen on her either, 3) Hang about a minute. I’m just going to ask that turkey what he thinks of Christmas.

Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon is half empty, and the half that’s not empty is busy packing up, closing shops, pulling down blinds and going home. Shabbat is coming and on Shabbat everything stops. The shuk – the market – where last night it was seriously rocking, was still busy, but this time the busy was all about closing in time.

More than anything (so far) this is when it hits that Jerusalem is not so much a different place to Tel Aviv as a different planet. It marches to a completely different beat. There are Haredi – the Hassids – everywhere. A big presence. The people look less cool, less tanned, less beautiful. And there are tourists by the bus load.

Still though, you’ve got to eat. You’ve got to have a drink. It’s Friday night in the second biggest city in a developed, Western(ish) country. There’s got to be something open. We see a supermarket and, well, it’s got to be worth an ask.

“You’re looking for bars now?”

“Yeah, you know, something to eat and something to drink”

“It’s Shabbat, you know”

“Yes, we know”

“Well, you could go to Rivlin. There are some bars and restaurants open there. It gets quite lively”

We make it to Rivlin and supermarket bloke was right. There are some bars and restaurants open. Three bars and two restaurants. Outside of the centre life might be more lively, but this is supposed to be the kicking triangle, the area between Jaffa and Ben Yehuda and it’s eerily quiet. At 6.30pm a siren goes off. The stupid tourist looks around wondering what’s going on because, let’s be honest, it’s not going to be a car alarm after someone’s tried to nick the car. The siren, it turns out, is Shabbat.

We choose one of the bars, have some food and drink and stay there a few hours till it gets too cold to stay outside. Israeli cold, not English cold, but still a bit cold.

It’s about 10.30, maybe 11, by the time we call for the bill – Ruth’s got to drive back to Tel Aviv – and have a bit of a walk. Her car’s here, somewhere. The curious thing is that although there are a few more places open now, they’re still mostly empty. It’s a big city, this is the lively area and it’s Friday night. Where is everyone? Jerusalem really is different to Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile back at the hotel, even the tumbleweed is staying indoors. Somehow I’ve managed to book myself into a Haredi (Hassid) hotel and there’s more chance of Poch getting on the phone asking me to replace Harry Kane than getting a drink at the bar. Not least because there isn’t a bar. I hadn’t even noticed when I checked in. Oh well, I’ll go up to my room and watch the porn channel on the telly….

*************

If I thought Friday night was quiet, it was only because I hadn’t yet experienced a Saturday. Breakfast was a bit of a washout – “Can I toast the bread please?” “Toast? It’s Shabbat” – so I thought I’d get some breakfast out. Right.

The streets are deserted. In one way, it’s kinda nice. I remember talking with Antony about Shabbat and, religion aside, the feeling of switching off, of turning the phone off and putting it away. No internet, no nothing. We never do that at our place and it’s probably no bad thing to do.

I walked down Jaffa Street, the wide hustling bustling heart of the city. A wide boulevard with hi-tech tram tracks down the middle, shops, bars and restaurants on either side. Only there are no people and no hi-tech trams and the only people are groups of tourists, all languages and shades, following a leader who walks holding a sign for them to follow. The sun beats down and I walked down the middle of the road heading to east Jerusalem, the Old City.

Reading about the Old City and the history drips off the pages. It’s not just Rachel, it’s everyone’s Rachel. If you’ve got a religion, you’ve got a seat at the table. The star turn for me is The Wall, but there are more churches than in a church exhibition and there’s Temple Mount, maybe the epicentre of the conflict. For Jews, the first and second Temples were built here, for Muslims the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque were here. If I were the picky type – and, really, I’m not – I’d point out that the first Temple was built in 957 BCE and the Dome was built in 692 CE and if I were the picky type I’d point out that means we were here first. Just as well I’m not the picky type.

The Old City. Well, that answers all the questions about where everyone is. It’s packed. Rammed. Mostly with tourists still playing Follow My Leader, but also the Haredi. How do they do it? They’re wearing black clothes, black frock coats – you know the drill – and the most magnificent fur hats and they still look cool. I’m wearing a t-shirt and shorts and I’m schvitzing like a vunce. How do they do it? The old boys do, in fairness, look hot but the young lads and middle aged men just look like they always do.

In through Jaffa Gate and down into the narrow alleys and side streets and you can barely move. Tiny alleys all crammed with shops selling religious artefacts, schmutter t-shirts with schmutter slogans, phone cases… just like a street market. And people are shopping, seriously shopping. (This is the bit where traditionally we put in a line about shopping being the new religion). The tourist leaders stand around while their flock shop and shop. The architecture’s different and there are more menorahs and mezuzahs on sale, but I can’t help but feel it’s like Camden Market on a busy day.

I follow the signs to The Western Wall and, somewhere inside, there’s a sense of trepidation building. The Wall. How can we say? Its reputation precedes it. The nearer you get the higher the concentration of Haredi, and they’re all in a hurry, rushing down the alleys, their coats flying open, the fur hats not moving. How do they stay on, these huge lumps of head furniture?

It’s a sight The Wall. The scale, the people, the people praying, the massed Haredi, the variety of people, people from everywhere in all manner of religious costume. I walked around and tried to breathe it all in.

I’d been really thinking about Antony and his faith and Rachel and her tomb and I’ve realised that if I want to understand Israel it’s as important to understand the religious pull as it is to talk to Palestinians or “settlers” or drink in sidewalk bars in Tel Aviv or anything else. And the curious thing is that of all those things, the religion was always going to be the hardest thing for me to get my head around. People’s suffering, people living nice lives, people living on settlements, these things are easy to put into some sort of framework.

I walked by The Wall. I sat by The Wall. Leaned against The Wall. Put my little written note in The Wall. I put the ring I bought in the refugee camp on The Wall and took a photo. I know a good photo op when I see one, but missed the opportunity for a Facebook gag about giving Him a ring. I looked at The Wall and waited for The Wall to look back.

It’s an extraordinary place, The Wall, extraordinary on every level, and your heart can’t help but be swept away by the weight of history and meaning, but I’ve got to be honest. I didn’t feel it and while I know that the last time I was in shul was for my barmitzvah, it was still a bit disappointing.

Hours later, I still don’t know. Part of me hoped that when I went to The Wall I’d find Rachel, but I didn’t. She wasn’t there. Maybe she was on the other side of the barrier where the women are allowed.

I knew on the way back to the hotel I’d pass last night’s bar and if they were heathen enough to be open last night, then maybe they’d be open today. And it was open. And it had the football on the screens. And so I ordered a lager and sat down and watched the football and immediately felt much better.

It’s Friday and Friday here is the first day of the weekend. You spend the daytime preparing for Shabbat, getting the shopping in, doing the weekend chores that need to be done.

“You know what I miss most about living in England?” Antony says to me. “Sundays. We don’t really have a weekend here. There’s no time to relax and do Sunday stuff, the gardening, hanging around, relaxing, whatever. Friday is all about preparing for Shabbat, then there’s Shabbat and then Sunday we’re back to work”.

“It’s ironic” I say. “Shabbat is supposed to be all about stopping working, switching off the phone and relaxing. Taking some time to think and consider, to breathe. But because of Shabbat, there’s no time to relax”.

We both laugh, and make the joke about Jews not doing irony.

Just outside Efrat in Gush Etzion is a shopping centre. A regular normal recognisable shopping centre like out-of-town shopping centres everywhere. A car park, supermarket, shops, and it’s the same as any shopping centre on a Saturday morning except that to get there we go through the security gate and across the roundabout where you can’t turn right because that’s the way to the Badlands.

There are wire fences all around and what looks like a small watchtower just outside the car park. To me it looks so oppressive, so intimidating but I think I’m the only one who can see it. These things now are so normalised that it’s just there. Stopping at the security gate is just like stopping at a traffic light. Or at the security gates in any gated community.

Take away the fences, the wires, the gates, the guards, the watchtower, the guard with gun at the entrance and it’s just like anywhere else. Inside the supermarket people do supermarket things.

Everything is here in, more or less, the same place as everything in every other supermarket. The fruit and veg at the front, the meat and fish counters at the back, aisles of goods from jars of pesto to nappies to row after row of red and white wine. In the spirits section, there’s a bottle of gluten-free vodka.

Most of the people in the supermarket are from Efrat, and from the accents most seem to be either Brits or Americans. Noticeable – to me – are an Arab couple with their kids.

“They come to shop here like everyone else” says T, “But we can’t go to their villages or even drive down their roads because it’s not safe”.

Why you’d want to go to their villages, I’m not sure. But I get the point.

It’s such a strange place, the mundane normality of the supermarket and the crashing oppression of the fences. We’re in their place and they can come to our place, but we can’t go to their place. On the way back, we turn out of the car park.

As we stop at the give way lines, T pointed to the left.

“Just there, that’s where the three Israeli boys were kidnapped and murdered in 2014”.

“Yes, I know” I replied as Antony turns right to go home.

*****************

Later, I met a group of old schoolfriends who live here, people I haven’t seen for over 40 years. Names from the past, people whose names I remember but that’s all. They all live here, some since 1982, some a little later and it’s a curious thing, but they don’t see each other, they haven’t stayed in touch. We’re all here, all Jews, Jews with history in common but little else. Just like everyone else in this country.

Like I seem to do with everyone I meet these days, I asked them how they found living here, how they justified it, whether they felt vulnerable.

Lovely Ruth – who I’ve spoken to about all this a lot – with her Leftist pleas for justice and equality, talks about the need for a Jewish state but tops it off with a liberal dose of Jewish guilt. The view nearest to mine.

“We’ve got to have a Jewish state but it has to be democratic. We’ve got to be fair to the Palestinians”. Ruth tears herself up with the twists and contradictions of her position, but is also sure that peace is possible, compromise is possible, a way forward is possible, if only there’s the desire. No one I’ve spoken to here, regardless of where they’re from, is a Netanyahu supporter. The Palestinians all hate or distrust Abbas (motherfucker). As ever, we say things like “It’s the politicians that get in the way” and “People just want to get on with their lives”. Ruth and I talk like we’re on the way back from our evening class in “Liberalism For Beginners”.

Someone else is much more the pragmatist. He also comes from the left-ist viewpoint, but then when his daughter moved to a disputed part of Jerusalem that’s over the green line, he moved to be near her. Family comes first. Another one has long gone religious. Seriously religious. There’s no questions here, no uncertainties. It’s Israel. What do you mean how do I justify it?

That view is undoubtedly the clearest, the cleanest and the most straightforward. It’s also the view furthest from mine. It’s unquestioning and absolute.

There is, as ever, a middle ground. Or, if not exactly middle, a nuanced position. As Facebook so smartly figured out way back in 2007, you can be “In a relationship” or “Not in a relationship” – but nothing is quite as interesting as “It’s complicated”.

This land is ours. It always has been and always will be. Far from being colonial invaders, we’re the indigenous people. Our history is here, our heritage is here, our home is here. It’s our land and it was stolen from us and now we’re back. All the chat about 1948, 1967, 19whatever, it doesn’t matter.

So take that and add a degree of real world pragmatism and human understanding. It says “We have to live with the arabs, we have to get along. We can share the land, but we have to accept each other’s existence, each other’s presence.”

It’s a religious view in the sense that it says the Bible is a historical document rather than the Andrew Lloyd-Webber songbook – you know, something a bit more meaningful than Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat and all that. It’s a more thoughtful view than the ‘seriously religious’ friend because it understands that, while the roots of life are back then, the actuality of life is the here and now.

We talk about Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem and he really cares about Rachel’s tomb. Rachel is part of the story of his life, she’s the reason why he’s here. She’s the reason why he is. If he can’t live in the land of Rachel’s tomb, what left is there? His belief and faith is pure and unassailable.

“That’s the crux” I say to him. “People like you have this belief coursing through your veins. It is the stuff in your veins. People like you can’t see things any other way. And people who don’t see things that way, can’t and won’t ever understand”.

Later, I say to Ruth “You can’t argue with that. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I don’t care about Rachel. She’s dead. She won’t mind. If we want to move forward we have to stop looking back”.

She agrees. We agree. And we order another glass each.

But right here, right now, my liberal attempts at pragmatism don’t make any sense. I wouldn’t dispute for a minute that the Jews need a place to call their own. History has shown time and again – and again and again – that sooner or later the Jewish population of any country is going to get schtupped. They’ll get blamed for something, persecuted, attacked and thrown out. If they’re lucky. It’s simply naïve to think otherwise. It doesn’t matter how secure they feel, how established they are, how integrated and assimilated they are, sooner or later it’s all going to go tits up. It’s never not happened. And what’s going on in the UK with the Labour Party and Corbyn and all that shows how precarious it all is, how it could happen again.

If Corbyn gets in, we’re going to get schtupped. It’ll make 2014, when people got attacked on the street for “looking Jewish”, when kosher sections in supermarkets got destroyed, look like a hiccup. And if Corbyn doesn’t get in, we’ll get blamed like we’re already getting blamed for every story that shows him up to be the antisemite he clearly is.

If you’d said to me five years ago – two years ago – that there’d be a debate in the House of Commons on antisemitism, I’d have said you were mad. If you’d have said that there’s be demonstrations in Parliament Square, if you’d have said that one of the two major political parties in the UK would have spent all summer – all summer – talking about antisemitism, I’d have said you were mad.

So I wouldn’t dispute for a minute that the Jews need a place to call their own. But if I don’t care about Rachel’s tomb, if the Bible doesn’t speak to me, how can I justify that place being here? Why shouldn’t it be somewhere far away from everything like Paraguay? It could be a nice island, Ibiza maybe.

When the conversation about the establishment of Israel first came up, there were – seriously – two other locations suggested: Uganda and (my favourite) the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in USSR in Birobidzhan, deep in the heart of Siberia, near Inthemiddleoffuckingnowherestan . Really. Birobidzhan was, apparently, Stalin’s idea – the ultimate Jewish ghetto. The Nazis apparently suggested a bit of Madagascar…

It’s all nonsense. If the Jews are going to have a homeland, it’s got to be Israel. And, as the by now old cliché has it, the more the Corbyn Left complain about Israel, the more they demonstrate the need for it.

So, about this anyway, the religious guys are right – all shades of them. If there’s going to be an Israel, it has to be here. It’s Rachel who has brought us here. This is our land. Our spiritual land, our physical land, our historical land. And if we accept that, surely we’ve got to be where Rachel’s tomb is. But that’s in Bethlehem. And that’s in the West Bank. And we’ve seen what that’s like. if we accept that, surely we’ve got to be where Abraham is. But that’s also in the West Bank, in Hebron, the most dangerous place in the whole place.

If this is our historic land, all of it is our historic land. As much Gush Etzion as the cosmopolitan cafes and cool beaches of Tel Aviv. If we don’t invoke the Bible, if we don’t care about Rachel’s tomb, why are we here at all? If it’s just land we want, a land for the Jews to feel safe from a world that has historically persecuted them, does it matter where it is as long as it’s safe and secure?

But it is here. And already I can feel myself going round in circles. Just like everyone else.

Can you imagine what it’s like living in Corbynland? There can’t be enough hours in the day to discuss Israel and Palestine and Jews and Zionism. Daytime meetings. Evening meetings. Meetings about anything – the Left love meetings – that turn into meetings about Israel and Palestine. Everyone you know is talking about it. Everyone is responding to it. Lines are drawn. Where do you stand in relation to it? And when that happens, it’s easy to lose perspective.

I had a bit of re-think after that last post. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t believe that Billy Bragg actually was antisemitic. I know which side of the fence he’s on, that he’s a proper Corbynite and I know he said all that stuff about Jews “having work to do”, but still it didn’t really make sense. A man steeped in Woody Guthrie, why would he turn into a racist?

It made me think about the world he lives in and how you can get immersed into a world, how you can get consumed by it. And when that happens, people like Billy can say things like Billy said.

And it made me think about the world I live in, and in particular the social media world I live in. We all know words like “bubble” and phrases like “echo chamber” and we’re all aware that stuff. But still.

I’m still a Facebook-head. I know most other people have migrated to Instagram, but I still prefer a bit of a rabbit to pictures showing what I had for dinner last night. Facebook’s an odd place these days, it’s like a bar that most people have left and it’s just now just a few old blokes moaning. But that’s fine. I’m an old bloke and I like moaning.

So in Facebookland, I’ve got 1,481 friends but I only ever hear from about 10 people and now they’re the most familiar names in my world. They’re mostly people I’ve never met. Friends who I chat with most days, but I wouldn’t know them if I sat next to them on the train as it apologises its way up the track.

Every day I tune into these people and read their threads, see what they’re thinking, let their thoughts seep into mine. Who are these people? What are they doing in my world? And how did they come to be in my world?

Mostly my friends comments are forthright, their opinions strong, their views rigid. And mostly they’re angry. Or if not angry, then upset. They – all the people called David and all the people who read the Davids – write a lot, make a lot of comments about politics and life, about what’s right and what’s not. They’re all very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn. And that’s fine by me because I’m very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn and in the land of algorithmic opinion, this is where I’ve landed.

I’m fine with that, and even if does seem that Facebook is a diminishing world and now people prefer a world where the most political it gets is if you post an Instagram picture of your main course from an oblique angle. Actually, I can’t blame them for that. Politics these days is a fairly miserable place.

But what it means is that in my social media world, everyone is talking about Corbyn and antisemitism and (last week) Billy Bragg and (the week before) Margaret Hodge and no one is talking about food or where they went for dinner last night. And if everyone you know is talking about X, it’s easy to think that everyone else is talking about this stuff, that everyone cares about this stuff. Truth is, they’re probably not and they probably don’t.

If I was living in my social media world, I’d probably say something like “Exactly. That’s what Corbyn is counting on. He knows no one really cares about Jews and because there’s not enough of us to make an electoral difference he can do what he likes. So he’ll keep offering new Bank Holidays for things like not winning the World Cup and everyone will think he’s marvellous”.

If I was living in everyone else’s social media world, I’d probably be more interested in this

Postscript: I was reading this morning and one of the Davids had had a Twitter-chat with Billy Bragg the upshot of which was

Good for Billy. People don’t often apologise and he did and hats off to him for that. Still don’t like his music.

Shortly before I left England, I’d been approached by another old face from the old country.

“Hi there. I heard you were coming over. Do you fancy a trip up north? We can meet up and I’ll show what life’s really like up here”.

It was a three hour drive up from Efrat and that was lovely, spending some quality time with Antony in the car, just chewing the fat, just being mates. I found out some stuff about why he was here, tales of getting bullied, beaten up for being a Jew (the familiar “Fuck off back to where you come from” stuff), tales of family in the Holocaust… The sort of stuff that makes the words “a Jewish state” sound very reassuring and very appealing.

We were supposed to meet in “my village” Kfar Veradim in the Galilee, but Kfar Veradim is far from a village. Another new town, bigger than Efrat, Kfar Veradim was established in 1982 and is green and well-laid out with big wide streets and statues. It looks curious, an affluent oasis in the hills of the north. There’s a vibrant industrial estate where SanDisk has its HQ and hi-tech companies share space with car companies. The car park’s full and bright young things walk around looking cool and hip. The potted plants gleam and the glass and chrome shines.

Natan had said he’d introduce me to Lt. Col. Sarit Zehavi, CEO and founder of the Alma Research and Education Center and, listen I’m up for anything interesting but this is where it got a bit weird.

We had coffee and chatted about the old days and what we were doing now, about Spurs – like all proper Spurs fans, we had nothing but disappointment and negativity in the new season – and just chatted like mates. Then he said “Come, let’s go and meet Sarit”.

So we drove to the industrial estate where there was an office block – all atrium and light, lots of those potted plants and cool looking people – and went up to the Alma offices.

Sarit was – and I hope she doesn’t mind me saying this – fit in every sense. She was very attractive, but clearly sharp as a tack and bright as a button. She was also very clearly not to be messed with. Let’s put it this way. No one was going to be making glib sexist comments to Sarit.

“So Natan tells me you have a blog. Tell me, what’s the reach and who is your audience?”

What’s the reach and who is my audience? “Well, I sometimes put it on Facebook, got 15 likes once. My wife thinks it’s very good…”

I think it took Sarit about…. hmmm, a couple of seconds to work out the lay of the land, but – bless her – she’d allotted me the time so I was going to get the treatment.

Actually, she was a sweetheart and we got on great. Up north is right by the border with Lebanon and up here the story isn’t Palestine, it’s Hezbollah and Iran. There’s also

“Jed, tell me. What’s going on in England? Is everything I’m reading true?”

Everyone here loves that story.

The situation in the north is very tricky and very real. Not that you’d know it from the press in the UK which seems to think that Israel is the root of all evil in the Middle East, but Iran is a serious threat and has very dangerous expansionist ideas – dangerous not just to Israel but to the whole region and therefore the world. That Corbyn has appeared on and taken money from Press TV, Iran’s state TV propaganda channel… Oh, don’t start me. You see what you’ve done now?

We spent most of the day with Sarit and she was a sweetie. Despite pretty quickly figuring me for what I am – a nice bloke whose wife sometimes likes his blog – she was a sweetie. We went up to a lookout point where she gave me a pair of proper army binoculars and she showed me the border, where Hezbollah have their weapons, where the rocket launchers are and she explained what they could do.

It’s beautiful up there, the hills, the clean air. But I’m not sure I could live up there with all the bomb shelters and the rockets aimed at me and my family. As we drove back to Kfar Veradim and to lunch, the thought occurred – and not for the first time – you’ve got to really want to live here to live here. The people up here have a certainty and a there’s very little in the way of introspection. They were properly lovely to me – well, OK, I’m an influential social media influencer with a hard core, devoted readership and I was going to speak to her later – so maybe it’s not surprising they were nice to me, but they’re properly proud of their place, of what they’ve achieved.

We went to lunch at a local Druze cafe, and as we sat there eating a substantial meze, I mulled. It takes a special kind of person to build communities like Kfar Veradim and to live there – really, a bijou flat in the centre of Brighton is much easier – and so full power to them.