Interview: Middle East Situation and antisemitism around the world.

BBC Radio 4 Today Programme 17 April 2002

ALAN LITTLE

The Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being used as some kind of shield from behind which a new campaign of hatred is being directed against Britain's Jews. He blames, among others, the political Left and the national media for, as he puts it 'calling into question Israel's right to exist'. Other leading figures from Britain's Jewish community take a different line. The former Labour front bencher, Gerald Kaufman speaking in the House of Commons yesterday denounced Ariel Sharon as a war criminal:

GERALD KAUFMAN MP

"The Jewish people whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, Mendelsohn and Marla, Sergei Eizenstein and Billy Wilder are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon - a war criminal, implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra-Shatilla camp and now involved in killing Palestinians once again.

ALAN LITTLE
And Dr Sacks is with me now:

It's your own experience directly is it that forces you to say that anti-semitism is on the rise?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
Well it clearly is in mainland Europe. We've had many many attacks on synagogues in France, Belgium, elsewhere.

It's not that bad in this country but when you challenge Israel's very right to exist you are certainly calling into question the Jewish people's right to exist collectively and I'm afraid we have had a certain whipping-up of anti-semitism even in this country.

ALAN LITTLE
But isn't it true that many people who have an unimpeachable commitment to Israel's right to exist are nonetheless deeply ashamed of what is being done in Israel's name now?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
I think what hasn't come across in Britain is the extent to which for the last eighteen months Israel has been a nation under siege. We all felt the shock of a single terrorist attack on 11th September. Since September 2000 Israel has suffered 12,500 terrorist attacks and if you do the arithmetic that is almost one every hour of every day of every week.

ALAN LITTLE
And that justifies the policy that is taking place now in the occupied territories/the former occupied territories does it?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
What is happening now is the direct equivalent of what America is doing in Afghanistan and if we support the latter I think we have to understand the former. They're the same policy.

ALAN LITTLE
Isn't it the case though that most people taking part in political debate in this country are perfectly capable of distinguishing between Israeli policy - what is done in the name of Israel - and Britain's Jewish community and the Jewish people as a whole?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
British Jewry as you know is intensely loyal. We work and commit ourselves to the public good in this country and there is no question about that. The Jewish community here I hope is a cherished community but by and large as a community we feel that Israel has been very unfairly treated in the media; that the public do not realise how ordinary life has been made absolutely impossible. I don't think we understand what a tragedy is being enacted against Israel right now.

ALAN LITTLE
Isn't there a danger though that when you cry "anti-semitism" it will be used as a way of simply snuffing out legitimate political scrutiny of Israel?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
Israel and the Jewish people celebrate differences of opinion. I mean argument is our normal mode of communication and I don't think legitimate criticism of Israel will ever be challenged by Britain's Jews. Israel is a democracy. So I think we have to draw a very very clear distinction between disagreements on policy and the challenge to Israel's very right to exist and that second really is a deeply disturbing fact only fifty-seven years after the Holocaust.

ALAN LITTLE
You wrote that you've been very reticent about talking about anti-semitism; that you didn't like doing it. You seem even now very troubled by making these assertions. Why is that?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
I don't want to be alarmist. I don't want to suggest we are suffering from a major wave of anti-semitism in this country. It remains one of the most tolerant countries in the world. I am keen to continue improving our links with the Moslem community in this country and make everyone feel that here we have a model of coexistence which I think should be the basis for life in the Middle East as well.

ALAN LITTLE
And do you fear that international public opinion will simply desert Israel altogether?

RABBI DR JONATHAN SACKS
Well Israel is very much alone in its war against terror. I think people have not understood that it is fighting for its right to be.

My own nephew, 18 years old, a few weeks ago had to attend, one after the other on a single morning, the funerals of his three closest friends all 18, murdered while they were sitting quietly studying religious texts in a seminary. People are just simply afraid to walk the streets in Israel.