Got this awful feeling I might be anti-Semitic.

Pretty good chance, really, but in my defence I blame my high-school English studies and my love in my early adult life of movie musicals. Please let me explain.

The Shakespeare play I studied at Aspley State School was The Merchant of Venice. My all-time favourite film in early adulthood was 1968’s Oliver! Still right up there if the truth be known.

Now you’ve got to admit both had pretty unsavoury Jewish characters. Some might call them stereotypes even.

In the Shakespeare play, you’ve got the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who demands his “pound of flesh” when Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out with him. Basically he wanted him killed although even as a youngster I couldn’t see how that deadly option held any hope for getting any money back. Surely a shekel a week was the better option?

In Oliver!, you have the Jew Fagin, who doesn’t fiddle with kids but makes criminals of them who risk “the drop” for pickpocketing the money he craves.

Two repulsive Jewish characters, right? Dreadful stereotypes as mentioned before, so why aren’t The Merchant of Venice and Oliver! banned like so many of Enid Blyton’s books and just about every segment of Little Britain?

Despite all this, I had never regarded myself as anti-semitic. I had a high-school mate named Reuben Stein who might have been Jewish; a nice bloke whom I really liked, although to be fair I never borrowed any money off him.

I’d like to think I have always believed that every race of humans on earth are basically good and decent people – 99 per cent okay with a few bad apples.

But then came Israel’s assault on Gaza this past ten months.

And I’ve now got the feeling that if an Israeli was approaching me on a footpath and I knew who they were, I’d cross to the other side just to avoid them. No shouting or abuse; just a welcome and much-needed separation for both our sakes.

I’m not at all fussed with the Jewish state any more. I read that close to 50,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the Gaza genocide, and a letter in the medical journal the Lancet claims that the final figure could eventually be about 186,000 – one in nine Gazians. The entire Gaza strip has more or less been razed. Is there anyone who doesn’t seriously believe Benjamin Netanyahu wants all Palestinians removed from his historic and promised lands? He’s said as much.

Despite this – or because of it – Netanyahu’s popularity is apparently on the rise again. Even the big internal demonstrations against him could be based more on anger that he hasn’t done enough to get the Hamas hostages released. Maybe a fair proportion of them believe Netanyahu is not killing Palestinian civilians – largely women and children – quickly enough before Israeli settlers start moving in.

The bottom line is that I’ve got no time left in my heart for Israelis any more. What is happening in Gaza and the ongoing settler push east into the West Bank are totally unforgivable.

So what to do?

Should I report to the new anti-Semitism special envoy, Jillian Segal and confess my guilt, and bravely accept the admonishment if not more severe punishment she might quite rightly mete out to me?

Jail me if she must, but she won’t change my view that Israel is chockablock full of evil, murdering, cunts who don’t deserve my time of day.

Anti-Semitic? Moi?

Don Gordon-Brown

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