Less than a week after the pogrom in Amsterdam, UN celebrity Jew-baiter Francesca Albanese was scheduled to speak in London. Albanese has embraced authoritarian anti-Semitism and become a hero to the worst people in politics. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, a British organization, worked up plans to protest Albanese’s arrival.
But the protest never happened. The Telegraph explained why: Security officials picked up chatter on social media apps in which locals were very plainly making plans to attack the Jewish demonstrators. “Can’t wait to give the welcome they deserve,” said one resident, to which another—who had been using anti-Semitic lingo in the chat—responded: “Amsterdam-style.”
Thus the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was put in a position familiar to Jewish groups: take the risk or call it off.
There are two broad lessons here. The first is that while Jews nominally have the same rights as anyone, in practice that’s a joke. A popular defense of the pogromists has been that the Jews got what they deserved because some of the Maccabi fans sang provocative chants in response to taunting from the crowd as they walked to the subway.
This is from a comment I posted almost a year ago:
In terms of fighting in the streets – we will not win and many Jews will get badly hurt.
There’s something terribly wrong with this picture. Much as I understand that there’s far more of “them” than “us,” it would do some good for us to exhibit the type of ferocity shown by the IDF. Of course it could result in the Jews being locked up for striking back, but that’s not the same as being forced to cower.
There are quite a number of Krav Maga schools around that teach what I would call “combat karate” (which is what I call Krav Maga) or karate itself, preferably of the combat variety (“Bubishi”).
Bullies with broken noses and limbs don’t function too well.