How others view the once-"sceptr'd isle"
Few Brits grasp how their country is being written off
Israel’s national carrier El Al has produced a remarkable promotional video. The central conceit is two young Israeli men, Hanan and his friend, who are tourists in London. There are shots of a London taxi, a London bus and London landmarks. You can watch it here.
In the taxi, the driver asks them “Where are you from?” The young men, startled, look at each other and hesitate. Hanan sings: “What do I answer him? I don’t know…” Then the other says, with a knowing smile, “Greece!”
Hanan (in real life Israeli singer, songwriter and composer Hanan Ben Ari) continues to sing: “How is it the same story every taxi ride…?”— in Japan they say they’re from France, in some unidentifiable Muslim country, from Italy, in India from Sweden — “…am yisroel chai (the people of Israel live) but meanwhile…” and as they walk in a London park he gesticulates to his friend to conceal his T-shirt, which sports a star of David and the Hebrew word for Israel, by zipping up his sweatshirt which displays the legend “I love London.”
As they walk, Hanan continues: “We blend in with the local culture; how am I a guest everywhere I go?” In Starbucks the barista calls out the name written on his coffee cup: “Yohan!” “Yohan?” inquires his friend. “Yes — adding an international twist” replies Hanan sardonically.
“With tricks we make it comfortable,” he sings as they join a crowd of English football fans watching a match on a big screen. His friend tells him sternly: “We are from Spain— you, keep silent!” But then everyone erupts over a goal and Hanan screams “Yaish!” (Yessss!!!) “What did I tell you?!!” scolds his friend in alarm. It’s a tense and threatening moment — but then a guy delightedly says in accented English: “Are you from Israel?” and on hearing the affirmative, shouts “Yalla balagan!” (“on with the chaos!”) as they cheer.
Then comes the bit that made me well up. The video cuts to the two of them embarking on an El Al plane to the accompaniment of an exuberant and heartfelt song: “Oh Lord, oh Lord, feeling at home like in Israel, here you finally can”, as they are greeted emotionally by the crew, and children run around in the plane receiving goodies from smiling flight attendants (ok, a bit of poetic licence here); and then Hanan takes off his woolly hat to reveal the kipah he has been concealing all the time he was in London as he continues: to sing: “Oh thank God, just being ourselves, without apologising — without apologising!” And he is asked sweetly to pipe down by a young woman with a baby — who addresses him for the first time by his real name.
How sad is this, as a promotional video by an airline company — an airline company!! — about the delights of London as a holiday destination? For it’s all too accurate and true. Such is the level of Israel-hatred and antisemitism that many British Jews do indeed avoid doing or saying anything that links them to Israel.
While most of the time there will be no nasty experiences — and for sure, there are many decent Brits who have no horrible feelings about Israel — too many Jews in Britain now feel the need to be always on their guard against unpleasantness, vitriol or worse. Because the abuse, intimidation and defamation occur regularly, as does the implicit and sometimes explicit expectation that as a Jew you must apologise for what you are and denounce Israel and your own people. It’s a process of venomous delegitimisation and dehumanisation based on lies, a potentially murderous process directed at the Jewish people alone, and it can and does happen across British society to ambush the unwary Jew.
And yes, it is indeed a relief to get on the El Al plane for precisely that reason— despite the inevitable balagan. Because as soon as you do, you feel safe (as well as irritated). Yes, flying into an active war-zone, into the path of possible ballistic missiles being fired at the Israeli heartlands from Yemen or Gaza, into the insane everyday world of daily threats and attacks from people determined to slaughter you all, you experience a quite unfamiliar feeling. You feel protected. And then you realise how unsafe you felt in London.
And then you land in Tel Aviv, and the passengers applaud, and the crew say over the speakers that we we thank the Israel Defence Forces for protecting us and that we hope for the safe return of all our hostages. And then you find you can’t speak because there’s suddenly a lump in your throat.
Many if not most people in Britain would be astonished to realise that so many Jews in their midst feel this way. Such Brits have absolutely no idea how unprecedentedly bad the situation is for Jews in Britain and the west (nor, although many in the Jewish community feel this way, do British Jews who inhabit bubbles created variously by an insular community, ideology or self-serving fantasy and denial).
Many Brits have no idea what Jews are — the vast majority have never met one. Many haven’t a clue about the realities of the Middle East, Jewish history in the land of Israel — including the historic perfidy of the British establishment — or the full obscenity of the fundamental lie of Palestinianism (nor, alas, do too many Jews). Hardly anyone understands the full and unique horror of antisemitism.
And virtually no-one in Britain — including many in the Jewish community — has the faintest idea of the incredulous recoil with which many Israelis are now reacting to Britain, which they are perceiving as a loser society on its way out due to the linked pathologies of Israel-hatred, antisemitism and Islamist appeasement. For the Israelis, to whom defending the life of their embattled nation is everything, the vision of Britain as a society with a cultural death-wish is simply incomprehensible.
In similar vein, virtually no-one in Britain grasps the utter contempt with which many Americans who are not on the left view their cousins across the pond. The cutting comments by vice-president JD Vance about European defence freeloading that have so shocked Britain and Europe -- both in his Munich speech and in the remarks of the closed group discussing the Houthi war plans that found their way to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg -- reflect a widespread view in the US that Britain and Europe are finished because they are third-world hell-holes that no longer know what their national identity is and care even less about defending it.
Of course, those in Britain who loathe both Israel and Donald Trump will dismiss such views. Nevertheless, how others see the UK may strike a wider chord among millions of Brits — who largely share many of these perceptions — than its myopic, arrogant and self-destructive elites care to admit.
*** My new book The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West – and Why Only They Can Save It, can be bought on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk