The “3D test” of antisemitism is a set of criteria formulated in 2003 by Natan Sharansky in order to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three Ds stand for delegitimization, demonization, and double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism.
Applying this test to what is happening in Britain, it seems clear to me that large sections of the mainstream media, some backbench and some frontbench MPs from the governing Labour Party, and many voices on the street, while attacking Israel, are in fact revealing their antisemitism. To what extent this antisemitism is a consequence of the rise of the far right, the far left, or militant Islamism, is debatable, but that it is the reality today in Britain is, I would argue, an undeniable fact. This is a situation that I see only deteriorating in the future.
At the same time, militant Islamism in Britain is occupied not only with Israel and the Middle East, but also with the political and cultural future of Britain. I fear for the future of British society and, indeed, of Western civilisation.
This was the warning voice that I hoped to capture with my blog today. From the feedback I have received, and some I haven’t, it would appear that I failed in my mission. My fable was presumably insufficiently accurate a parallel of the reality I was seeking to reflect, not a tight enough fit. I was also, as Bernice feared, too caught up in my own apprehension of reality to feel the need to make the metaphor clearer for anyone who was not already consumed by the same fears as I am.
Rest assured that I’ve learnt my lesson. From now on, I will either be explicit or confine myself to trivia. Having established that I’m not Eric Blair, I’ll leave literary allegorical fables to the big boys.
I totally get the metaphor, David. I have been speaking of the dangers of rampant antisemitism for all of society. I never thought to make the link of the travails of Jews due to rampant antisemitism with the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
Maybe because I have known you so long, or our genes are similar, or we have been talking all year, or we read and share the same commentators, or I live in the UK and have been waiting for political Islamism to flex its muscles (remember Londonistan?), I share your pessimism and got this immediately. I thought it clever an provocative. But of course I’m biased.
Keep up the good work. Here’s to the next 250,
Martin, no longer a Pru Forrest
Hard to be sure of the future. We elder citizens follow in our parents and grandparents footsteps as becoming more and more pessimistic as we grow older. When we were youngsters: Vietnam, South Africa, Cambodia, Chile, Argentina, the Cold War, the Yom Kippur war … the list goes on.We were too busy having fun and starting families to see doom and gloom .
I also wasn’t sure of the metaphor. The story of the child choristers in the mine connected me to the image that I believe George Steiner devised of the Jew as the canary in the mine, and the mine as Western civilization, so antisemitism was seen as a warning to all.
I originally wrote them as canaries, but then, of course (if I’m allowed to be anthropocentric) everyone’s view of the death of the canaries as acceptable seems reasonable. Choristers, less so.
I read it about the fate and future of israel