From THE JERUSALEM POST, Jan. 4, 2007, by ANSHEL PFEFFER...
....[Jewish] Immigration from Britain was up by 45 percent in 2006. ...when it's added to unknown numbers of young British Jews who reportedly are leaving for other shores, such as the US, a worrisome trend begins to emerge. Are the Jews of one of the most successful outposts of the Diaspora beginning to leave?
Melanie Phillips has never been an official spokeswoman, but ... she is currently one of the most outspoken voices in a community which traditionally has been very careful not to rock the boat. On a visit to Jerusalem this week, she expressed no surprise at the aliya statistics.
"...I'm not surprised by the fact that it's jumped, because Britain's Jews are beginning to think in an increasing number that there is no future for the new generation of Jews in Britain."
As a leading columnist for the Daily Mail, Phillips has been at the forefront of the anti-establishment campaign trying to convince Britons that their country is being threatened by a wave of radical Islamism that has found in London and other cities not only a physical safe haven, but also a convenient center for the dissemination of its ideas and a source of many eager new converts.
Her latest book Londonistan analyzes the rise of a new generation of Muslim youths, radicalized by fanatical preachers who found shelter in Britain thanks to a lax immigration policy and the blind eye of the authorities, a situation that led to the bombings of London's public transport in July 2005 by British-born suicide bombers. Phillips connects the loss of national and religious values in British society and the culture of moral relativity and political correctness with an environment which continues to allow the activity of these preachers and their followers, even after the bombings.
....PHILLIPS IDENTIFIES the radicalized and growing Muslim community as only one factor leading many British Jews to consider emigration. "It's also not entirely because of the perception that non-Muslim Britain has become very aggressive towards Israel" she says, "though these are very important contributory factors. In my view, a very significant driver is simply the increasing Jewish awareness among British Jewish youth. There's been a dramatic increase in my lifetime of the number of Jewish children being educated at Jewish schools, a very considerable rise in Jewish awareness and learning that is all for the good. And such young people increasingly feel in large numbers that there is no future for them, or to be more precise for their children, in Britain, that it's not possible to live the kind of fulfilled Jewish life that you can live in Israel...British public life has turned against them...it's much more hostile than it was."
Phillips also identifies a growing divide between two parts of the community. "...those Jews who are most active in public life tend to be the kind of Jews who are typically at the forefront of demonizing Israel because they are left-wing." Those who openly identify themselves as Jews and defend Israel come up against a more modern, understated type of anti-Semitism - not one which puts Jews in immediate physical danger, but one which Phillips sees as no less disturbing.
"...there is a whole scale of social pressures which make people feel uneasy and uncomfortable. In certain professions, like journalism and academia, to be very publicly in favor of Israel ... can cost you your job."
There was always a degree of anti-Semitism among the British establishment, especially within the upper classes, but through much of the second half of the 20th century it was hidden and considered socially unacceptable. Phillips says that has changed over recent years.
"Then it was latent, now it is blatant, it's open. Twenty years ago, one would have never ever read in a mainstream newspaper or heard mainstream politicians talk openly about the Jewish conspiracy subverting the policies of the prime minister or the president of the US, now you do."
...IN THE FACE of this challenge, Phillips sees no organized response by the leadership of the Jewish community. "The leaders of the British Jewish community are servile," she says. "They never put their heads above the parapet; they believe in doing things behind the scenes and are very reluctant to jeopardize their standing in the British social circle. They have the standing of worms; in other words they have a social standing as long as they don't identify themselves with the Jewish people. That to me is disgusting, degrading and outright betrayal."
..."...one of the problems of the spinelessness of the British Jewish leadership is that the fight has not been had, that the lie has not been countered in public and that the Jewish community has allowed itself to be spineless. And if you're spineless, people kick you.
...DESPITE THE dire picture she paints of the situation in Britain, Phillips insists that she is an optimist who believes that Israel and the West can still win, though first they must realize that their battle is a joint one. "Saving British Jewry can't be done in isolation. It has to be a part of the defense of the free world. We have to say that Israel is not the cause of the free world's problems, Israel is actually the front line of the free world's defense and that its fight is the free world's fight. And that is one very important way of shifting the perception, because the impression that the Jews are responsible for the danger that Britain is in is to a large measure what fuels the animosity."
And here again, Phillips believes that Israeli politicians have much to answer for. "Israeli hasbara has failed strategically ever since the point that the Israeli Foreign Ministry felt that it didn't have to make the case any more. They've left the battleground open, they've allowed the enemy to colonize the battleground without the fight being had.
"I'm not saying for a moment that Israel should stop fighting the military fight, of course, but behind the military fight is a battleground of ideas. The Muslim Brotherhood has spent the last 50 years spending; billions of dollars of Saudi money have gone into guiding Europe to the ideas of Islam. They understand something that the West does not understand, that Israel has never acknowledged - that the way to fight the war of civilizations is first of all to command minds. It used to be a project to enlighten Britain and Europe and to bring truth into the public mind. The problem is that it has been stopped and the lies come instead.
"The Israelis are always on the defensive, responding to accusations. What they should be doing is making the case. They should be occupying the aggressive intellectual position, saying, 'Look world, these guys in the Islamic world are telling lies.'
"I'm an optimist. I don't believe that lies need only win, that it is inevitable. They'll only win if we allow them to, which at the moment is what we're doing."
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