Thought for the Day, 17 November 2003

Clifford Longley

Good morning. When I was in Cambridge last week someone pointed out the area of the city that used to be the old Jewish ghetto. It was an uncomfortable reminder. The ghetto was closed when the Jews were expelled from England in 1290 AD, after a century of massacre and dreadful persecution when people were prepared to believe any lie about the Jews no matter how absurd.

With a skeleton in our cupboard like that, British Christians are in no position to point a self-righteous finger at Muslims following the devastating bomb attack on two synagogues in Istanbul. The attack inadvertently drew attention to the vastly better treatment of Jews in Muslim countries over the centuries, compared to Christian countries. Many of Turkey’s Jews went there after they were expelled from Catholic Spain in 1492. And it is likely that some of those Spanish Jewish families were originally expelled from England - even, dare I suggest it, from that Cambridge ghetto.

Despite Islam’s tolerant record and the Prophet’s teaching in the Koran that Allah loves the Jews, anti-Semitism is now flourishing in parts of the Muslim world. Al Qaeda is not the only militant extremist Muslim group to have declared Jews - all Jews, everywhere - to be a legitimate target for mass murder. Whoever is eventually found responsible, that is undoubtedly the motive for these attacks on synagogues, of which the latest in Istanbul form part of a long line.

So when we discuss weapons of mass destruction and seek their elimination, shouldn’t we add race hatred to the list, and specifically, anti-Semitism? This is the one weapon of mass destruction of which we have had recent experience in Europe. You might object that anti-Semitism is a motive rather than a weapon. But it is a distinction without a difference. Give people a motive and they will find a weapon. Weapons of mass destruction can be ideas as well as armaments. For instance, as the Chief Rabbi was saying earlier in the programme, the notorious document known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is surely a precursor of genocide. A Russian secret policeman forged it at the end of the 19th century in order to whip up anti-Jewish feeling. He claimed it was a Jewish masterplan for the conquest of the world. The Nazis made great use of it, though by then it had been discredited as a fraud. And it is now on sale as a genuine historical document in Arab bookshops all over the Middle East. This particular WMD is only too easy to find. It is imperative that people like me do not just leave it to Jewish leaders like Dr Jonathan Sacks to say these things. As an English Christian it is my obligation to speak out not so much on their behalf but on behalf of truth. Otherwise we too will share some responsibility before God for the evils that will surely follow our silence.