British author JK Rowling is a brilliant storyteller who achieved her fame and fortune creating Harry Potter, one of modern literature's heroic characters, He's noted for his willingness to face up to evil and stand by his values no matter what the odds. More than one person has seen Rowling's Harry Potter series, written in the age of the terrorism of 9/11 and the London Tube bombings as an allegory for our own times.
Britain has changed a great deal recently. It's become a place with 9 sharia courts mandatory for Muslims in domestic affairs, scandals involving Muslim gangs engaged in serial rape and abuse of British girls and a rising tide of anti-semitism,often thinly masked as 'anti-Zionism.'
It's a place where a British soldier can be openly beheaded in broad daylight on the streets of London, and where certain areas areas are virtually no-go areas for non-Muslims. And it's a place where the BDS movement is strong, and where even the BBC's former chairman called the nationally funded broadcaster biased and warped in its Middle East coverage where Israel is concerned.
The vociferously anti-Israel Labour Party just elected Jeremy Corbyn by a landslide as its new leader, a man who makes no secret of his hatred for Israel and refers to Hamas and Hezbollah as 'friends.'
One of the more insidious aspects of all this are widespread calls for boycotts of Israel scientists, academics and cultural figures, frequently expanded to include British Jews or anyone else who defends Israel and dares to go against the tide.
Ms. Rowling (who remains a solid Labour supporter) appeared for a moment to stand against that tide last week.
Along with about 150 other prominent Britons in the arts, she signed an open letter in the very anti-Israel Guardian newspaper calling for more cultural ties and engagements with Israel instead of boycotts.
"Cultural boycotts singling out Israel are divisive and discriminatory, and will not further peace," the letter states. "Open dialogue and interaction promote greater understanding and mutual acceptance, and it is through such understanding and acceptance that movement can be made towards a resolution of the conflict."
The letter continues by voicing support for the two-state solution and concludes that "Cultural engagement builds bridges, nurtures freedom and positive movement for change."
In view of the ongoing cultural,academic and artistic boycotts of all things Israeli now ongoing in Britain and elsewhere, this letter was at least an admirable attempt at a principled stance, and a chance to go on record as someone unwilling to go along with the mob.
And then the mob struck back, singling out JK Rowling, the most famous and well known of the signers as a traitor to her leftist views. And goodness,did she cave quickly, revealing the moral delinquency within! Here's her response:
“The Palestinian community has suffered untold injustice and brutality. I want to see the Israeli government held to account for that injustice and brutality. Boycotting Israel on every possible front has its allure. It satisfies the human urge to do something, anything, in the face of horrific human suffering.
What sits uncomfortably with me is that severing contact with Israel’s cultural and academic community means refusing to engage with some of the Israelis who are most pro-Palestinian, and most critical of Israel’s government. “
In other words, what JK Rowling is telling her critics is 'What are you thinking? There are all sorts of self-hating Jews and far Left Israelis we can team up with to use as a cover for our own Israel hatred and anti-semitism! Why throw out the baby with the bath water?'
This at a time when Jewish men, women, children and the elderly in Israel are being targeted for terrorist assault on a daily basis, and the 'Palestinian community' is by and large applauding it as something holy.
And JK Rowling gives this hateful conduct a complete pass, legitimizing it.
I'll resist the temptation to speculate here on how her Harry Potter stories would have been warped if her fictional creation had her morals and her values.
Some things are so obvious they need no explanation, especially when cowardice and appeasement call and receive such a willing and servile answer.
1 comment:
I think people forget that Britain has always been a very antisemitic society. It covered it up well for decades after the Holocaust, but with the influx of Islamic antisemitism it allows the average Brit to let loose with their suppressed Jew-hate. England is simply reverting back to her true self. The land of the Magna Carta and the Mother of Parliaments is in truth a virulently hateful place. Read "The Trials of the Diaspora," by Anthony Julius, which details the history of antisemitism in England.
And as far as JK Rowling is concerned, it is truly lamentable that she is so ignorant considering her immense talent. But then again, she is merely a product of her Oxford, or was it Cambridge, education too.
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