Watch: Israel advocate Pollard — ‘it’s not antisemitic to conflate Jews with Israel’

Stephen Pollard, former editor of anti-left libel factory the Jewish Chronicle, is a fan of Israel. A die-hard fan, unafraid to say so even after two and a half years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And he’s unafraid to say that conflating Jews with Israel isn’t, in his opinion, antisemitic.

Which is interesting, since even the discredited ‘IHRA definition’ of antisemitism pushed by the Israel lobby for its chilling effect on free speech says it is:

Pollard was talking to BBC Radio Ulster, with anti-genocide activist Ashok Kumar also taking part, when he made the admission. Pollard was trying desperately to push the idea that opposition to the settler-colonialist entity’s crimes had created “ambient antisemitism” — the latest version being pushed by the lobby. Kumar asked him whether he thought that conflating Jews with Israel was antisemitic. And to his credit, the host — surprisingly for the BBC — pushed the question until Pollard answered. And said no:

The only surprising thing about Pollard’s position, of course, is that he admitted it. The Israel lobby routinely conflates Jewish people generally with the settler-colonial entity and its actions, because Zionism is antisemitic as well as more broadly racist. This lobby is concerned with Israel and Zionism and not with the welfare of Jewish people generally.

Featured image via DDU