Culture is eating itself and the Jews are the first course

'Hamas is coming', the graffiti on the Columbus memorial said

The rally against Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC this week was smaller than had been feared. But what it lacked in size it made up for in venom. Progressive and Muslim activists burned the Stars and Stripes and paraded bloodied effigies on Capitol Hill. A man who tried to rescue the flag from the flames was pursued to shouts of “get him”. A masked Islamist was pictured holding up a sign saying “Allah is gathering all the Zionists for the ‘final solution’”. People released crickets and maggots into Netanyahu’s hotel. Thugs spray-painted “all Zionists are bastards” and “Hamas is coming” on the Christopher Columbus memorial fountain outside Union Station, accompanied by an inverted red triangle that denotes targeting for death.

The protest was attended by a lot of people who should have known better. What were they thinking? Let us begin by being charitable. Some may demonstrate against Israel out of concern for civilians, despite the absence of calls for peace or the release of hostages. Steeped unknowingly in Hamas propaganda spread by international broadcasters or social media, shallow thinkers may truly believe that the Jews are wilfully killing babies. (If that was the case, why would anybody not protest?) Others may be young people, disenfranchised by increasing economic hardship and the incompetence of the political classes and radicalised by TikTok, who could not name the “river” and the “sea”. As they vandalise statues and jostle with police in echoes of the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, the Jewish state has become just the latest cipher for the establishment.

All of them, however, have exhibited a willingness to turn a blind eye to those who cannot be reasonably described as anything other than terrorist sympathisers. How else to explain the Hamas headbands, the genocidal chants, the effigies, the burning flags? These are militant evangelists for the dogmas of anti-Zionism, anti-racism, decolonisation and Islamism, and the useful idiots with their half-baked good intentions swell these ranks. To different extents, both groups have swallowed the Kool-Aid that has been fed to them at school, university or via the media. And whatever their individual motivations, they have all become footsoldiers in a pernicious cultural movement.

There are many names for this subversion, which is capturing younger generations and the elites in a pincer movement on liberal democracy. But I have come to call it the “New Radicalism”. This ideology comprises that dogmatic brand of progressive identitarianism known colloquially as “woke” – which is built on radical positions on race, colonialism, the environment, gender and sexuality – conjoined with Islamist extremism. Although held only by an elite minority (four out of five Americans support Israel), is has been imposed upon society by a cultural change that commenced with the Cold War and sexual revolution and accelerated with the rise of social media. The effects are all around us. Today, everything converges through the lens of identity and oppression, and since October 7, Gaza has become the movement’s rallying cry.

Since Hamas launched the orgy of butchery that changed the world, the meaning of the Palestinian flag has evolved as the context has shifted around it. Few would dispute the banner’s original significance as a neutral symbol of self-determination. But it was being flown in jubilation in London, Paris, Sydney and New York just hours after the atrocities in southern Israel, well before the Israeli army had responded. In the months that followed, while the Middle East’s only democracy battled for survival against the most depraved of enemies, the flag multiplied aggressively across the west.

Fast-forward to the present and the black, white and green stripes set alongside the red triangle has been embraced by the full range of social streams that combine into the New Radicalism. Bizarrely, it is commonly flown by “Queers for Palestine”, probably the most vivid example of the way in which cosseted western activists are dislocated from the reality of the causes they appropriate. It has dominated at Pride marches, been flown by drag queens, been raised ad nauseum on university campuses, been co-opted by Black Lives Matter and waved by climate protesters, who have even developed the chant, “no climate justice on occupied land”, as if Hamas are committed to net zero. Overall, it is apparent that this activism is not about real-life Gaza at all. It is about radical progressive ideology, narcissistic posturing, resentment of the establishment, hatred of the West and a deep desire to undo the Jews.

If our culture is eating itself, the Jews are the first course. Or rather, the Jews and the silent majority. Standing up for Jews has always been the first test of a nation’s health. History tells us that when this test is failed, wider collapse follows. Yet the speed with which horror at the terrorist atrocities flipped in favour of condemnation of the Jewish state, and subsequently the west in general, bore the stamp of decades of propaganda. As western universities burned under the influence of TikTok and Twitter, enemy states stood back and fanned the flames.

The rise of the New Radicalism, combined with the continued economic fallout from the 2008 financial crash and the collapse of the postwar liberal consensus, has polarised our politics. The centre – whatever that is – is increasingly failing to hold and the decent mainstream, which is deeply disturbed by the growing threat to our culture and values, is being eaten alive. This is true among conservatives, who believe, as Sir Roger Scruton wrote so beautifully, that “we have collectively inherited good things that we must strive to keep”. But it is also true of moderate left-wingers whose consciences trouble them amid the din of radical dogma all around.

Four weeks after October 7, an old university friend with whom I had lost touch sent me a message. She had since become an academic. She wrote: “I’m sorry for unfriending you on Facebook. When you went to work for the right-wing media, I thought you’d gone off the rails… I’m eating my words now. The left – which is where I’ve always positioned myself – has become extremist, not to mention, apparently, bloodthirsty.” Her struggles will resonate with many.

The Gaza marches were not just about the Jewish state. In Britain, the Union flag, the statue of Winston Churchill and the cenotaph war memorial all had to be defended from the mob. Police officers were attacked with fireworks, an Iranian counter-protester was violently arrested for simply holding a sign saying “Hamas is terrorist”, and an activist was threatened with arrest for walking near a rally while, in the words of the police, “openly Jewish”.

On elite campuses across the United States, meanwhile, the most privileged young people in the country appropriated Palestinian clothing, occupied university buildings and clashed with police, while calling for “humanitarian aid” to be delivered to them. In North Carolina, Pi Kappa Phi students had to prevent the Stars and Stripes from being replaced by the Palestinian colours. In New York, chants of “NYPD, KKK, IDF, they’re all the same” have become commonplace, while in Michigan, a Quds Day rally involved shouts of “death to America” as well as “death to Israel”, with one speaker calling for “the entire system of the United States” to be brought down. In a sign of the slipping allegiances of the new radicalism, another quoted the civil rights firebrand Malcolm X: “We live in one of the rottenest countries that ever existed on this Earth.”

The interlocking agendas of the different factions of the New Radicalism have united under the Palestinian flag. Their subversive intentions couldn’t be clearer. Yet despite their many problems and injustices, the United States, Israel, Britain, Australia and the European democracies are the richest, freest, happiest and safest nations the world has ever known. The activists – including, in his day, Malcolm X – can only exercise their right to protest because of that privilege, something for which millions of migrants fleeing despotic regimes risk their lives each year.

If we are to reverse this cultural dismantlement, we must recognise that Israelophobia is just the tip of an iceberg of New Radicalism that is slowly sinking the west. We must remember who we are. We must stand unapologetically behind the values of democracy, individual freedom, tolerance, neighbourliness, law-abidingness and open contracts that made our civilisation so successful in the first place. We must let nobody take them away.