Note to the British socialists at The Guardian: Smashing up the windows of Jewish-linked establishments does not have a glorious history.
Jonathan Liew’s offensive column in the often-offensive far-left U.K. newspaper The Guardian is introduced this way: “A corner of north London where food has become a battleground in the Israel-Gaza war -- A smashed window here, a provocative sticker there. In an age when protest feels increasingly meaningless, it’s no wonder that acts of petty symbolism are on the rise.”
The “smashed window” subhead refers to the violent vandalism suffered by a newly opened branch of Gail's, an upscale bakery chain in the United Kingdom. Liew, who has a pattern of anti-Jewish columns, casually passed along why Gail's windows had been shattered in the name of Palestine. The column's timing makes it even nastier, in the wake of attacks on Jewish schools in Europe and a synagogue in the United States.
But first came a self-conscious, densely detailed description of a meal at the nearby sainted Palestinian café, which comes off like a Pete Wells food review suffering indigestion.
First comes the hummus: studded with chickpeas, anointed with a little reservoir of olive oil, greedily smeared up with hunks of pitta bread and messy fingers. Then the tabbouleh, then some homemade falafels, and then the lentil soup, and already the senses are overloaded, plates and bowls spilling off the edge of the table. But there shall be no reprieve, for the mains are coming.
Liew painted a clash between sainted Palestinians vs sinister Israelis (the bakery chain has the most tenuous links to Israel, which apparently makes the new store target-worthy).
….Amid the chaotic bustle of north London, food is one of her links back, a marker of the Palestinian identity that Israel’s bombs and snipers are so intent on erasing.
Liew is laying down big hints here, portraying Gail’s as a metaphor for mighty Israel (the restaurant was founded by an Israeli baker no longer connected with the company), and, most notoriously, of “heavy-handed high-street aggression” for the crime of existing next to a Palestinian-owned café.
....Critics accuse it of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies. And so even though Gail’s describes itself as “a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK”, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian cafe feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.
Bain Capital also owns part of Burger King and the UK pizza chain Pizza Express, which aren’t being harassed.
The night before it was due to open, Gail’s was daubed with red paint. Less than a week later, all its windows were smashed in. Slogans reading “reject corporate Zionism” and “fuck Bain Capital” were written on its walls....
One doesn’t have to be paranoid to think The Guardian is trafficking in anti-semitic tropes:
And so somehow these two north London cafes, from two entirely separate worlds, with what we have to assume are two almost entirely separate clienteles, have found themselves on the frontline of a war. A deeply asymmetric war, defined by gross imbalances in power and resources and platforms...
Meanwhile, the Palestinian café is sanctified as brave for even existing (though no one has tried to shut it down through violence).
....In the current oppressive climate, even to exist as a Palestinian in western society is to be the target of aggression and suspicion, to be tainted as a murderer and an antisemite....
Liew nervily portrayed the Palestinian cause (supported by elites in every country, the United Nations, and other international bodies) as “disenfranchised" while again rationalizing anti-Jewish violence.
Does any of this move the dial in the occupied territories even one iota? Almost certainly not. But perhaps this is simply the nature of an increasingly disenfranchised age. Palestinian activism has arguably never been less capable of exerting a meaningful influence on global events, and so is increasingly defined by small acts of petty symbolism. A smashed window. A provocative sticker. You can’t lay a glove on the US-Israeli military-industrial complex, and you can’t get your local council to boycott Israeli goods, and you couldn’t stand with Palestine Action and the protest march on Sunday has been banned by the Metropolitan police. So some people then direct their ire at the bakery with distant links to Israeli security funding.
