(Lab)
My Lords, I come from a country with no history of anti-Semitism,
namely India. In the 11th century, the maharajah of
Travancore-Cochin made a declaration to Joseph Rabban, who was
leading Jews from Syria into India, offering him all the facilities
of a local potentate. He could collect taxes and ride in a
palanquin, and his people could follow their own customs. As a
result, Jews have flourished in India, and I was taught by a Jew
who was a professor of English literature. In business they have
flourished too.
There are Jewish characters in the literature, and they are
always represented as decent, well-behaved, clean and tidy, good
at making money and loyal to the country. These views of what it
is to be Jewish spread, and it is also striking that Mahatma
Gandhi’s closest friends were Jewish—Polak and Kallenbach. In the
1930s, he even suggested that several Jewish refugees could come
to India as, he said, “In a population of 300 million, what is a
few hundred thousand?” The British Government said they could not
come because they needed work permits. Anyway, this was my brief
history, not having been exposed to the history of the Holocaust
and systematic Jewish persecution. I heard about that when I came
to England about 45 years ago, and I have been very bothered
about this whole question.
This systematic persecution of a whole people lasted over 2,000
years, culminating in the Holocaust, when millions were
humiliated, despised, made into the objects of stupid experiments
and dehumanised. The question that I have asked myself is: why is
there anti-Semitism? What are its causes? From where does it
spring? Some light was thrown on this in the 1980s, when people
said that Indians will have a Jewish future and Afro-Caribbeans
will have an Irish future. That set me thinking about whether the
Indian experience of being thrown out of four countries—Sri
Lanka, Myanmar and all that—can throw some light on what happened
to the Jews. In trying to understand this, I will submit a few
observations that I have made over the years.
Anti-Semitism springs from a variety of factors. Some are
specific to a particular historical period; some are common to
all historical periods. As the right reverend Prelate the
said, the Jews have
been accused of killing our Lord—deicide—and this is not assuaged
by simply talking about Judeo-Christian tradition, because to
talk about Judeo-Christian tradition is to reduce Judaism to a
mere precursor to Christianity. It is to assimilate it into
Christianity and not to appreciate its autonomy and identity.
There is also the intolerance of difference. Jews, in my view,
were the first multicultural people who asked for their laws,
dress and other things to be respected. In a society where
multiculturalism was resented, obviously, the Jewish community
was resented. Then, of course, a highly successful community, in
all walks of life, is resented for obvious reasons. There is also
a deep sense of guilt about what happened in the Holocaust. Every
European nation was involved in this, not just Germany. Other
countries also co-operated in rounding up Jews and treating them
abominably. There is a sense of guilt—every time they think of
the Jews, they think of the Holocaust and they note there is a
sense of guilt. Nobody likes to be reminded of a horrendous
period in one’s history.
There is another factor that is specific to our age, which is
Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, which should not go
unmentioned. The relationship between the two is basically that
between the lion and the mouse. What are Palestinians? If Israel
wanted, it could snuff them out in a few seconds. Here is a
country with enormous soft power and enormous strength. It should
have the sense of security and self-confidence to say to helpless
people, “You send out rockets and do silly things, but we are
prepared to be magnanimous and forgiving. Let us open a new
chapter in a peaceful relationship”. Such an act of generosity
and self-confidence would do a great deal. A community that has
suffered so much could easily turn its suffering into a signal of
sympathy with suffering elsewhere.
