Antisemitism is on the increase in the UK. To the extent, writes Melanie Phillips in the Jewish Chronicle, that an increasing number of Jewish people are saying there is no future for Jews in Britain."Week in and week out, Israelis are blamed for defending themselves against mass murder. . . While atrocities by tyrannies and rogue states provoke almost total indifference, Israel is treated as a class apart: apparently the very worst country in the entire world, a kind of global blight which has to be expunged altogether from civilised society if not from the face of the earth. . .
"Few government ministers grasp the nature and scale of what is happening. Most don't think there is a problem, and many of those who do think it is Israel's own fault. . . While many Tory backbenchers support Israel, the government, with some very honourable exceptions, is hostile. . .
"The callow and opportunistic Cameroons are blank slates upon which can be written the fashionable bigotry and historical illiteracy of our times.
"The Cameron government did not create the madness now raging against Israel. It could, however, control it by standing up for truth and justice against lies and prejudice. Typically, it is choosing to fan the flames of ignorance and hatred instead."
One story that was not overburdened by media coverage in the UK: Thousands of demonstrators armed with sledgehammers broke into the Israeli embassy in Cairo last week and sacked and set fire to the building, dumping the Israeli flag and hundreds of documents - some of them classified - through the windows as police looked on.
Israeli officials were unable to contact Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, head of the Supreme Military Council, currently the ruling power in Egypt, because no one knew where he was. Or so they said. It was only hours later, after the US intervened, that Egyptian security forces rescued a few Israelis who had locked themselves in a secure part of the building, evidently fearing for their lives.
It is suggested the field marshal delayed in order to demonstrate that a future administration would need the military to keep order. Instead, he appears to have demonstrated that it will be Islamic militants, not the military, who will control Egypt.
The Israeli ambassador and 80 staff and families were taken from their homes and lifted out of Egypt on two Israeli military planes. The Israeli Prime Minister said despite the attack, Israel would keep its peace treaty with Cairo.
Meanwhile, Israel has not forgotten how to defend herself. You will find an interesting insight into the work of some of the most important people in Israel's Defence Forces by clicking here.
