We are delighted to share a transcript of the speech delivered by Rt Hon Tony Blair at the Holocaust Educational Trust Annual Appeal Dinner, held in London on Monday 15th October 2018.
Tonight, we pay special tribute to the survivors because it’s important that what they have to say is preserved. Just recently I was in Chicago at the Illinois Holocaust Museum where they’ve actually turned the evidence and testimony of their survivors into special holograms where the person appears in front of you on the stage. You can put questions to them because they’ve given answers to all the questions that could conceivably be asked.
And this collective memory is so important because it’s this collective memory of the experience of history that teaches us the lessons of history, that allows us to challenge effectively when prejudice rears its head in the present. And it’s this collective memory that allows us to give a light to the future.
So antisemitism is today – well it’s never gone away – but today it’s back, and in a way that I never considered conceivable or possible.
I want you to know, which is why I’m so pleased that Ed [Balls] and Yvette [Cooper] are here and many other Labour members of parliament too, that for those of us who know what the Labour Party should truly be about, there is nothing more abhorrent than the notion that antisemitism is alive in the Labour Party today.
Six months ago I was saying that we must root it out – well you know some action has been taken – but the truth is as Karen [Pollock] was saying, many people are still in denial.
It is not enough to challenge antisemitism in general, you have to challenge it in particular. Because it has taken a new form today in the attempt to delegitimise and demonise the state of Israel. But what we always learn is that whatever new form antisemitism takes it drags along behind it the horrible creatures of the past.
When people talk about Jewish financiers, some of the criticisms of George Soros, statements about Trump supporting Jews, or in a statement that I’m afraid was as ignorant as it was unpleasant, suggesting that a section of the British Jewish community did not understand a sense of British irony. Which by the way anyone familiar with Jewish humour knows that the Jewish community has turned irony into an art form.
This is unacceptable because as that resurgence of antisemitism happens in a new guise it does come back and in a way that brings out the demons of the far right and the far left. And so what I want to say to you tonight is that we have to deal with this head on, we have to deal with it with unswerving determination, and we have to deal with it as a new form of antisemitism and explain why it’s wrong.
Since leaving office I’ve made now actually significantly over 200 visits to the State of Israel, so I’ve learnt quite a lot about it. And what I want to say to you tonight is a new generation, particularly of young people, requires new explanation. We have to go and explain what Zionism is.
Zionism as conceived by Herzl, is about a homeland for the Jewish people. But Zionists are not people who don’t want to see help and justice for the Palestinians. The Zionist camp the legal party in Israel, is a party dedicated to the two-state solution. This needs to be explained. We need to explain how the state of Israel, whatever criticisms you have, is a democracy with the rule of law, with a free media, with actually I think the only Gay Pride march in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world. It is the only democracy in the Middle East. And we have to explain those of us that have been there.
I remember sitting in the home of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and as we were talking and dusk settled, we heard from across the way the screens of the muezzin in the mosque. It’s also a place of religious freedom. Now I sit in many places in the Middle East in many different countries, but I’ve never sat in another country in the Middle East hear the screens of the Jewish Cantor from the synagogue.
So whatever criticism you have, and by the way, no fiercer critics of the Government of Israel are to be found than in Israel, as any of you will know who have ever been there.
To call their politics ‘robust’ would be a British understatement, and possibly an understatement that indicates how profound and vibrant the democracy of Israel is. We need to explain this, we need to say to people ‘if you were a critic of the government and you were unjustly accused of an offence, in which country’s legal system on the Middle East would you prefer to be tried? There’s only one answer.
And we’ve got to say this, and we’ve got to say it particularly from the progressive side of politics, from the left side of politics, because that’s where this new strain of antisemitism comes from. And it comes in part from a very ugly alliance between parts of the left and Islamism.
We have to explain to people why when Israel is singled out in this way, it is anti Semitic and it is unacceptable and it’s a combination of ignorance and prejudice that has to be confronted and has to be defeated.
I don’t believe we can stay in a situation, not here not all over Europe, not even I would say in parts of the United States today, where these arguments can go unchallenged.
And it’s not enough for us simply to say that antisemitism is wrong, because many of those will agree with that as a general statement, but when it comes to the particular, they are prepared to indulge in sentiment that is actually profoundly anti Semitic.
And with the antisemitism it’s amazing how it’s always a harbinger of a problem of a wider nature in society. It’s very rare that you have antisemitism without anti democratic sentiment because it is in that antisemitism and in the prejudice that it exhibits that we find those that don’t care about the rule of law, who don’t care about a free media, who don’t advocate the principles of democracy. And something else that the Holocaust Educational Trust does very well is recognise as well that when there’s prejudice against any minority, it should be a concern for all minorities.
That’s why Islamophobia is also wrong. That’s why remembering the Holocaust in Rwanda is also right. This is about values, about basic values that of course impact the Jewish community particularly when it takes this hatred form of antisemitism, but it should concern all of us because when people in the Jewish Community feel discriminated against or vilified, then that is a blow struck against each and every one of us in our country.
This is the challenge that we have today and for as long as there is human kind, progress will always strive against prejudice. But the reason why the work of this trust is important is because it gives strength to progress as it defeats prejudice.
So I think we are in a very important moment and I wanted to come here this evening just to tell you that you should understand that many of us feel passionately on this subject, will not be silent on this subject either and will continue to speak out for what we believe is right and is true.
But I want to end on a note of optimism. When you meet the survivors you see people who have come through the most unimaginable horrors and yet are here this evening contributing to our occasion, and have given so much back to the society to which they are part. You see in them a cause for optimism, you see in the fact that there are members of parliament from all different political parties that are here tonight and on this issue there is no division between us.
Our politics are somewhat divided at the moment as you know. All over this country too, there are people who regard antisemitism with the same repugnance and distain as we do.
So this is a difficult, seminal period it’s when we’re going to have to get up on our loins and go and fight the battle that frankly should have been over many years ago. But we’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it knowing that in the end this optimistic view of the world in which people mix freely across boundaries of faith and culture and race and ethnicity. It is something worth fighting for because actually the best societies in the world today, the most productive, the innovative the most creative, take that value and make use of it.
When I look round this room today and I see so many people, some of whom have been here, whose families have been here many generations, others who have come much more recently, have brought energy and vitality, great things for our country. What we’re fighting for is not just something that happened in history, it’s something that is profoundly relevant, and that will decide the future for us. Which side are we on? The side of progress or prejudice? Which side are we on? The side of hating those who are different, or reaching out and establishing common ground.
This is the challenge today and I am optimistic about the future. The fact we’re here is a reason for optimism. So to you are to all of your colleagues, thanks for all you are doing. To the Holocaust Educational Trust, you’ve got 30 years behind you, you have 300 years or more in front of you, because we’re never going to forget and we’re never going to give up and in the end we will win.