Tangled up in Jews - but Jewlie Burchill can’t really say why.

My, oh , my. Enfant Terrible, British shock 'journo', pathological attention seeker and ridiculous philosemite Julie Burchill is at again. A couple of British Zionist Jews don't really dig her:

From Mel Poluck

I went to a conference yesterday. I saw the journalist and author Julie Burchill speak. I couldn’t believe what I heard.

Although I’d read a few of her articles, I didn’t really know much about The Burchill before I saw her interviewed by Director of The European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (EISCA) Winston Pickett. I knew she was a bit controversial, she used to write for the NME then the Guardian (which she no longer does for reasons that will become clear later in this post) and that she got up some people’s noses.

The reason I was so dumbfounded is that I’ve never seen a real-life philo-semite, only heard about them. But Burchill considers herself one, bigtime. She told the Limmud conference -coverage from the JC on the talk here - that at the age of 10 she told her mum she wanted to marry a Jew, a big ask when you live in rural Bristol. She recently went to Israel and bought a fire engine for Sderot, the southern town which is under pretty much constant attack from Hamas-fired Kassam rockets (as of January 2008, more than 8,000 rockets have been launched at Sderot and the Western Negev according to this source).

It’s all quite flattering and refreshing that a high-profile, left-wing non Jew [edit: Burchill is neither leftwing nor rightwing and fires at anything that moves] is so adoring of Jews and vociferously opposing anti-semitism, especially at a time when it is on the rise across Europe. There was a warm feeling in the room as one of the few non-Jewish speakers at Limmud bigged up her Jewish cousins and most notably, Israel. But the atmosphere in the room turned strange and those warm, fluffy vibes became uncomfortable and odd.

She started to cry at the mere mention of the time she found out about the Holocaust as a teenager (she’s now 50), learning at the same time that troops were invading Israel at the beginning of the six-day war, which saw Israel attacked by four neighbouring countries.

The woman standing next to where I was standing - it was a popular session - piped up and angrily shouted “I’m sorry, but I find this very offensive” to which Julie sharply replied in her high-timbred West Country squeal: “If this was a room full of Muslims, you’d be out the door.”

Then she referred twice to Islam as being ‘evil’ which in my view, tainted all the nice things she said. I was with her all the way on the admiration of Israel, but thought that was out of order.

A less belligerent lady put her hand up and said “Could we possibly stop referring to ‘all’ Muslims and start saying ‘radical’ Muslims?” to which Burchill exclaimed curtly “No!”

Our self-proclaimed Christian, Feminist, judeophile Burchill banged on about how great “you lot” are and although she admitted she wasn’t very eloquent, which is why she writes, she not once backed up this adulation with any reasons. It was an empty love whose reasons remain unknown to me, so I began cynically to think that this was part of a plan to expand her book sales. She’s got one on the market at the moment about hypocrisy, funnily enough.

I was left wondering what is this love for Jews founded on? One woman, an educated lady in her 60s I spoke to who had also attended the talk said “How can she say she loves all Jews? She doesn’t even know me.” I had to agree.

During her talk there was a lot of tutting and bemused looks from the - mostly middle aged, mostly Jewish - audience. It all began to get a bit embarrassing. She came across as increasingly sycophantic in her philosemitism and increasingly unhinged as the interview progressed.

All this while a petition calling for the Israeli PM to facilitate Burchill's taking up residence and citizenship in Israel is still ongoing! Ungrateful brat...

In the mean time she's co-written a book with another self avowed philosemite, Chas Newkey-Burden, called 'Not In My Name: A Compendium Of Modern Hypocrisy'. Needless to say, the chapter on Israel, written by Chas (also of Oy Va Goy! fame) doesn't make even the slightest mention of Israeli hypocrisy regarding the peace process or the ongoing colonisation of the West Bank. Our jubilant useful idiot visited Israel but not the OT, you see, but that's philosemitism for ya...