Heard a radio programme about yet more Israeli racism. This time it was about foreign workers who have come to Israel to do the worst kinds of job - building work, cleaning - the kind of work that Palestinians used to do. These people have no rights under Israeli law, even if they are born there, because they are not Jewish. They are being rounded up by migration police and being sent back to their countries of origin at the moment. Some 20 thousand people.
I know that Jewish people can be as racist as any other group of people. We are no better and no worse. Of course. I know that there are similar issues here in Britain. And yet I take this on as my own. It feels more like abuses that my own people are doing against others. The people who use migrant workers here are not people I relate to. They are rich or farmers or factory owners so I see the human rights abuses that they perpetrate in terms of class. Whereas Israelis doing the same thing, I see in terms of my own people. It is a crime of 'us' against 'you'. I don't think it's self-loathing that I relate to a country of Jewish people above rich English people. I feel responsible for my people, my community, my brother.