on August 9, 2026, 4:02 pm
How British Quakers Became Apologists for Zionism, Ethnic Cleansing & Anti-Palestinian Racism.
Israelis Enjoying the Bombing of Gaza from the Comfort of Sofas and Coffee Machines in Sderot
Opposition to anti-Semitism today is invariably support for anti-Palestinian racism. What I don’t mean is that opposition to anti-Jewish racism is equal to support for racism against Palestinians but what I do mean is that opposition to the ruling class, IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is equivalent to supporting Zionism and therefore anti-Palestinian racism.
The Quakers have a reputation for being on the saintly side of Christianity. For example nine of the 12 founding members of the 1787 Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, were Quakers.
I know from personal experience how supportive the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia have been in helping the Al Tafawk Kindergarten in Jenin to survive.
However many Quakers were active in supporting colonialism. The founders of Barclays Bank, which helped sustain first Apartheid in South Africa and then Israeli Apartheid, were Quakers.
In 1896 several banking Quaker families formed the nucleus of 20 private banking firms who formed Barclay and Company Limited. The author of Barclays Bank and its Quaker roots wrote about how
Most of the partners had slowly drifted away from the simple lifestyle of their Quaker predecessors, but they found it advantageous to preserve the Quaker image of trustworthiness, frugality and prudence.
Richard Nixon was both a Quaker and one of the pioneers of McCarthyism. Not all Quakers live up to their professed values of Simplicity, Truth, Equality and Peace
Simple piety without politics can end up in a dark place. A good example of this is the pamphlet Britain’s Quakers published ‘Challenging Antisemitism’ in February 2026. The pamphlet failed to even mention that allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ have been used to support the holocaust in Gaza.
Challenging Antisemitism could have been published by the Genocide supporting Board of Deputies. It offers no support to the Palestinians. Instead it endorses the IHRA anti-Semitism definition which was drawn up specifically to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
The Palestinians play the part of Banquo’s Ghost. Challenging Antisemitism is suffused with Christian guilt over the holocaust which seems to have corroded the authors critical faculties.
It isn’t difficult to understand that ‘anti-Semitism’ is the only defence that Israel has for the genocide in Gaza. Donald Trump, a racist bigot who called Somalis garbage, is nonetheless very concerned about anti-Semitism. It doesn’t take an Einstein to work out why neo-Nazis and White Supremacists love Zionism and Israeli Jews today.
The authors of this pamphlet are determined to ignore all context in order to parade their virtuous opposition to an anti-Semitism that barely exists whilst ignoring the elephant in the room – anti-Palestinian racism.
When a warrant for his arrest was issued by the International Criminal Court, Netanyahu’s response was that it was ‘pure anti-Semitism’, comparing himself to Dreyfus. When a group of Israeli soldiers were videod raping a Palestinian man and then arrested, the Israeli right protested and mobs besieged the Sde Teiman torture camp. When the Military Advocate General, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, leaked a video, she was arrested, unlike the rapists. The allegations were described by Netanyahu as a ‘blood libel’. Ctd....
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