Now there are little islands of discrimination, of privilege, of little incestous elites, here, there and everywhere in the United Kingdom. However, on the whole ‘Blighty’ is a little bit more inclusive than most places and you will find a fair representation of the Toms, the Dicks and the Harrys, the Abdullahs and the Avis in all branches of the establishment and, while I invariably find myself in disagreement with that establishment, this open society reflects well on the UK. Alright prejudice is there but on the whole most British today accept that any person, no matter what their colour, religion or race, has the right represent the UK at every level outside the royal family. It is, therefore, with disgust that I registered a couple of articles in today’s ‘Haaretz’. The first one reported, “A British Jewish soldier was killed earlier this month in Afghanistan when a roadside bomb exploded near him while leading his platoon on foot patrol.”(1) Now, while I don’t think British soldiers should be in Afghanistan, when one of them dies, I think it matters very little whether it was a British Catholic, British Jew, British Protestant, British Atheist, British Muslim or British Whatever ….. get the point. Well, obviously they don’t because in the very same edition of the paper we have another article on the new speaker in the House of Commons, reporting that “Britain’s parliament got its first ever Jewish speaker of the house this week, with the election of Conservative MP John Bercow.”(2) The really sad thing is that if anyone from the said newspaper were to read this article, they probably wouldn’t get my point and that in itself is indicative of what a little conundrum, what a little oxymoron, what a little farce, the so-called “Jewish Democracy” is.
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094538.html
2 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1095301.html
British Jewish Soldier dies and House of Commons gets a British Jewish Speaker
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