New Jersey high school student Carlos Almonte at a protest outside the Israeli consulate in New York on December 28th, 2008. Photo: Screenshot.

Israeli columnist Dror Feuer jumped at the chance for a long-weekend in London as a break from war in Israel last week, but returned with astute observations about British adoration of Hamas as the underdog, a “one-sided media” that doesn’t even pretend to show the other side, and stories of Jews enduring tongue-in-cheek taunts, including a website called ‘Death to All Juice.’

In his column published on Thursday in Globes, Feuer wrote that his trip “all began terribly,” when his easyJet flight to Luton was trapped on the runway in Tel Aviv for five hours, before being cancelled, because of the “situation.”

On the plane he met many young British Jews. “All of them spoke of a strong anti-Israel sentiment in the media, academia, and on the social networks, and of their frustration in facing such gross one-sidedness; one that is unwilling to listen,” he wrote. “In their daily lives, they all made a point of saying, there is no sense of fear or violence in the streets. London is not Paris. It is much more inclusive and tolerant. Yet, still, it’s not pleasant.”

“They showed me the ‘Death to all Juice’ Internet initiative (look it up). It sounds innocuous enough in Hebrew, but in London, this humor becomes much less comfortable. Almost everyone spoke of latent anti-Semitism, which was the root from which the current protest had sprung.”

“They spoke of demonstrations at some of the more radical universities, such as the London School of Economics (LSE) and University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in which students set up roadblocks, dress up as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, and inspect everyone who comes in — that sort of thing.”

When Feuer arrived in London, the universities were quiet after a huge demonstration that he was sore to have missed, with up to 10,000 Britons railing against Israel, but at the school’s grounds were leaflets and flyers against Israel. “They were 100% right, the friends from the grounded airplane,” he said.

Feuer, who has been a journalist for nearly 20 years, returned to his friend’s flat and was appalled when he watched the British news: “The vast majority of British media, the BBC in particular, but also SkyNews and print news, make for an extremely depressing experience. Almost enough to make your head explode. I would describe the sampling as ‘one sided,’ but then even the term ‘one sided’ implies that somewhere there are, in fact, two sides, and that someone chose one of them. But it didn’t even look that way to me. There was only one side.”

Coverage of Israel is only of the destruction in Gaza: “Only the IDF destroys, bombs, demolishes; there is almost no mention of rockets in Israel. Occasionally they mention the Iron Dome, but when they show a house in Israel that was hit by a rocket, they make …read more

Source: The Algemeiner

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