Robbie Williams has been on the receiving end of abuse after it was announced he will be playing again in Israel this year. That is not surprising. What is surprising is how a mainstream media publication – the Daily Mail – has correctly characterized this abuse as antisemitic and attacked those behind it, who they again correctly identify as including those on the Left.
Antisemites’ vile attacks on Robbie Williams: Former Take That singer, 49, is compared to Nazi sympathisers by Twitter trolls for agreeing to perform at a summer festival in Israel
Robbie Williams has been targeted with antisemitic abuse after announcing that he is to appear at a festival in Israel this summer.
Among the most offensive remarks on social media was one claiming that he would have been happy to perform for the Nazis in the Second World War.
Other posts also made Nazi slurs about the singer and Israel. The 49-year-old former Take That star – whose wife Ayda Field, 43, is Jewish – is facing a barrage of hate from anti-Israel fanatics and Left-wing extremists after agreeing to sing at the Summer In The City festival in Tel Aviv on June 1.
Habib Naser tweeted: ‘Robbie Williams is garbage – he’ll perform anywhere to get a dollar. He’ll perform for Nazi soldiers if it was the 1940s.’
Another post read: ‘Israel is an illegal occupation similar to Nazi Germany… you gotta pay people to spread propaganda.’
A further tweet featured two cartoon images of an Israeli soldier, and a German Nazi soldier, with the wording directed at Williams, saying: ‘@Robbie Williams look like you have sold your soul to the devil.’
Douglas Fur tweeted that Williams had agreed to the concert because ‘Israel pays a lot more than other countries doesn’t it?’
He added: ‘That’s why Robbie’s selling out again and why he says a lot of b****** about loving the apartheid state.’
Claims that Israel uses money to purchase support have been a theme of antisemitic tropes about Jews for decades.
Granted, the Daily Mail is considered right-wing. But I have taken them to task on many occasions for what seems to have been anti-Israel reporting.
This is not to say they haven’t gotten it right before. It is just nice to see it at a time when most are not willing to call Jew-hatred out, especially when it is coming from the Left and/or masquerading as “anti-Zionism.”
