Israeli journalist describes ‘unparalleled hatred’ in European protests

Elad Simchayoff, Israel’s Channel 12 European correspondent and the host of Israel’s highest rated podcast One a Day, has experienced his fair share of anti-Israel protests in his 12 years in London. However, over the past 17 months, he has witnessed levels of antisemitism at these gatherings that he never thought possible.

Simchayoff told the SA Jewish Report that he has been spat at, kicked, pushed, attacked, and so much more while covering anti-Israel protests in London.

“Ever since we started covering the protest scene, we have seen this vicious antisemitism,” he said. As far back as 2016, Simchayoff witnessed Londoners flying the Hezbollah flag proudly. Similarly, in 2021, he was speaking to a few anti-Israel protesters in London, and they showed him that they had painted the Israeli flag on the bottom of their shoes so that they could feel like they were stepping on Israel with every step they took.

“We’ve seen demonstrations before, but after such a horrible event that happened on 7 October and the information that came out two days later, I expected the sentiment to be at least partially different,” he said. “I immediately realised that something had changed, and what we’re seeing ever since is record-breaking antisemitic incidents all over Europe.”

While covering an anti-Israel demonstration outside the International Court of Justice at The Hague, he wasn’t able to engage with any of the protesters, but his coat was covered in spit marks.

Simchayoff was in Cape Town from 13 to 18 March to attend the Zionist Connect Conference hosted by the South African Zionist Federation Cape Council on 16 March.

There were anti-Israel protesters outside the Cape Town conference, and Simchayoff told of his many experiences of dealing with the anti-Israel narrative perpetuating itself throughout Europe.

“I know how difficult the reality has become for the Jewish community in South Africa,” he said. “I know that when I’m talking about the anti-Israel campaign or the pro-Palestinian campaign, one of the main driving forces in places of vast activity of these groups and this campaign comes from South Africa. So it was important for me to come here to see it with my own eyes, to hear the challenges that the Jewish community is facing, and try to give some insights and tools to people within the community to better handle or at least get a bit more understanding about what the community is going through and maybe even bring some ideas to how to make things a bit less difficult.”

Over the past 17 months, there have been mass anti-Israel demonstrations across Europe, with the largest one in London with half a million people in attendance. But what shocked Simchayoff the most was the narrative that the people at these protests were spouting, which he likened to Holocaust denial.

“People were telling me that they didn’t believe the versions that we portray about what happened. They told me that they didn’t believe that civilians were massacred,” he said. “They didn’t believe that civilians were abducted. They were telling me that when I tried to confront them and told them, ‘Listen, there are videos that Hamas itself broadcasted live during 7 October.’ They told me that it was all complete nonsense, that Israel was a start-up nation, and we could easily have manufactured artificial-intelligence-powered videos.”

Before 7 October, Simchayoff said, he was able to engage in dialogue with anti-Israel protesters, but since then, he hasn’t been able to cover these demonstrations in a balanced way.

“The levels of aggression, the levels of violence, have become something that I have never witnessed before. And there’s no room for dialogue. Even if you try to engage and try to have a conversation, there’s no room for dialogue anymore,” he said. “The levels of extremism, hate, and violence have become something unparalleled in any of the years I’ve been covering these affairs, military operations, and demonstrations.”

Simchayoff has become extremely concerned about the extent of the ignorance and unwillingness to engage in dialogue among the anti-Israel crowd. “When you try to talk to them and confront them with some facts or historical information, you see that they are there protesting not based on facts or knowledge, just hateful notions that you can’t even try to reason with,” he said.

“I had conversations with people who started arguing with me that Israeli forces were physically in Gaza before 7 October. When you try to explain to them that Israel had disengaged from Gaza, they simply don’t accept it.”

He said over the past 17 months, the media’s coverage of the war in Israel had changed. There had been less room for complexity as the news cycle changed. “Now, the international media is just basically for or against, black or white, good or bad, ” he said.

“This challenging period can be an opportunity for us. This is a time for us to unite, rethink, and reinvent our story as a whole,” Simchayoff said. “The events of 7 October turned us all into a generation of founders. We need to take control of our future, our community, and our story. Until 7 October, most of us at least kind of took it for granted. We thought we were part of something that started long ago and was irrelevant to us. But 7 October reminded us, forced us to take our faith and our future into our own hands and reshape the community, the wonderful community that we’re part of.”