This story is from the Telegraph: “Exhibition showing ‘Jews’ eating babies not abusive or insulting, police claim.”
Drawings at an “anti-Semitic” art exhibition allegedly showing Jewish people eating babies are not “directly abusive or insulting” to Jews, a police force has decided.
Kent Police has ruled that art in the exhibition condemned by leading Jewish figures and politicians for portraying anti-Semitic tropes has not reached the threshold to be considered either a hate crime or a non-crime hate incident.
The exhibit was called “Drawings Against Genocide,” and a sign posted by the “artist” or the gallery said “Antisemitic art exhibition this way.” Here are some of the drawings:
This one depicts the owner of Sotheby’s, Patrick Drahi, eating a baby:
The creator of the drawings, Matthew Collings, denies that they are anti-Semitic:
Mr Collings denied that it showed Jewish people, saying “nothing in the drawing says ‘Jews’ or claims Jews eat babies”. He said it “makes a comment that the owner of Sotheby’s is a Zionist” and “the message is that Zionism is a brutal ideology”.
I have no idea whether Mr. Drahi, a citizen of France, is a Zionist–someone who, like me, believes that Israel has a right to exist–or not. The crudest dodge of 21st century anti-Semites is to say that their venom is directed at “Zionists,” not Jews. But whom do they attack as Zionists? Jews.
Police in Kent regretfully said there was nothing they could do:
They said officers attended the exhibition and examined the art to get an “accurate understanding” of the material and its context before the case was assessed by senior officers.
However, they told the complainant they were “sorry” the drawings did not “meet the legal threshold for recording a criminal offence” of hate crime that stirred up racial or religious hatred.
The police said it also did not meet the threshold for recording as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI), an incident that falls short of being criminal but is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic.
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“There is no information to suggest hostility toward Jewish people as a group, nor any indication of risk of harm.”
I disapprove of hate crime laws and even more, I suppose, of the concept of a “non-crime hate incident” in which the police are nevertheless involved. But if this isn’t a hate incident, one would be hard pressed to find anything that would qualify. Given that flying the English flag has been investigated as a non-crime hate incident, the bar is ordinarily not high.
Jews in Great Britain, as elsewhere, are under siege. Legal questions aside, this kind of overt hate-fest obviously contributes to an atmosphere in which violence against Jews is rapidly becoming normalized.
