Updates

As violent riots spread throughout Britain, with hordes of young men robbing and looting everything in sight, an unexpected champion has emerged for Britain’s aggrieved underclass. A call for Britain to restrain violence against their own people has come from none other than the Iranian Foreign Ministry. As reported by Iran’s state-controlled Press TV:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people, IRNA reported in the early hours of Tuesday.

Mehmanparast asked the British government to start dialogue with the protesters and to listen to their demands in order to calm the situation down.

The Iranian official also asked independent human rights organizations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.

These sentiments, of course, are a little rich coming from a regime that has been brutally repressing any dissent from its own people for decades and reportedly killed hundreds in repressing the opposition Green movement over the past two years. Take, for example, this reminder from Camelia Entekhabi-Fard of the current status of prominent Iranian opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who have been swept under the carpet after the regime successfully stifled their voices. However, as we are constantly reminded, Iran’s leaders rarely shy away from hypocrisy when there is an anti-Western point to be made.

The rioting has also been spreading to the areas in which London’s Jewish community live, prompting a rabbinic ruling to stay indoors as long as the riots continue. That said, the London-based Jewish Chonicle has reported that some Jews ignored this ruling and were filmed handing-out bread to people on the street. Bizarrely, this footage was put to classical music and uploaded on youtube:

The video’s description read as follows:

Why are Jewish community members giving out fresh bread to the rioters? Why are they encouraging more violence and fuelling them?

The comment thread on the video promptly descended into a Judeophobic hate-fest, with references to such fancies as the “Jew-controlled media” and this particularly heinous offering:

[expletive]ing get these jews gassed
hitler should have finished off the job
all jews out of london
[expletive] jews and israel

Fortunately, one commenter who was allegedly on the scene corrected this prejudice and another attacked the original poster for the racism in the comment thread. These are now the two most “liked” comments on the video.

1)
Actually, these “jews” were passing out fresh rolls to the TV crew and a few of the spectators. I was there and witnessed this taking place. Perhaps you should show a litle more compassion and think before you write such nasty, antisemitic and racist remarks. Jews in general are caring and in this nature they went and purchased food for the crew from their own money. And just by the way, some of those burnt out buildings are owned by Jews. Oh and finally, the sabbath ends with nightfall.

2)
Those evil jews giving out jewish bread to camera crews!! How dare they!! It obviously goes to show that they are trying to feed the jewish controlled media. Maybe they even poisoned the food with the blood of non-jewish babies. Maybe all you ANTISEMETIC MORONS SHOULD SHUT THE [expletive] UP and get a life.

The one positive aspect of the riots (if it can be called that) is that they do not seem to have yet descended into any kind of racial hatred campaign, as such disorder is wont to do. Hopefully, this video is merely an isolated incident and will not form a part of a growing trend.

Daniel Meyerowitz-Katz