Boris Johnson penned book on 'fiddling' Jews - now he's marching against antisemitism

Boris Johnson, the disgraced former prime minister and incoming GB News host, has long attracted condemnation for his written works – from comments about “tank-topped bum boys” to comparing Muslim women to “letterboxes” (Islamophobic incidents rose by 375 per cent in the week after that remark).

And now, the ex-MP has shown up at a march against antisemitism in London on Sunday, when back in 2004 he published a book titled Seventy-Two Virgins in which Jewish people are depicted as controlling the media and “fiddling” in an election.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance gives a working definition of antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”.

“Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” it reads.

The document also provides examples of antisemitism, which includes “making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions”.

In Johnson’s novel, all of the countries in the world vote country-by-country on the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

It reads: “And the news from the voting was still bad for America, though not as bad as it had seemed at first. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia were reporting almost 100 per cent insistence that the prisoners be sent home.

“But there were odd pockets of support for the President. He might have thought that Russia, after her humiliation in the Cold War, would take the chance to put her boot on the neck of the old adversary. But no, the Russians had their problems with Islamic terror.

“Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin), but it seemed that Russia, one of the most populous countries in the world, was voting heavily for America."

The Conservative Party did not issue a response when it was approached by The Independent for comment in 2019.

Speaking to GB News at the march organised by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, Johnson said: “It’s very sad, in a way, that this march has to take place at all. I’m afraid it does because what we’re all doing here – the only thing we’re all doing – is showing solidarity with Jewish people.

“That’s necessary because since October 7, I’m afraid there’s been a very peculiar response in many parts of the world including – I’m sad to say – in London. What we’ve seen is, I’m afraid, the emergence of antisemitism and a failure to focus on the appalling terrorist attacks of Hamas and for what they did on October 7.

“It’s kind of like an old spore of a virus that lurks beneath the floorboards of Western civilisation and our collective memory, and it comes out from time to time. It’s perennial, it won’t go away, and it flares up again.

“We’re seeing it flare up, and we need to call it out.”

He also called for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine amid the ongoing war between the Jewish state and the militant group Hamas.

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