UK columnist denies existence of Palestinians at New York event

Melanie Phillips, a controversial UK columnist, spoke at the “Rage Against Hate” conference in New York City in October, according to the Middle East Eye and agencies on November 24th.

The conference was held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on October 27th, with Phillips being a featured speaker at the event, which aimed to bring “together [the] Jewish community and pro-Israeli activists from around the globe.”

During a 29-minute speech, Phillips claimed that there is “no such thing as the Palestinian people” and insisted that only Jews had “any entitlement” to historic Palestine.

She added, “Justice for Palestinians has been deemed to be the issue that drives all before it. By apparently denying that happy outcome, the state of Israel has been perceived as the enemy of humanity itself.”

She continued, “This is the big lie that we are all up against. But the Jewish world has never identified this big lie as such and has never fought it.”

Denying the existence of Palestinians is a sentiment among Zionists, which likely gained momentum following a 1969 statement by then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, who claimed, “There were no such thing as Palestinians.”

The US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has also supported this claim and denies that Israel is breaking international law through its illegal settlement expansion.

Later on in her conference speech, Philips expressed concern over what she called the “steady rise of an Islamic political bloc in Britain, and I’m afraid here in America”.

Phillips has a history of promoting Islamophobic ideas such as the idea allegations of Islamophobia are inherently antisemitic, and has accused Palestinians of having a “Nazi-themed hatred of Jews.”

During her New York speech, she also stated that the West is facing destruction at the “hands of Islam”. She described the Palestinian cause as a “holy war” and said it was “a Trojan Horse for the Islamisation of the West”.

Writing in the Jewish Chronicle (JC), Phillips accused pro-Palestine supporters of “facilitating Jew-hate”, while the JC itself has been accused of inciting anti-Muslim hatred through false allegations of religiously-motivated violence against Christians from Palestinians.

However, Phillips is not alone in accusing Muslims of antisemitism, as the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was accused of Islamophobia over its announcement of a “Mamdani Monitor“, designed to track and investigate the policies of New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani. The ADL also conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Middle East Eye and agencies, Middle East Monitor and agencies, Maghrebi.org