Enid Shelmerdine

Update on David Collings exhibit at Margate’s Joseph Wales gallery. Kent police sergeant just called. He told me: no action to be taken. The pictures (a few below) are in his view ‘criticism of the Israeli state’. He said ‘because some Israelis happen to be Jews it doesn’t mean it’s antisemitic’. He said: ‘you’re obviously very passionate’. (Thereby dismissing my complaint). I tried to tell him that he was perhaps not best judged to evaluate antisemitic content if his view was that this was not ‘Nazi imagery’ but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ and could he possibly send someone who knew more about this stuff. ‘No police officer is an expert in racism’, he told me, oddly. I gave him some friendly, if ‘passionate’ advice: sometimes ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ overlaps with anti-Semitic content and incitement. This is one such case. I’ll be complaining - please join in. Case 21-0938 I always want to believe the best of the polite agents of the law on the other end of the phone. But this well-spoken man telling me that hail of swastikas and blood and Jews was nothing but ‘criticism of the Israeli state’ is why we are where we are, why Jews don’t expect anything from the police, and how we find tha Kent police are exactly in tune with Matthew Collings.

The *Communities* Secretary says you’re “racist” if you don’t want a segregated event in Trafalgar Square where women have to huddle at the back.