How Palestinianism can whitewash racist tropes – even when they are not directed at Jews

The other is warmly received as a chat show regular and hailed as a loveable British eccentric. You do not need me to tell you that it is the woman who openly uses racist tropes – Miriam Margolyes – who is warmly received and the other – Dame Maureen Lipman – who is pilloried. This is Britain in 2026. For years, Maureen Lipman was regarded as a national treasure. She still is by many – by most, I'd venture. But for those infected by Palestinianism, she represents the epitome of evil. One poster calling for her to be boycotted gave her devil's horns and a pitchfork – which are also, of course, the same horns antisemites have attached to Jews over millennia. Her crime is not even that she has the gall to defend the right of Jews to live in safety in Israel and the diaspora; it is merely that she is a Jew who is unapologetic about being a Jew – and that damns her. Margolyes, on the other hand, has a long history of spouting racist tropes. But in the perverse ideology of Palestinianism, her outbursts are a virtue – because they are directed at Jews. She is deeply apologetic about her own Jewishness. In April 2024, for example, she said of Israel's behaviour in Gaza: 'To me, it seems as if Hitler has won.' She then repeated the trope in an interview with The Big Issue last year: 'The terrible thing I face is that Hitler won. He changed us, made us like him.' She added: 'I was born in '41 at the height of the Holocaust and I cannot bear to think that my people are doing exactly the same thing to another nation.' A few months later she told Kirsty Wark in a live broadcast on Radio 4 that the first Charles Dickens character that gripped her was Fagin. 'Jewish and vile…I didn't know Jews like that then, sadly I do now,' she opined. You might think that her latest imbroglio would present a challenge to those who believe that her status as an anti-Jewish Jew makes her iconic, because this time her target has been a black man. On ITV's This Morning she questioned the co-presenter, Andi Peters, about his heritage. Margolyes asked him: 'What are you?' Puzzled, he replied: 'What am I?', to which Margolyes replied: 'You're a mix. You've got a black daddy and a white mummy?' Peters responded: 'No, no, no. Both my parents are black…Am I a lighter shade than normal?' Margolyes' reply was astonishing even for her: 'I think you're high-yalla.' That phrase (along with 'pickaninny') was used in segregationist US to describe lighter-skinned black people. Along with the N-word, it long ago disappeared from all but white supremacists – and Miriam Margolyes. The reaction to Margolyes from her fellow anti-Jews has been revealing. There has been none. You might think it would be interesting to see how those who demand that Dame Maureen is cancelled treat Margolyes. It should present them with a dilemma, because while no evidence has ever been produced of Dame Maureen uttering a racist word, Margolyes's words are this time not merely targeted at Jews – against whom racism is not merely acceptable but imperative – but at a black man, against whom racism is supposedly unacceptable. But to those addled by Palestinianism, there is only one cause and all else pales. Nothing else matters. So even though Margolyes used a foul racial epithet to describe a black man on live TV, her status as an anti-Jewish Jew absolves her of all else. In truth, Lipman and Margolyes have nothing in common. But the way in which they are treated by the mob does provide a useful reminder of the reality of Palestinianism as an ideology – and the hypocrisy and double standards which underlie it.