The hounding of Helen Mirren reveals the hatefulness of ‘anti-Zionism’

If the past few years have shown us anything, it is that there is no low to which those pathologically obsessed with the state of Israel won’t stoop in order to intimidate and denigrate their opponents. We are reminded of this by a video, currently doing the rounds online, of a man abusing the elderly actress Helen Mirren.

Mirren, 80, was crossing an empty street in central London on a night in November last year with her 81-year-old husband. A stranger walks up to the pair and proceeds to abuse her. ‘And there’s Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist’, the man says. ‘You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust… Evil Zionist bitch.’ Mirren’s husband, Taylor Hackford, exasperatedly tells the stranger to ‘Fuck off’. Mirren’s smile suggested that their visitor was more to be pitied than despised. The Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation into the incident.

Mirren isn’t Jewish, but she supports the existence of the Jewish State. She also played former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in a 2023 biopic, and has spoken out against the boycotts of the Jewish State that so many in her industry have shamefully supported. In the mind of the ‘anti-Zionist’, this makes her a legitimate target for harassment.

It goes without saying that no normal person screams at an elderly couple who are harmlessly enjoying an evening in each other’s company. The hounding of Helen Mirren is yet further proof of what a twisted and deranged ideology anti-Zionism can be. To these ‘critics of Israel’, the presence of seven million Jews in their ancestral homeland – and their success in repelling the attacks of those determined to deny them this right – is intolerable. ‘Anti-Zionists’ have become so warped by their hatred that they really think that yelling at an elderly woman and her husband is a noble action. So much so that the abuser in this instance felt moved to video the altercation himself.

We can call this ‘anti-Zionism’ if we must, but when being an ally to the Jewish people can lead to you being hounded in the street, we are in a very dark place indeed.

Hugo Timms is a staff writer at spiked.