The Telegraph, 7th October 2024
Britain’s response to October 7 has been shameful (telegraph.co.uk)
We have seen commentators, activists, and politicians struggle to condemn Hamas. But in adversity, Israel has shown awesome heroism
What do you say?
What do you say to a bereaved father who waits, broken- hearted, for the head of his murdered son to be returned by his killers? What do you say to a mother who prays for her daughter’s return, and who is tortured by thinking the unthinkable: is she dead, or alive in the tunnels? Has she been raped, or was she spared?
What do you say to the grieving mother of a young soldier kidnapped and later murdered? What do you say when she affirms, through her tears, that she couldn’t be prouder to see her two other children fight for their homeland? What do you say to a young woman who survived the Nova festival, by playing dead as her friends lay murdered around her? What do you say to a family displaced by rocket-fire: homeless, uprooted, and uncertain about their future?
Sometimes there are no words. Only humility, pain, and tears. One year on from the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust, what does our country’s response say about us?
I wish I could say that our Government stood proudly with Israel: on the side of justice, self-defence, and freedom. I wish I could say that anti-Semitism has been stamped out, like other forms of racism. Sadly, I can’t.
For me, the most grotesque revelation of the last twelve months has been the lengths some will go to deny or defend terrorism. For some, even the evidence of murdered babies, sexually abused men and women, and other acts of heinous violence isn’t enough to loudly condemn the atrocities of Hamas or Hezbollah.
You don’t need to be Jewish to do so. But October 7 has exposed an ugly anti-Semitism that overshadows some of our institutions and communities. I’m not talking about isolated pockets of bigotry. This has the stench of a more ingrained and cultural prejudice.
Since the atrocities of October 7, we have seen commentators, activists, and even Left-wing politicians struggle to condemn Hamas. Consider the marches around the country on October 8, weeks before any Israeli military action in Gaza, not in solidarity with the victims and the hostages, but to celebrate the ‘resistance’.
We have seen chants of “Jihad”, the firing of flares, and the defiling of our monuments too often go uninterrupted by our police. Thousands have protested our railways stations, our cities, or Parliament, with their mantra of “From the river to the sea”- Israel erasure - echoing throughout.
Placards have been waved bearing ‘Victory to the Intifada’. Hateful slogans have been projected onto Big Ben. Armistice Day has been spoiled by protestors and counter-protestors fighting at the Cenotaph, to the background drum of apology after apology from the leaders of the Metropolitan Police.
What about the posters of Kfir Bibas, the baby taken hostage, ripped down by keffiyeh-clad activists? Or the hundreds of Palestinian flags that adorn whole roads in parts of our capital? What of the exponential rise in anti-Semitic incidents this year? Or the many Jews who have left the UK because they feel safer in Israel? It says something when a war zone seems more welcoming than North London.
How about the Islamist thugs who intimidate MPs, injecting their own sectarian politics into our democratic system? Or the death threats that forced a Conservative MP to leave public life? Or the hi-jacking of the Rochdale by-election and the silencing of Parliament? Labour MPs have been scared to speak, and terrified to vote.
And then our media. The BBC’s early refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists was but the tip of the iceberg. They have been accused of breaching their own impartiality guidelines 1500 times following October 7. It doesn’t stop at the BBC. Remember a Sky News presenter comparing Gaza with the Holocaust? After the apologies, how much changed?
Or what about our universities? Surely they would encourage tolerance, inclusion, and respect? Too often that spirit does not seem to extend to Jewish students. A five-fold increase in anti-Semitic incidents at our universities has been reported. The portrait of Arthur Balfour at Trinity College has been vandalised. Jewish students have been harassed.
Theatres, shops, and local councils have boycotted Israel since the atrocities. From the swastikas daubed in the toilets at an exclusive girls’ school to 600 top lawyers accusing Israel of genocide, a hatred for the Jewish state has almost become fashionable. Those pushing this creed have become so liberal that they are now illiberal, so pious that they are now dishonest.
But in the face of adversity, I’ve also witnessed awesome heroism. The Jewish people have been under siege for millennia and have always prevailed because of their ingenuity, resilience, and strength. Even as thousands of rockets rain down on them, when acts of unspeakable inhumanity have broken their hearts, and the world vilifies them, they don’t give up.
I am certain that, with or without her allies, as Israel battles for Western values and civilisation itself, she will succeed once again. As the country wins this battle for humanity, many of us will be honoured to say : “Israel, we are your friends”.
