Dr John Read

I was just in Israel with @Mr_Andrew_Fox - part of a larger group of journalists and think tank people hosted by the Israel Press Club. We spoke to many high ranking people, some on the record, many off. Almost all spoke about Britain with warmth as a great country but also spoke as an increasingly hostile state. They all described how our government is blowing up our relationship with Israel for internal political reasons. And because of a moral blindness. They recognise that moral blindness. They once tried to appease Islamism, ignore the rhetoric of hatred. The consensus thought in Israel was one of appeasement - let Hamas have the Qatari millions, trust that when they say they want to destroy Israel they aren’t really mad enough to attempt it. That blew up in their faces on October 7 and they see our country as foolish for not learning that lesson. And, as Andrew points out, the violence is already here in the UK too. It’s just over a year since the terrorist attack at Heaton Park killed two people. We’ve had stabbings, ambulances and synagogues set on fire. We have had multiple cases of people either in prison or going through the court system for attempted terrorist attacks on my tiny community. The hatred was uncorked on October 7 2023 when people in our country were in the streets celebrating the murder of Jews and the establishment, the DEI departments, the feminist groups, seemed unable to condemn any of it. There has been no let up since. It unleashed this centuries old hatred and it’s been fed by an obsession which means Israel has been discussed in the Commons more than the NHS while BBC Verify has done more ‘investigations’ into Israel than all the UK stories put together. The obsession, the skewed narrative in which Hamas is almost always missing is dangerous. And they know it is. The response has simply been defence. Higher walls around our schools and synagogues. We don’t want higher walls. We want our government to stop appeasing the beast. We want the demonisation of Jews in the guise of Zionists to stop. And if they aren’t doing it for us, they should do it for everyone else. Because we are just the first in line.