On October 8, as the world was beginning to comprehend what had just happened in southern Israel, most decent people – including many who would go on to decry Israel’s retaliatory campaign – expressed genuine horror at what Gaza’s Islamist barbarians had done. But a substantial minority was openly cheering. Not just in Turkey and Iran, but in Toronto and London.
In these cities, Muslims and non-Muslims alike lost no time in congregating and marching to chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and other slogans known to glorify the disappearance of Israel. Some of those making merry sported the image of the paragliders used by Hamas to land in Israel just a day or two before. I cannot imagine the pain and disgust that friends and relatives of the victims must have felt on seeing those displays.
Nevertheless, as the body counts mounted, as the shredded and charred remains began to be identified in Kibbutz Be’eri and Nir Oz and among those who tried and failed to escape the Nova music festival only to be taken down by torrential gunfire and an army’s worth of rocket propelled grenades, the West’s emboldened pro-Palestine brigade got out their green, red and black flags and marched “in support of Palestine”.
It was grotesque enough then. But as time has worn on, along with Israel’s campaign, the grotesquerie has swelled. If it began with a celebration of butchery and terror that was generally seen as extreme, the pro-Gaza movement has dug in and grown. Its anti-Israelism is openly celebrated.
It is so respectable now that no fewer than four MPs have been elected on just that ticket, appealing to the “pro-Palestine” vote, of course. It’s hard not to feel a pulse of fear and loathing when one sees how our once-great liberal democracy has been hijacked to serve the agendas of people who appear to show solidarity with a regime heading an army of caliphatic Islamist butchers. “Resistance by any means” runs a popular chant in the pro-Palestine community; it’s not hard to imagine what “by any means” might mean.
“Palestine obsessive” Jeremy Corbyn, running as an independent, won Islington North with 24,120 votes compared with Labour’s 16,873, then declared on social media with his usual chilling focus on the topic that “Palestine is on the ballot paper”. Shockat Adam beat shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth in Leicester South, declaring “this is for Gaza”. About Israel’s careful campaign to prevent the second Holocaust that Hamas keeps promising, Adam says: “Gazans are a people with no army, no air force or a navy, facing one of the most sophisticated military machinery the world has ever seen … we must ensure that those who turned their back on one of the greatest injustices in modern times are told loud and clear we have turned our backs on them.”
In Blackburn, where at least a third of residents are Muslim, Adnan Hussain, another Independent pro-Gaza zealot was victorious over the Labour candidate. In Dewsbury and Batley, Iqbal Mohammed beat Labour candidate Heather Iqbal by promising to focus on demonising Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
The close calls were almost as chilling – Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary and a decent, hardworking chap, only won by 528 votes over the British Palestinian activist Leanne Mohamad, who wears a hijab and keffiyeh, and was hailed by Muslims as putting “Gaza back on the ballot. You’ve created history and given us incredible hope for the future.” Bethnal Green also nearly went to a pro-Palestine radical, while Jess Phillips only just held Birmingham Yardley (by almost 700 votes) against ghoulish George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain candidate Jody McIntyre. Phillips’s acceptance speech was spoilt by jeers and boos from the McIntyre voters, who chanted: “free Palestine” and “shame on you”.
In Chingford – retained against expectations by Tory Iain Duncan Smith – Faiza Shaheen came fewer than 100 votes behind the Labour candidate. Shaheen regularly accuses Israel of genocide and posts such material as apparently celebratory pictures of “resistance”, like the anti-Israel sit-in at Liverpool Street station in November, when the blood in the kibbutzim had barely dried.
But we have been looking elsewhere. The focus this election has been on Labour dominance, seats won by Reform, the gains made by the Lib Dems and the size of the Tory wipeout.
At the start of Starmer’s leadership of Labour, the focus was on what he’d do about the anti-Semitism that was given such rein under Corbyn.
The truth is that the problem has not been Labour’s for a while now. It lies rather in the respectability of rabid anti-Israelism. It’s terrifying to see how running on a ticket of demonisation of Israel has ceased to be mere tree-hugging fringe: thanks to Palestine’s progressive fanboys and girls, it’s now been all neatly parcelled up with parliamentary credence and heft.
As Britain succumbs to sectarianism, the implications are grave not just for Jews but for society in general. After all, this society is liberal, secular, and meant to be firmly against the sort of things that Hamas and those who run “Palestine” stand for. A once-great democracy with a fine tradition of broad two-party voting is being eaten away at by people whose politics are those of anti-Western troublemaking, with the tiny Jewish state, thousands of miles away, as a focal point.
As a Jew, this election was always to be feared; it’s just that the enemy is not Labour anymore, but the “independent”, “Palestine solidarity” candidates.
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