LONDON — On Monday morning, Rishi Sunak traveled to a Jewish secondary school in north London. The British prime minister’s visit aimed to show, once again, his support for a community shaken by the horrors visited by Hamas upon Israel and the surge of antisemitic incidents in the UK which have followed in their wake.
“My heart aches for the people of Israel,” Sunak wrote in a condolence book during his visit to the school.
Forty-eight hours earlier, however, London had witnessed altogether different scenes as pro-Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets in what has been described as “a march of the evil, the ignorant and the stupid, joined together in Jew hate.”
Among the wider public, support for Israel isn’t as overt as the manner in which the country has rallied behind Ukraine, but there’s little evidence that the anti-Israel far-left reflects a more widespread popular sentiment.
Sunak, who arrived in Israel this morning, has been stalwart in his support for the Jewish state since Hamas’s terror onslaught nearly two weeks ago — a position also adopted by opposition leader Keir Starmer.
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In the immediate aftermath of the bloody massacre that took some 1,400 lives, mainly civilians, and saw over 200 abducted to the Gaza Strip, the prime minister addressed a crowd of nearly 1,700 people at Finchley Synagogue in northwest London.
There, he condemned Hamas and lauded Israel as an “extraordinary land… built on the best of humanity,” pledging to British Jews: “I promise you I will stop at nothing to keep you safe.” Hours later, Downing Street was illuminated with a huge Israeli flag, while the Houses of Parliament were lit in blue and white. On Friday night, October 13, a single memorial candle burned in a window of the prime minister’s residence.
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, rear center, addressing an assembly during a visit to a Jewish school in north London, October 16, 2023. (Jonathan Buckmaster/Daily Express via AP, Pool)
“I am unequivocal. We stand with Israel, not just today, not just tomorrow, but always… Am Yisrael Chai,” Sunak said in a statement released the following day, quoting the Hebrew phrase meaning “the nation of Israel lives.”
The prime minister, a longstanding supporter of the Jewish state, has offered more than words of comfort and gestures. The government has announced an extra £3 million ($3.6 million) to beef up security at Jewish venues and dispatched UK military forces to the Eastern Mediterranean, primed, it said, “to deliver practical support to Israel, prevent escalation and reinforce regional stability.” Sunak has also been reaching out to the leaders of Arab states with which Britain has close ties, calling Egypt’s President Abdul el-Sisi and hosting King Abdullah of Jordan in Downing Street over the weekend.
Sunak’s stance reflects a wider sympathy within the political establishment for Israel in its hour of need. On Monday afternoon, parliamentarians observed a moment of silence to remember the victims of Hamas’ atrocities. After speaking last week with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, King Charles met with UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis at Buckingham Palace to express “deep concern, and his support for the Jewish community.” “The horrors inflicted by Hamas’s terrorist attack upon Israel are appalling,” Prince William and his wife, Kate, said in a statement that echoed the monarch’s labeling of the Hamas assault as “barbaric.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signing messages and prayers for Israel during a visit to a Jewish school in north London, October 16, 2023. (Jonathan Buckmaster/Daily Express via AP, Pool)
Perhaps more eye-catching has been the unwavering support for Israel emanating from the leadership of the opposition Labour Party. Four years ago, on the eve of a landslide general election defeat that forced out its hard-left anti-Israel leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the floor of the Labour Party conference was awash with Palestinian flags. When Labour met in Liverpool last week as the Hamas attacks unfolded, the mood was very different. Starmer’s keynote speech was interrupted by a standing ovation as he condemned Hamas and unequivocally backed Israel’s right to defend itself.
Later that evening, almost the entire Labour shadow cabinet joined over 1,000 people at the annual Labour Friends of Israel reception where Starmer restated his support for the Jewish state following a vigil for the Israelis murdered and seized by Hamas.
Pushback from hard-left Labour MPs
As Operation Swords of Iron ramps up, both Sunak and Starmer have echoed the Biden administration in calling for humanitarian assistance for Gaza. But, like the US president, neither has inched away from their support for Israel. Responding to a parliamentary statement on the crisis on Monday, for instance, Starmer told the House of Commons: “Israel has the right to bring her people home, to defend herself, to keep its people safe. And whilst Hamas has the capability to carry out attacks on Israeli territory, there can be no safety.”
Starmer is, however, coming under pressure from the Labour left. While they represent a minority, hard-left MPs used Monday’s parliamentary statements to attack Israel, accusing it of perpetrating war crimes against Palestinian civilians. Away from Westminster, there has been a trickle of resignations by Labour councilors in protest against Starmer’s stance.
Leader of the British Labour Party Keir Starmer gestures as he stands with his wife Victoria after making his keynote speech at the annual party conference in Brighton, England, September 29, 2021.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
So long as the number of resignations remains low, Starmer is likely to continue to be unmoved. The Labour left is already up in arms about his decision to drag the party back to the center ground — a strategy that has helped the party to a double-digit opinion poll lead ahead of next year’s expected general election. Despite the pressure, a letter sent by Starmer to Labour councilors on Wednesday underlined again his “solidarity with all those faced with the barbarism of Hamas” and Israel’s right to self-defense.
Nonetheless, Starmer will be acutely aware that, as Patrick Wintour, The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, put it this week: “The Palestinian issue has a special ability to divide Labour leaders from their party.” Former prime minister Tony Blair’s strong backing for Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war, Wintour recalled, split his cabinet and eventually contributed to his ejection from office.
Unsettling situation in the streets
But if British Jews are reassured by the words of their political leaders, the situation on the streets is likely more unsettling.
Protesters hold flares during a pro Palestinian demonstration in London, October 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Just hours after the attacks, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in Manchester, Britain’s third biggest city, where, predictably, there was little evidence of sympathy for the Israeli victims. On Monday, as political leaders and pro-Israel activists staged a vigil outside Downing Street, hundreds of demonstrators held a “Stand with Palestine” protest outside the Israeli Embassy, where, reportedly, there were chants of: “One state, one solution, intifada, revolution,” “Allahu akbar,” and “Israel is a terrorist state.”
This past Saturday’s demonstrations against Israel in London and cities across the UK are reported to have drawn thousands of protesters. In the capital, the march was accompanied by chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free,” “Free, Free Palestine,” and “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
A reportedly “small, but vocal number of youths” could also be heard chanting in Arabic “Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish Mohammed saufa ya’oud” (“Khaybar, Khaybar, Jews, the army of Muhammad will return”), a celebration of the massacre, rape and enslavement of Jews in Saudi Arabia’s Khaybar Oasis by Arab armies in 628 CE. Placards emblazoned with the words “End Israeli Apartheid” and “Palestine, Exist, Resist, Return” filled the streets, while images also emerged of a small number of demonstrators wearing stickers with paragliders.
Demonstrators march with signs in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during a rally in Algiers on October 19, 2023. – (Photo by AFP)
“France and Germany banned marches like these knowing people would glorify activities of terrorists,” wrote journalist Nicole Lampert. “I’m sad that so many people seemed so joyous about Jewish deaths. I’m scared because this anger is only going to increase once war properly starts. I’m upset because I see the full extent of hatred for Jews among the nation that has been the home for my family for more than 100 years. And I’m angry that the police do almost nothing about these people who are quite open about wanting to hurt people like me and my family.”
While it is illegal to express support for Hamas, a proscribed terror organization in the UK, Britain’s laws surrounding the right to protest are complex. However, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, has been pushing the police to take a tougher line, writing to police chiefs that “it is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern,” and urging them to consider whether chants such as: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should be “understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world,” potentially making it a “racially aggravated … public order offense.”
The home secretary has also suggested the police consider whether, given the context, some pro-Palestinian chants might fall foul of UK anti-terrorism legislation. On Monday, she branded the demonstrators in London “an intimidating mob.” “Those who promote hate on Britain’s streets should realize that our tolerance has limits,” Braverman said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, in London, March 24, 2023. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Pressure from the government appears to have jolted the police into action. Sunak has vowed that “the glorification of terror [will be] met with the full force of the law.” The government is also threatening to deport foreign students, academics and workers who commit antisemitic acts or praise Hamas, and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has ordered universities to deal “swiftly and decisively” with “implicit or explicit” threats to Jewish students.
Despite the government’s crackdown, the Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and protects Jewish venues, reports that antisemitic incidents continue to rise: over the last 10 days, they have jumped 581 percent. On Monday, two Jewish girls’ schools in north London were vandalized with red paint. On Hamas-declared “day of rage” on October 13, two other Jewish schools in the capital opted to close their doors for the day, while another Jewish school advised pupils not to wear their blazers when traveling to or from school.
This grim picture is compounded by a sense among some Jews that they’ve been abandoned by their fellow Brits. “When Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the schools near me put Ukrainian flags in their windows. When George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis two years earlier, Black Lives Matter posters appeared overnight all over my north London neighbourhood,” the Sunday Times columnist Hadley Freeman wrote last weekend.
“So do you know how many Israeli flags I’ve seen in the week since Hamas kidnapped, raped and slaughtered over a thousand Jews in Israel, from geriatric Holocaust survivors to tiny babies? That’s right: nada, zip, none.” Freeman went on to quote a text she had received from a friend: “Well, now we know who would have helped us, and who would have pushed us onto the trains.”
Women attend a pro-Palestinian demonstration in London, October 14, 2023, in support of Palestinians caught up in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
While it may be quietly held, public support and sympathy for Israel is evident in polls published in recent days. Forty percent of voters felt the UK should be more supportive towards Israel or has got the balance right, with only 22% calling for a more critical stance (39% said they didn’t know). Asked which side they sympathized with more, support for Israel has doubled since May to 21%, dropped by eight points to 15% for the Palestinians, and remained steady at 20% for “both sides equally.” The polls also show Conservative and elderly voters adopting a more pro-Israel line.
But, as in the US, demographic changes may bring future problems for pro-Israel groups. As Matthew Godwin, a conservative academic, noted this week, while polling shows that 81% of over-65s agree that Hamas is a terrorist group, that number falls to 41% among 18-24-year-olds (11% disagreed and nearly half didn’t know). “We have a big problem in Britain,” said Godwin.
Rising antisemitism may make many people regard putting an Israeli flag in their window as ‘unnecessarily risky’
A number of factors might explain the apparent lack of overt support for Israel. The Jewish commentator David Aaronovitch argued this week that rising antisemitism may make many people regard putting an Israeli flag in their window as “unnecessarily risky” while the political complexion of the Israeli government may be off-putting to others.
“Though wanting to express solidarity with ordinary Israelis, there may be some reluctance to express it with the far-Right government of Benjamin Netanyahu — in a way that there wasn’t with Volodymyr Zelensky,” Aaronovitch wrote.
The message from the media is also less clear-cut than that regarding Ukraine. Much of the tabloid press has swung behind Israel, splashing details of Hamas’ murderous attack across their front pages and running supportive editorials.
But the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster and a highly trusted source of news, has infuriated the Jewish community and many politicians by doggedly refusing to describe Hamas as “terrorists.” Its founding ethos, senior journalists say, requires it to “stay objective” and instead use less “loaded” terms like “militants.” That line held, they say, even when Britain was itself under attack from Irish republican terrorists.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Critics, however, note that there’s plentiful evidence, including just this week, that the BBC has no problem using the label “terrorist” in many other instances. The BBC’s refusal to budge has drawn criticism from the chief rabbi and a complaint to the broadcasting regulator from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and led over 1,000 people to protest outside its Broadcasting House headquarters on Monday evening.
Anger at the corporation is, moreover, likely to grow following coverage of Tuesday’s explosion at Gaza’s Al Ahli Hospital, which the BBC initially attributed to “an Israeli strike.” Sunak rebuked the media in the House of Commons on Wednesday, telling MPs: “If we don’t treat what comes out of the Kremlin as the gospel truth, we should not do the same with Hamas.”
If we don’t treat what comes out of the Kremlin as the gospel truth, we should not do the same with Hamas
The BBC is not the only institution that doesn’t appear to have treated the Hamas attacks in the same manner that they have responded to other terrorist outrages. The Football Association and Premier League, for instance, have come under heavy fire after refusing requests from the government, opposition and Jewish groups to light Wembley Stadium in Israel’s national colors — despite the iconic football ground having been swiftly illuminated in the colors of other countries, including France, Turkey and Belgium, when they have come under terrorist attack.
“How spineless. How utterly feeble,” wrote the Daily Telegraph’s chief sports writer. (The football authorities opted instead to hold a moment’s silence to “remember the innocent victims of the devastating events in Israel and Palestine” before England’s match against Australia on Friday night).
“So many institutions, respected public figures and usually gobby celebrities have turned away so as not to alienate anyone with a negative view of Israel,” George Chesterton, executive editor of London’s Evening Standard claimed this week. This has, perhaps, created a climate in which some sense that support for Israel is more divisive, controversial and less widespread than it may well be.
But the response to the attacks has also provoked some soul-searching and reflection among others. As the historian Tom Holland tweeted on Saturday: “All of us in the UK who are not Jewish — an immense, an overwhelming majority — have a responsibility in these troubled times to make our Jewish fellow citizens feel valued and safe. A responsibility that clearly right now we are failing to meet. It shames the country.”
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