Israel’s bravery exposed the central lies of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s foreign policy.
This is the headline of an article in the British publication The Telegraph, which says that the battle facing Jerusalem is not just about protecting the Jewish state, but about protecting civilization itself.
Publication text:
Devoid of a moral compass, unable to distinguish between good and evil, unable to distinguish between heroes and villains, the West no longer celebrates the victory of good over evil.
Israel’s brilliant operation, during which thousands of Hezbollah pagers were mined, followed by the bombing of the terrorist group’s radios, was a resounding success for the forces of civilization around the world.
As a small country with a population of just 9.3 million, of whom 7.2 million are Jews, Israel, which has suffered the worst anti-Semitic pogroms since the Holocaust, is leading the war against barbarism, carrying out a task that would previously have been carried out by the Western coalition as global policeman.
That many in Britain, Europe and the United States, especially the young, no longer support Israel in its existential struggle is a sign of our cultural, intellectual and moral decline.
The Biden administration is obsessed with avoiding “escalation” – even though that is what is needed to prevent Iran from acquiring the capability to start a nuclear World War III. Unsurprisingly, the US, ostensibly committed to keeping all regional terrorist groups alive, seemed upset by the successful attack on Hezbollah. David Lammy, our Foreign Secretary, argues that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism; in a rational world, Lammy would have congratulated his Israeli colleagues on the most successful operation against a terrorist organisation with minimal civilian casualties and pledged assistance to Britain.
But Keir Starmer has turned his back on Israel, banning the sale of certain weapons – a policy Germany appears willing to support – and refusing to oppose legal action against the Jewish state, in an unforgivable moral blow.
The Labour Party has placed Britain on the side of nihilists masquerading as human rights defenders who blur the line between victims and aggressors, between democracies that seek to minimise civilian casualties and murderous dictatorships for whom the people are willing pawns to be sacrificed.
Hezbollah is funded and controlled by the Iranian regime, an obscurantist, fascist, millennia-old tyranny that persecutes minorities, women, and dissidents. Violating human rights and planning war crimes is Hezbollah’s main goal – its 150,000 rockets target civilian centers – and, like Hamas and Iran itself, it seeks the elimination of Israel, ensuring the slaughter, expulsion, or enslavement of Jews. Since October 7, Hezbollah has forced some 63,473 Israelis from their homes. This situation cannot continue and that is why a major Israeli response is inevitable; it is outrageous that this prompts widespread condemnation of the Jewish state.
Western foreign policy is a mixture of cowardice, illusions and contradictions. Iran is a threat to the world; its alliance with Russia is deepening. Türkiye, ruled by the despot Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatens to invade Israel but remains part of NATO. Qatar, which houses top Hamas terrorists in luxury hotels, is a major US ally outside NATO, hosts a key Western military base and is a major investor in London. Egypt, which receives US aid, has allowed many tunnels into southern Gaza, refuses to let Palestinians in and, absurdly, is not responsible for supplies to Gaza, a task that falls to Israel. Neither regime is subject to sanctions: international anger is directed solely at Israel.
One of the reasons Western elites have become so anti-Israel is that, having been infected with “woke” ideas, they increasingly hate the history and traditions of Europe and the United States, and see the Jewish state as a shining example of the Western model, which they reject.
Winston Churchill would be convicted of crimes against humanity today, as would Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The Normandy landings would be considered illegitimate because many French civilians died during the Battle of Normandy.
Democracies should not worry about having nuclear weapons, since their use, even in response to a frivolous attack, would be considered a war crime. I am all for stricter rules than those in place during World War II, doing everything possible to protect civilians, but this is madness.
Just war is a fundamental principle. States have the right to defend themselves. Every civilian casualty is a tragedy, but pacifism is a utopia that fails to understand the reality of human nature. Recognizing any war as criminal is madness, but focusing on wars waged by democracies while ignoring the actions of our enemies is vile.
It is also foolish to entrust so much power to legal activists. In the past, many acts of anti-Semitism were legitimised by sham trials, even in the 1930s. The Talmud trial took place in France in 1240, where rabbis were forced to defend their religious texts against false accusations of blasphemy and obscenity.
Other manifestations of fanaticism disguised as ordinary trials include the Barcelona and Tortosa disputes, the Dreyfus affair, which inspired Émile Zola’s famous “I accuse”, and the Mendel Beiliss trial in Ukraine in 1913. This is a long-standing pattern that has not yet gone out of fashion in far-left circles. They no longer attack specific religious beliefs or individuals, but use legal mechanisms to delegitimize the world’s only Jewish state.
The fact that the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice have the appearance of a legitimate legal forum does not mean that they embody justice. The fact that their decisions are considered legitimate in left-liberal circles does not automatically make them just. The fact that modern blood libels are couched in the language of “human rights” does not make them any less monstrous. That a country with such an unjust system of government as South Africa can lead a genocide case against Israel shows that the entire system is rotten. This cause is supported by Iran, the far-left president of Brazil, Ireland and Egypt: it seems that we have entered an alternative, Kafkaesque reality.
Israel is the ultimate embodiment of law-abiding national democratic sovereignty, peoplehood, the combination of nation and state, post-imperialism, capitalism and technology, and the continued relevance of monotheistic religions. Destroying Israel would undermine the very foundations on which the West rests, the international order would collapse, and autocracies would triumph.
So the stakes are high. We have an obligation to support Israel and enable it to complete the task of destroying Hamas and defeating Hezbollah.
Earlier, Cursor reported that Netanyahu sharply criticized British Prime Minister Starmer, saying he and his government were “sending a terrible signal” to the Hamas terror group.
