Israel is on the front line against Islamic terror – the UK must stand with our ally

Can our friends rely on us and do our enemies fear us? The West’s resolve is being severely tested and our adversaries are betting that we can’t sustain the support for our allies when things get tough.

Putin is hoping he can outlast the Western alliance’s financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The Houthis are testing whether we have the appetite to deploy hard power in the Gulf to protect global trade. While Hamas believe they can wage an information war that erodes the West’s public support for Israel and pressures them to desist.

And three months on from Hamas’s pogrom on October 7th , the UK’s public support for Israel’s cause is already waning. There is a small core of Hamas sympathisers hellbent on Israel’s destruction who have no place in our country. But far more common are well-meaning people-including politicians-who genuinely do not understand the reality of the conflict. This is perhaps unsurprising when they are fed a diet of Hamas propaganda on social media, biased UN resolutions and the stark consequences of the war in Gaza are broadcast into their homes every night. Who could fail to be moved by the appalling humanitarian situation that now unfolds?

Until the sheer barbarity of Hamas is exposed to the public, this war cannot be properly understood. Mistruths easily take hold. Misguided policy making follows.

This week I was in Israel to see the reality they face. In Kfar Aza, one of the nearest kibbutz’s to Gaza, there were no street names prior to 7 October. Today the main avenue is known as ‘the street of death’ as someone was murdered in every single house. Amidst the bullet ridden, burnt out ruins of homes are the ruins of ordinary people’s lives. Childrens’ bikes rest where they were left the night before. An Arsenal calendar pinned to a kitchen noticeboard is forever October.

Survivors are just beginning to speak fully of the unimaginable cruelty of the terrorists, particularly the rapes, mutilations and sexual assaults on women and girls. It’s hard to reach for parallels, but the actions of Daesh are the closest in recent times. Much was clearly planned. Translations from Arabic to Hebrew were found amidst the rubble on how to instruct women to undress and more. When watching the harrowing footage that abounds of those events, I was struck by the smiles on the faces of the terrorists, the lack of fear, the unadulterated fanaticism.

Let there be no moral equivocation about what happened. I’d invite those chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ from the safety of Whitehall or a London Underground train, egged on by an excitable tube driver, to watch the harrowing 45 minute film that Israel has pieced together from doorbell cameras, CCTV and the terrorists’ own recordings.

Israeli troops are fighting a terrorist group that have spent more than 16 years requisitioning civilian sites for weapon stores, command centres and a labyrinth of tunnels, larger, deeper and more sophisticated than was ever imagined. I saw a fraction of the weaponry assembled, much imported from Iran , including thermobaric vacuum bombs that suck the oxygen out of rooms and incinerate those inside. Hamas used the latter against families sheltering in what they thought were safe rooms. And having retreated back to Gaza, Hamas now happily use Palestinian civilians as human shields during their street battles. All this is a gross breach of the laws of war and yet there is a telling silence from human rights groups.

This of course makes limiting the civilian death toll incredibly hard. Israel has done much to protect civilian life-indeed, its democratic character compels it to do so. It is quickly forgotten in reporting that Israel delayed its military response by weeks to allow civilians to evacuate to the south and subsequently created safe zones. Could Israel take greater precautions? Yes, and the UK should continue to press it to do so. In a densely populated area its use of precision guided missiles should be higher. The war is already shifting to a lower-intensity counter-insurgency and that will develop further over the course of January. In this new phase surgical attacks will become easier. But it will never be easy, as now Hamas’s leadership and the remaining hostages are concealed amidst the civilians of southern Gazan cities like Khan Yunis. The fundamental tragedy is that no matter what Israel does Hamas’s cowardly tactics, instigated by its deranged leader Yehya Sinwar, have guaranteed a completely preventable civilian death toll.

Amid the suffering have been calls for an unconditional ceasefire , led by UN Secretary General Antonia Guterres. If Israel listened to his counsel or indeed that of the 125 MPs who voted for one in our own Parliament in November, I cannot see how Hamas would have been compelled to return the hostages that it did. After all, it was only after more weeks of intense fighting that Hamas were pressured to return some hostages in exchange for a pause. And if there’s a chance of the remaining hostages emerging-including British citizens-there needs to be more pressure, not less.

To call for a ceasefire now would be to concede Hamas’s existence and more 7th October-style attacks. The tunnels, command centres and leadership would remain intact, ready to strike again. To the north, Hezbollah would draw conclusions about Israel’s willingness to defend itself. Worst of all, it would validate Hamas’s strategy of a deteriorating humanitarian crisis as their tool of war.

There will never be peace so long as Hamas has the ability to project force. How could there be? With whom could Israel negotiate? The distant dream of a two state solution would be more illusory than ever. Israel’s security will remain completely compromised so long as they have a neighbour who considers their destruction a religious commandment. Arab states know they cannot be safe when Iran continues to fund and support terrorist proxy groups in the region. And the West will remain vulnerable so long as there is a breeding ground of fanatical Islamic terror ripe for export to the rest of the Western world.

The only way to deal with a terror state like Hamas is to destroy their leadership and military capabilities. Shamefully, the UK’s recent statement at the UN failed to mention this security imperative. Our Government should actively prosecute the case against Hamas in the court of public opinion and be clear that we support Israel’s fight to dismantle Hamas’s leadership and infrastructure. Israel is doing the world a favour, for Israel is certainly not the end game for a terrorist group whose charter states that no one will enjoy peace and security unless under the control of Islam. And as Hamas is just one tentacle of the Iranian octopus , the UK should shed its remaining naïveté about Iran’s malign intentions in the region or here in the UK and help likeminded Arab countries in their quest to unite against it.

The answer to the painful humanitarian question everyone is grappling with is for significantly more aid to reach civilians. 6,000 aid trucks have already entered Gaza and Israel has opened an additional border crossing point which will enable more, although there are delays and confusion about how these crossings can operate more effectively. But the hijacked lorries and aid being found at military sites in Gaza is testament to the corruption of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that has impoverished Palestinians for decades, coupled with the ineffectualness of the UN’s principal aid distributing body, UNRWA. If self-professed supporters of the Palestinian people were truly committed to their welfare they would be devoting far more attention to the violent, unstable and oppressive regime that Palestinians should be freed from. That UNRWA has failed to issue a single statement critical of Hamas is extremely telling. The one tweet that acknowledged that fuel was being stolen from its depot was mysteriously deleted. It is an organisation staffed by many well meaning people, often working in the most challenging circumstances, but whose leadership has fallen into a terrible moral morass of complicity with Hamas, forever turning a blind eye to the terrorists.

The UK has been too blasé about who we have funded and for what purpose. That needs to change once and for all. Who amongst us wants their taxes to fund the construction of tunnels or the fuel that lights or air conditions them? Enough.

A new approach is needed that bypasses the failed Palestinian leadership and reaches civilians directly. As former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has suggested this could involve Arab states playing a more prominent role, like Saudi Arabia alongside the US. Saudi Arabia, whose desire to normalise relations with Israel and follow in the enlightened footsteps of the UAE and Bahrain-the Abraham Accords pioneers-remains undimmed, holds the potential to carve out a new form of governance. That will require historic leadership from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and great agility from Israel, where the present complex coalition regrettably leaves its government little room for political compromise. Such Arab partners could provide a vision for Gaza which is de-militarised and de-radicalised. It would be one based on genuine economic development, rather than simply perpetuating extremism. The elephant in the room that nobody dare mention publicly is that no Arab country is so far willing to risk their own sons and daughters in the Gaza Strip , nor their own domestic security by taking refugees in any quantity. Without that, no one seriously sees an alternative to Israel remaining involved for some considerable time to come, guaranteeing its own security and avoiding Gaza continuing to be what one diplomat described as, ‘Mogadishu on Med’. As ever, peace, stability and development in the region is inextricably tied to defeating Hamas.

In the disorientating shock of 7th October the kaleidoscope seemed shaken. In many ways Israel does feel like a different country, profoundly emotionally affected by the scale and barbarity of the attack. This was not just another terror incident to be brushed over and moved on from. The fate of the hostages hangs over the country like a dark cloud. As friends it would be tone deaf not to appreciate this and reflect it in our public response.

But as the saying goes, as everything seemingly changes, so nothing changes. Privately, Arab states hope Israel can destroy one of Iran’s many limbs so normalisation with Israel has not been derailed. When this is the diplomatic outlook from Israel’s one time critics, the UK-as one of Israel’s oldest allies-should have the courage to publicly defend Israel as it fights against Hamas to guarantee its future and the West’s security.

In a previous conflict, Golda Meir said that Israel would win because it had no choice. We are fortunate to have a choice. Let our friends rely on us and our enemies fear us again.