Martin Lewis says calls for him to speak out ‘bordered antisemitism’

Money-saving expert Martin Lewis has said that recent calls for him to speak out about the Israel-Gaza conflict “were border antisemitic.”

Lewis, who hosts “The Martin Lewis Money Show” on ITV, told Wednesday’s BBC Radio 4 Media Show the pressure he felt, stating that he had “never been asked about political situations in China, or Saudi Arabia, or South America.

“I’m British. I’m a British Jew. My parents were born in Britain. All my grandparents were born in Britain. All my great grandparents were born in Britain. And yet people somehow felt they could demand that, as a British Jew, I should be talking on a conflict in the Middle East, when I never talk about international affairs …”

He said: “October the 7th – obviously I’m Jewish – it was an incredibly difficult time, for many Jewish people and many Muslim people, and what’s going on in the Middle East is tragic.”

Lewis, who is married to television presenter Lara Lewington, who is also Jewish, had not talked publicly about the conflict since a post he put out on X on 12 October, in response to “why as a practicing Jew, he had not said anything about the unthinkable despicable atrocities committed by terrorists in Israel.”

He posted that “frankly I’ve struggled to process it, and felt the combined guttural fear for relations in Israel, anxiety about possible antisemitic backlash here, and grief over the loss of life of beautiful children both Israeli and Palestinian were things I didn’t want to be public about.

“Equally I am British,” he said. “I don’t study the situation in the middle east. In my usual work, some listen assuming I have a level of authority. Yet here I don’t have an expertise – and I don’t want authority assumed on such important issue when it’s not merited. What I do know is that sadly peace, which is what we all desperately need, seems beyond reach. I despair as to where things will go. Israel has the right to and should defend itself. Yet my heart goes out too to those innocent civilians in Gaza who will bear a brunt for the actions of Hamas which they have no say in. There are no winners here. I don’t currently plan to do any further tweets or reply to any comments on this. I just wanted to explain why.”

Speaking on Wednesday, Lewis said: “I am not an expert in what is going on in Israel and in Palestine. I have no expertise on it, so I did not want to comment, so people could not assume an expertise where it did not belong. And yet I felt obligated to put something out, literally, to stop people asking me. So I put a comment out. I mean, about the tragedy, and it’s a tragedy for all sides… And then I kept my mouth shut until this point.”

Founder of MoneySavingExpert.com and the Money & Mental Health Policy Institute charity, Lewis, 51, was awarded a CBE for services to broadcasting and consumer rights in the 2021 New Year Honours.