OPINION: Demonising Israel corrodes the UK’s liberal values

Some call the continuing anti-Israel marches “virtue signalling.” That’s unfair. Most protesters act from conscience. They’re horrified by suffering and want to stand up for victims. But good intentions can wander dangerously astray. Too many have been duped into backing what they think is “resistance” — but is, in truth, terror dressed up as liberation. It has never brought peace, only pain.

At the heart of much of the anti-Israel movement sits a curious alliance: hard-left ideologues, Radical Islamists, and assorted fellow travellers — united not by shared values but by shared hostility. Few of them would survive a day under Hamas rule. We should ask: do they seek peace, or Israel’s destruction? Why such obsession with the world’s only Jewish state? Their hostility extends beyond Israel — to America, to Britain’s democratic institutions, to the values most of us hold dear. They don’t build bridges; they burn them.

Zionism itself is being cynically twisted. Israel is smeared as an “apartheid state,” its supporters branded “colonialists” or worse. These are lies — deliberate ones — meant to delegitimise Israel and sow division.

Zionism never meant disloyalty. As the great American jurist Louis Brandeis put it: “Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism.” The same holds true for British Jews. For generations, we have served this country loyally and proudly. Israel is the perpetual homeland of the Jewish people, central to Jewish identity whatever one’s politics or level of faith. That pride in Israel does not diminish Britishness. It complements it.

When we see an Oxford University student, who is not obviously Palestinian, chant “Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios under ground” (and we wait to see what the Police and the University will do about it) we can ask – who is proud of this man who seeks only to spew his hate & sow division? An exercise in futility. He fails.

Many decent people still fail to see how demonising Israel corrodes our own liberal values. Screaming “genocide,” banning Israeli writers, defacing memorials, or shunning Israeli businesses isn’t progressive — it’s vandalism of peace. None of it helps a single Palestinian. Real peacemakers don’t cancel; they create. Now that a peace framework exists, the work must begin. It won’t be easy (Jeremy Bowen, we know) — but it’s a start.

Too many critics seem to long for failure. Yet true coexistence, dignity and hope for both Israelis and Palestinians, is a prize worth striving for. We must drown out the voices of division, not by cancelling or shouting down, but with cogent argument, facts & most of all by showing  — even when they come, shamefully, from inside Parliament — and work for peace here at home too.

Across Britain, Jewish and Muslim communities are quietly reaching out to each other. It’s not “too raw” to talk; it’s exactly the time to show that we can live, work and stand together against extremism.

Yes, there are opponents inside Israel as well. It is not that these people don’t want coexistence; it is that they take security as non-negotiable, and have almost given up on coexistence as a way to achieve it. Years of disappointment, violence, and broken trust have caused many Israelis to lose faith in the possibility of true partnership. Courageous Israeli leadership, when security is restored, must take the difficult step of changing those views — inspiring Israelis to believe once again that coexistence can be part of a lasting solution.

And we in Britain need our own dose of courage — especially from those tackling the surge of anti-Jewish hatred on campus and online. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson faces a major test. If she truly confronts anti-Israel and plainly antisemitic attitudes festering in some universities, she deserves support, not sabotage. But this is vital work. It must be done.

Peace requires endurance. As experts like Audrey Kurth Cronin (How Terrorism Ends, 2009) and the government’s national security advisor Jonathan Powell (Talking to Terrorists, 2014) remind us, terror ends not through vengeance but through politics: through engagement, dialogue, and dogged persistence — even when progress feels impossible. It is a long road. But stand on the walls of the City of Derry, see the peace now and remember the hatred, which people across the divide came to reject, and the peddlers of terror with it. Visualise the possible,

Today, in Gaza, relief at the ceasefire sits alongside fear and uncertainty. Hamas is still deeply entrenched, and trust is thin. But if Palestinians are freed from Hamas’s grip, they can build a future founded on creativity, enterprise and education — not tunnels and rockets. The world must support the complete removal of Hamas, root and branch. As long as this terror group holds power, Gaza’s misery will continue and hope will be crushed. The ugly truth is that Hamas still has apologists here: in our own Parliament, in our own universities, even as the evidence of its ruinous role is plain for all to see. That shames us all.

With genuine support, the billions promised could transform Gaza and the West Bank into places of hope, not hatred.

British Jews can — and do — embrace proud Zionism while being loyal citizens of Britain. We stand for peace, for coexistence, and for dignity on both sides. But those who reject peace and seek Israel’s eradication must hear this clearly: that will never happen.

Clive Lewis is a businessman and philanthropist