Is Suella Braverman wrong about pro-Palestine ‘hate marches’?

Supporting the Palestinians is a reasonable thing to do. Flying their flag is not an act of hatred. Expressing sympathy for their hardships is not bigotry. There is nothing invalid about arguing for their national self-determination. 

The problem has always been the proximity of the Palestinian cause to the Jews. Is accusing the ‘Zionist lobby’ of pulling the strings of politics a reasonable expression of support for the Palestinians? Is accusing Jews of ‘white supremacy’, even though a majority of Israelis are non-white? Is trying to lynch them at an airport? If, as I argue, Israelophobia is the newest version of the oldest hatred, then it is as adept as it always has been at using the language of legitimacy as a Trojan horse. 

Which brings me to the Home Secretary. Her comments last night describing the protests as ‘hate marches’ were met with howls of outrage on the left, particularly from those who attended the marches themselves. Many of them, probably the majority, were moved to attend the rallies out of deep concern for the images of appalling suffering in Gaza that have been on our screens day and night. Fair enough. Take a step back, however, and it becomes apparent that the marches themselves are constructed on infrastructure of bigotry, and have been acting as a ventriloquist’s dummy for it. 

Among all the slogans – many of which have been overtly antisemitic – I have not so far seen a single one condemning Hamas. Why not? After all, even dyed-in-the-wool Palestinian supporters must acknowledge that it was Hamas that precipitated this crisis.  

The marchers’ narratives about the ‘open-air prison’ of Gaza are overblown. Israel withdrew in good faith from Gaza in 2005, after which it continued to provide water to the enclave, even though Hamas has neglected its water infrastructure, preferring to use its funds to construct terror tunnels instead. Israel allowed tens of thousands of Gazans through the border to work each day. It treated Gazans in its hospitals, even the relatives of terror leaders. For this its babies are mutilated? 

Any reasonable observer can only conclude that Hamas is the principal cause of suffering in Gaza, oppressing its own people and leading them down the darkest of historical paths to jihadism. At the marches, however, I have not seen condemnations of the group. 

Nor have I seen calls for a ‘two-state solution’ . Nor mention of the way Israelis have been butchered. If you’d been in a coma in the preceding weeks and saw the marches afresh, you’d draw the conclusion that Israel had unleashed an unprovoked genocide of the innocents rather than a defensive war on savagery. 

Look at the slogans that were shouted at the rallies, the behaviour of the mob. From the river to the sea, we want to, well, obliterate the Jewish state. From London to Gaza, globalise the intifada: more suicide bombs on our streets, please. Calls for jihad. The chanting of ancient Koranic slogans recalling the massacre of the Jews. The ordinary people at these rallies – whose sympathy for Israeli innocents were quickly eclipsed by the old arguments – have been unwitting enablers. 

Much has been made of the fact that the marches have largely been peaceful, aside from the assault of a police officer and a relatively small number of violent altercations. But this is only because Jews and Israel supporters were so intimidated that they cleared out of their way.  

I know of a Jewish family living in central London who vacated their home in order to avoid being targeted. Perhaps they had seen the video of a brave Iranian activist flying the Israeli flag who was pursued by the mob before being protected by the police. The activist said a man who threatened to cut him was found carrying a knife.

This is the bile that flows through the marches every weekend, largely unchallenged by police and unopposed by the silent majority of Britons who have no truck with jihadism. But it flows through an apparatus that comes, I’m afraid, from Hamas. In recent weeks, the Jewish Chronicle and other outlets have revealed how many of the groups organising the marches are involved with people who have had links with Hamas. Many have travelled to Gaza in the past to meet Hamas’s leaders. 

This is a proscribed criminal organisation in Britain and supporting it in any way is illegal. Yet these marches continue to take place. The framework of the rallies seems to be an extremist one, their most fanatical attendees are extremists, and even among the less virulent majority, extremism is not condemned but tolerated.  

Let us be clear. Supporting the Palestinians does not need to look like this. Is it possible to seriously challenge the Home Secretary’s description?