No one will change their mind about Hamas

Earlier this summer, my son and I biked over to fashionable east Hackney where it’s normal to pay £4.20 for a coffee and £3 for a croissant and everybody complains about the cost of living. The croissants, by the way, must come from the Dusty Knuckle bakery. I don’t know if it’s the same in other parts of London, but here in the north-east we have our standards.

We’d biked a fair distance, so we found a café that sold Dusty Knuckle croissants and settled in. My son read his book while I eavesdropped on the conversation between three interesting-looking youngish people at the next table. Interesting because they all looked so very typical it was almost surprising. Like going to Australia and right away coming face to face with a koala in a eucalyptus tree.

There were two women in shorts, one with the Palestinian flag on her T-shirt, and a blond man with breasts, a neat moustache and a tote bag from the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, DC. The three friends had met at Oxford University, I later learned, and were now academics.

When I sat down they were talking about Israel. This was a while before the discovery of the six hostages murdered by Hamas but, even had they known, the conversation would have taken the same course. And I’m writing this now to make it clear to the people who seem to expect some post-murder change of heart: you won’t get one. The kids are way too far gone.

The young woman nearest me was Israeli by birth. She had been brought up there, she said, and had recently returned for a friend’s family wedding during which an awful thing had happened.