Jake Wallis Simons

Jake Wallis Simons

Jake Wallis Simons is editor of the Jewish Chronicle and author of Israelophobia: The newest version of the oldest hatred.

Biden’s Rafah plan will only help Hamas

The fathers, brothers and sons who are risking their lives for their country do not want to go into Rafah, on the Egyptian border of the Gaza strip. The ordinary Palestinians who hate Hamas and wish for a swift Israeli victory – and there are more of them than you think – do not want

Will we ever learn the lessons of the Holocaust?

As a child, I had to wash my hands before I was shown books of photographs depicting the ghettos and death camps so that I didn’t leave fingerprints on the pages. This wasn’t a Jewish custom, just the way things were done in our house. Looking back, however, it felt part of the rituals of

Israel shows why conscription works

Take a step back and it’s a no-brainer: If you want a healthy society, you need a spirit of unity. As we saw in London during the Blitz – often romanticised for its fabled ability to ‘pull together’ – if citizens feel they are part of a national family, they can maintain their morale even

Israel is heading for war with Hezbollah

Saleh al-Arouri may have been a senior member of the Palestinian group Hamas, but the drone strike that brought his story to an early close took place last night in Beirut, Lebanon. Pictures from the scene show a devastatingly precise hit, which also reportedly eliminated senior members of other factions. The leaders of Hezbollah, the

Hamas is trying to go global

For some years, there has been speculation in security circles about what will replace Islamic State. The terror group was smashed by an American-led coalition five or so years ago – a campaign that incurred, by the way, a heavy civilian death toll but provoked no protests in the west. Although it remains active in

The stakes are high at London’s anti-Semitism march

Whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or atheist – and whatever your nationality – there is ample reason to stand up to the death cult that has worn the face of Al Qaeda, Islamic State and Hamas. We’ve had suicide bombs of our own in Manchester and London. We’ve also had our fair share of beheadings and

A ceasefire leaves Israel in a dangerous position

A four-day pause and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners. Seen from London or New York, this seems like a reasonable measure to secure the return of 50 Israeli hostages. Pause the fighting; allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza; satisfy the Americans, who were reportedly pushing hard for the deal; get a good number of

A potential hostage deal shows the weakness of Hamas

Details are sketchy and the deal is far from done, but all the signs are pointing towards a hostage agreement in which up to 50 Israelis are released by Hamas in return for a ceasefire of several days. Make no mistake: this indicates that both tactically and strategically, the war is moving decisively in Israel’s

Hamas and the narcissism of the progressive left

A prominent member of Hamas’s political bureau has been causing something of a stir on the internet in recent days. In an interview with the Lebanese television channel LBC, Ghazi Hamad vowed that given the chance, his group would repeat the October 7 massacre until Israel ceased to exist. It went viral. To many people, the habits of bears

Jews feel abandoned by the British left

Like 9/11, the massacre in southern Israel changed everything. From the great movements of Middle Eastern geopolitics and international alliances to the sweep of modern Israeli and Arab history, life has been split into the before and the after.  In Britain, nowhere has this been felt more keenly than the Jewish community. There have been

How the Arab world turned against Hamas

What do people think of Hamas? In recent days, this has been something of a vexed question for many in the West, particularly those on the left. Among progressives, Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘friends’ have long been romanticised as Robin Hood types. But Robin Hood didn’t burn babies, didn’t rape and mutilate young women, didn’t take toddlers

Calling a terrorist a terrorist

Last night, after a suspected Islamist fanatic gunned down two Swedish football fans in Brussels to ‘avenge Muslims’, the BBC ran a headline calling it a ‘terror’ attack. This should seem entirely unremarkable. After all, it was a terror attack, so the language had the benefit of being accurate. The problem, of course, is that the corporation

Hamas is not long for this world

There was long been a swell of sympathy for Hamas in the West. A certain leader of the opposition, you will remember, referred to them as his ‘friends’ and said that the UK government classifying them as a ‘terrorist organisation’ was a ‘big, big historical mistake’. He did not condemn Hamas this week. And he is not