‘When Hamas attacked Israel, it was a fantastic day’
‘Hamas performed a really profitable operation. It was a fantastic day. I used to be very completely satisfied to see it.’
That is how Laith, a pupil who attended Monday night time’s ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstration in London, described final weekend’s slaughter of a whole bunch of Israeli civilians to me. It was a second of celebration, he stated. Sadly, he wasn’t alone in considering this. His view was apparently shared by many among the many 5,000 or so who gathered outdoors the Israeli embassy.
The environment was festival-like. There have been blaring horns, clouds of vibrant smoke and frequent chants of ‘Allahu Akbar!’. Amid a sea of Palestinian flags, and an occasional Pleasure flag, placards screamed anti-Israel slogans. One even indulged in a spot of Holocaust relativism: ‘The Zionist Jews have executed to the Palestinian Arabs what the Nazis did to the Jews.’
Placards trivialising the Holocaust had been on open show.
Simply days earlier than, Hamas had massacred a whole bunch upon a whole bunch of harmless males, ladies and youngsters, as a part of its brutal incursion into Israel on Saturday morning. However nobody I spoke to at Monday night time’s protest felt the necessity to condemn this barbarism. ‘I don’t care if the West calls Hamas terrorists’, Laith advised me. ‘One man’s terrorist is one other man’s freedom fighter. There is no such thing as a liberation with out violence.’
Others agreed. ‘We all know that [Hamas] should not the actual terrorists’, stated Sophia, a author. ‘The Israeli authorities is.’ One other protester, who didn’t wish to be named, advised me that ‘any resistance motion has to make use of some terror ways’, earlier than absurdly likening Hamas’s actions to these of the ANC in South Africa.
Few appeared to have a lot of an issue with the assaults, and fewer nonetheless appeared bothered concerning the anti-Semitism they’ve since sparked in London, together with the vandalism of a Kosher restaurant in Golders Inexperienced. ‘Anti-Semitism is such a simple label to use’, stated Sophia. ‘The Israeli authorities needs you to imagine that it is a non secular battle, however individuals of all faiths are right here displaying solidarity.’
Fairly how cheering on Hamas, a gaggle dedicated to the eradication of Israel and the homicide of Jews, reveals solidarity with Jewish individuals is unclear. However these shouting anti-Israel slogans didn’t appear to care. ‘Brick by brick, wall by wall, Zionism has to fall’, they chanted, as extra fireworks exploded overhead.
Protesters had been repeatedly calling Israel a terrorist state.
The Arabs in Palestine, Laith advised me, ‘have a really lengthy historical past [in the region] that goes again a lot additional than Israel’s’. A close-by preacher echoed his phrases: ‘I care about who belongs to the land. I care about who speaks the language.’ It was tough to overlook the grim subtext to those feedback. These individuals aren’t advocating for a peaceable decision to the battle. They need a state free from Jews.
This wasn’t an anti-war protest – or a pro-Palestine demonstration. It was a celebration of a pogrom.
Thomas Osborne is an intern at spiked.
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