It was one of those moments when you could sense history shifting on its axis. When the news broke that all the living hostages had been freed from the catacombs, you could almost feel the joy of Israel pushing a new energy into the world.
Deep anxiety remains for the condition of the former captives, some of whom have not yet been reunited with their families. But they are home.
Their wonderful release was the result of two things: the “madman” strategy of Benjamin Netanyahu, which convinced Hamas that no amount of international isolation would cause Israeli troops to give up on their people, and the way the Arab world finally turned against the jihadis.
For the latter, credit must be placed squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump. Never has he given any quarter to Hamas. They have always been the enemy of freedom; they started this war; they perpetuated it by refusing to free the hostages; and no amount of propaganda persuaded him otherwise. Surrender or die.
From the day Donald Trump replaced the weak and equivocating Joe Biden, all the pressure from the White House descended upon the heads of Hamas and, in recent months, upon the Arab states who had enabled the terror group’s survival.
The operation lacked no subtlety. With a determined combination of American carrots and Israeli sticks, the screws were turned on the Arab world and thence upon the filthy jihadis in their tunnels. The popular narrative that Netanyahu’s Doha strike caused Trump to “rein him in” misses the point that it struck fear into the Qatari heart, forcing them to pressurise Hamas at last.
After two years of constant incitement in Arabic-language media, the Middle East is inflamed with anti-Semitism. But Arab countries are not democracies, and US pressure applied to the leadership classes can make things happen from above.
Which brings me to the rest of the supposedly free world. Such is our political system that street movements, when they gain enough momentum, can make weak leaders like Starmer and Macron feel like they have their backs against the wall.
I dream of a world in which all the marches we saw in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and elsewhere, which commenced on October 7 before the killing had even abated, were targeting the true culprits: Hamas. In my mind’s eye, I see hundreds of thousands of activists thronging the streets of Kensington, flying the Palestinian flag and proudly displaying the yellow ribbon. Out with Hamas! Bring them home! Free, free, Palestine, from the scourge of jihadism!
It is a sobering truth that we saw far more demonstrations of this sort inside Gaza, where the price is paid in blood, than on the streets of our allegedly free cities.
Such mass displays of revulsion for Hamas would surely have forced our eunuch Prime Minister to take that message to the United Nations, insisting that he would not recognise a “State of Palestine” until Hamas laid down its arms and freed the hostages.
Yes, Britain is complicit in this war, and not in the way you think. When those hoards of Israelophobic fanatics dominated our towns and cities, demanding all the concessions that would have ensured victory for Hamas, how did the country respond? With indulgence and excuses. These were not anti-Semites, we said, but “decent people” who were simply overwhelmed with disgust at the Jewish appetite for the blood of children.
After two years of looking upon these brazen racists with kindliness, Starmer even decided to form his foreign policy on the basis of their warped world-view.
How must Gazans feel about all this? There are a great many who hate Hamas from the depths of their souls, having lived under its yoke for decades. Since the ceasefire took effect, the jihadis have taken advantage of the window between war and international supervision to launch a campaign of retribution against those clans who criticised the way they brought such devastation into the Strip.
Footage has emerged of torture and summary executions. Hamas has made no attempt to hide these crimes against its own people, just as it has made no attempt to mask its hatred of “al-Yahud” and revelled in the butchery of October 7. But the West? As ever, the West has made excuses for Hamas that even Hamas itself has not made.
The BBC, which consistently mistranslates “Yahud” as “Israelis” rather than “Jews” in an apparent effort to reframe jihadism as fashionable “anti-Zionism”, described the peace deal as a “hostage exchange”.
Much has been written about how Hamas won the propaganda war. In truth, however, it wasn’t Hamas that achieved this global success. It was the West that fought it for them. As the continued marches demonstrate, even if the jihadis can be persuaded to lay down their arms, their depraved supporters in our own societies are only just beginning.
‘Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself’, by Jake Wallis Simons, is out now
It was one of those moments when you could sense history shifting on its axis. When the news broke that all the living hostages had been freed from the catacombs, you could almost feel the joy of Israel pushing a new energy into the world.
Deep anxiety remains for the condition of the former captives, some of whom have not yet been reunited with their families. But they are home.
Their wonderful release was the result of two things: the “madman” strategy of Benjamin Netanyahu, which convinced Hamas that no amount of international isolation would cause Israeli troops to give up on their people, and the way the Arab world finally turned against the jihadis.
For the latter, credit must be placed squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump. Never has he given any quarter to Hamas. They have always been the enemy of freedom; they started this war; they perpetuated it by refusing to free the hostages; and no amount of propaganda persuaded him otherwise. Surrender or die.
From the day Donald Trump replaced the weak and equivocating Joe Biden, all the pressure from the White House descended upon the heads of Hamas and, in recent months, upon the Arab states who had enabled the terror group’s survival.
The operation lacked no subtlety. With a determined combination of American carrots and Israeli sticks, the screws were turned on the Arab world and thence upon the filthy jihadis in their tunnels. The popular narrative that Netanyahu’s Doha strike caused Trump to “rein him in” misses the point that it struck fear into the Qatari heart, forcing them to pressurise Hamas at last.
After two years of constant incitement in Arabic-language media, the Middle East is inflamed with anti-Semitism. But Arab countries are not democracies, and US pressure applied to the leadership classes can make things happen from above.
Which brings me to the rest of the supposedly free world. Such is our political system that street movements, when they gain enough momentum, can make weak leaders like Starmer and Macron feel like they have their backs against the wall.
I dream of a world in which all the marches we saw in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and elsewhere, which commenced on October 7 before the killing had even abated, were targeting the true culprits: Hamas. In my mind’s eye, I see hundreds of thousands of activists thronging the streets of Kensington, flying the Palestinian flag and proudly displaying the yellow ribbon. Out with Hamas! Bring them home! Free, free, Palestine, from the scourge of jihadism!
It is a sobering truth that we saw far more demonstrations of this sort inside Gaza, where the price is paid in blood, than on the streets of our allegedly free cities.
Such mass displays of revulsion for Hamas would surely have forced our eunuch Prime Minister to take that message to the United Nations, insisting that he would not recognise a “State of Palestine” until Hamas laid down its arms and freed the hostages.
Yes, Britain is complicit in this war, and not in the way you think. When those hoards of Israelophobic fanatics dominated our towns and cities, demanding all the concessions that would have ensured victory for Hamas, how did the country respond? With indulgence and excuses. These were not anti-Semites, we said, but “decent people” who were simply overwhelmed with disgust at the Jewish appetite for the blood of children.
After two years of looking upon these brazen racists with kindliness, Starmer even decided to form his foreign policy on the basis of their warped world-view.
How must Gazans feel about all this? There are a great many who hate Hamas from the depths of their souls, having lived under its yoke for decades. Since the ceasefire took effect, the jihadis have taken advantage of the window between war and international supervision to launch a campaign of retribution against those clans who criticised the way they brought such devastation into the Strip.
Footage has emerged of torture and summary executions. Hamas has made no attempt to hide these crimes against its own people, just as it has made no attempt to mask its hatred of “al-Yahud” and revelled in the butchery of October 7. But the West? As ever, the West has made excuses for Hamas that even Hamas itself has not made.
The BBC, which consistently mistranslates “Yahud” as “Israelis” rather than “Jews” in an apparent effort to reframe jihadism as fashionable “anti-Zionism”, described the peace deal as a “hostage exchange”.
Much has been written about how Hamas won the propaganda war. In truth, however, it wasn’t Hamas that achieved this global success. It was the West that fought it for them. As the continued marches demonstrate, even if the jihadis can be persuaded to lay down their arms, their depraved supporters in our own societies are only just beginning.
‘Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself’, by Jake Wallis Simons, is out now