Tony Blair on anti-semitism

Tony Blair writes:

The suffering of Gaza, the death and destruction, is undeniable. You can make a legitimate criticism of Israel’s tactics in the conduct of the war. Many Jews around the world make exactly those critiques.

But you cannot engage in such criticism legitimately if you do not also condemn the terrorism of October 7. You cannot pretend that Israel does not face a substantial terrorist threat from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, and other groups that do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

You cannot complain about the restrictions on goods and material going in and out of Gaza unless you also reference the reasons for the restrictions: the fear in Israel that such materials will be used for the purpose of building a terrorist infrastructure, which is precisely what nearly 300 miles of tunnels underneath Gaza represent.

You should not diminish the charge of genocide—whatever your views of Israel’s actions—by a barb particularly aimed at Jewish memories of the Holocaust, which was a genocide.

And it was disingenuous to call for Israel to end the war without accepting what is undoubtedly true, which is that the war would have ended at any point in time if Hamas had said they were releasing the hostages, withdrawing from the government of Gaza (directly or indirectly through their weapons), and accepting the united position of the international community that a Palestinian State must be achieved through negotiation, not violence.

Spot on.

One poll during the Gaza war showed that only 24 percent of the British Muslim community believed that October 7 happened in the way it did. Some even believe it was all an elaborate Israeli plot. That is frankly unacceptable.

I know some say that defending the State of Israel is not the way to defeat antisemitism. But there is more at stake than simply defending Israel. It’s about defending reason. Defending facts. Standing up to the noise and intimidation to assert the truth.

None of this means that you cannot support the creation of a Palestinian State or disagree strongly with this or that action of the government of Israel, particularly when that government includes within it figures from the very far right—with whom, it should be said, most members of the Jewish community would disagree.

Facts, not feelings, as Ben Shapiro says.

The post Tony Blair on anti-semitism first appeared on Kiwiblog.