Around 300,000 people are said to have marched through London on Remembrance Day, not in memory of the fallen in Britain’s wars but to protest at Israel’s legal use of force against an enemy that intends to eradicate the State of Israel and, to judge from its past statements and its recent actions, eliminate its Jewish inhabitants – and indeed Israeli Arabs who were caught up in the Hamas raid on 7 October. Numbers at these events are always exaggerated, but almost 300,000 people are also said to have marched through Washington DC on 14 November, and their minds were on the same conflict. They, though, marched in sympathy with Israel and in condemnation of the upsurge in antisemitism that has resulted from the Hamas attack, and that could already be detected within hours of the atrocity.
The United States, like Great Britain, has experienced a surge in hostility to Jews, and, as in Britain, the focal points have been universities. Even so, it is striking that before the gathering in London on 26 November there has been no great march in the UK comparable in scale and significance to the gatherings in support of the Palestinians. There have been public events in Germany; the French Prime Minister led a march in Paris in condemnation of antisemitism. Why then have those in Britain who are sympathetic to Israel failed until so late to show their feelings in public, beyond small-scale gatherings that are in any case largely ignored by the BBC and ITN?
