Former LFI chair Dame Louise Ellman has written the below article for the Jewish Chronicle. Click here to read the original.
I was an MP for over two decades so am rarely surprised by the amount of time parliament spends focused on Israel.
Even I, however, was taken aback by the degree to which the Jewish state has become the focus of debate over the past year. Since October 7, 2023, there have been many more contributions on Israel and the Gaza war than on the NHS – consistently rated voters’ top priority in this period; Ukraine, the worst conflict in continental Europe since 1945; and the bloody conflict in Sudan.
The Hamas atrocities and the ensuing tragic conflict in Gaza is a major concern to us all. A war that was triggered by the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust and which, as Hamas fully intended, has threatened to teeter into a regional conflagration is an important matter for debate. The suffering endured by the hostages and their families and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza naturally distresses many Britons and it’s right that their representatives reflect their feelings in parliament. Nor is it the case that every intervention in the House of Commons is necessarily attacking Israel.
But parliamentarians’ relentless fixation on Israel is neither healthy nor constructive. As is clear from these statistics, this obsession crowds out the space for debate on other hugely important issues. It sends a signal to media organisations that their own distorted and biased reporting – epitomised by the failure to label Hamas’ crimes as terrorism – is somehow legitimate.
And, most worryingly, most of these debates do not explore the complexities of the situation. They all too often feed a narrative that robs the Israeli people of their humanity and permits the Palestinian leadership to deny their own responsibility.
Israel comes to be seen through a warped lens which feeds antisemitic narratives and leads to the perception that the world’s sole Jewish state is somehow especially pernicious and its actions uniquely terrible.
It’s not difficult to see where this leads. Look at the United Nations: its obsession with Israel has morphed into a sickening demonisation of the country and its people. The world’s worst human rights abusers sit in judgment on Israel and escape scrutiny – let alone censorship – for their appalling crimes.
In the end, we end up with the grotesque spectacle of UN bodies that are supposed to stand up for women remaining silent in the face of the mass rape and sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists. We must heed the warnings of this dire situation.
