Note to reader: We wanted to give you a trigger warning on what you may read below. We have chosen, as with every night of these briefings, to not share horrific images, however we want to alert you as sensitively as we can to the reports coming out of Israel.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “Israel has the right to defend itself under international law. Our support for that position is absolute and unchanged”
“The first and most important principle, is that Israel has the right to defend itself under international law. Our support for that position is absolute and unchanged” said the Prime Minister today during PMQ’s – rejecting opposition suggestions for a total ceasefire and instead backing “specific pauses”, in line with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill – colloquially-known as the ‘BDS Bill’ – successfully passed its Report Stage unamended in the House of Commons today. Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove called the BDS movement a “specific menace” – and said that “the only country that has been singled out” by BDS and public bodies has been the Jewish State. Gove said “the reason for that is that the BDS campaign is in itself antisemitic” and noted that BDS organisations had not voiced a “word of sympathy” – instead claiming that innocent Israelis’ “blood is on the hands of the Israeli Government”.
A dozen Conservative MP’s emphasised the Bill’s importance in combatting the divisive BDS movement, amidst a dramatic upsurge in antisemitism in the UK related to events in Israel and Gaza. CFI Parliamentary Chairman (Commons) Rt. Hon. Stephen Crabb MP said that during his meetings with Jewish students, he understood that many were “afraid to give their surnames” and felt like they were being “pushed out of British universities” due to their “Jewish identity”. Crabb asked “when is a good time to take a stand on behalf of Jewish people” in response to criticism about the timing of the Bill both now and in July.
CFI Vice-Chair Rt. Hon. Theresa Villiers thanked the Government for advancing the Bill: “This is a time to stand with the Jewish community”. Villiers emphasised that BDS has been “identified in a succession of studies” to single out the world’s only Jewish State” and therefore amplifies antisemitism. Villiers condemned the “racism and hatred” of recent anti-Israel protests seen across London – including calls for Jihad and “ISIS” flags, and argued that BDS “deplores coexistence and peace building initiatives”. Citing Omar Barghouti, the founder and leader of BDS, Villiers underscored his repeated “opposition to Israel’s right to exist” as a Jewish state. “I want to make clear that I strongly support the right of Israel to defend its land and defend its citizens from terrorist attack”, she concluded.
Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis KC MP lauded the “excellent Bill” and commended its contents for three reasons – its “genuine need”, the fact that “boycotts are inherently discriminatory”, and that they run “contrary to public policy”. He cited Birmingham City Council, which “threatened in 2014 not to renew a contract with the French multinational company Veolia due to its operations in the West Bank” and as a result Palestinian workers were “hurt along with everyone else”. He cited a Sainsburys store which was put under “so much pressure that they removed Kosher food from their shelves” – at the expense of the Jewish community. Sir Michael recalled the Supreme Court of France’s 2015 ruling that BDS was discriminatory, and identified the German Parliament’s designation of BDS as an antisemitic movement in 2019. He also noted that the Palestinian BDS National Committee – the deliberative organ of BDS – included representatives of “Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP”. He asserted that “it must be for central Government to make decision on foreign policy”.
Former Justice Secretary Rt. Hon. Sir Brandon Lewis MP “100 percent” agreed with the Bill – emphasising that “the central Government’s role is to do with foreign policy and actually to ensure that local councils are not making decisions based on their foreign policy or any other ideological pressure” – “but based on the best value for loyal residents”.
Responding to criticism on the timing of the Bill, CFI Vice-Chair Andrew Percy MP raised the fact that the same arguments were made during the second reading before October 7th as they have done since. He noted that major Jewish bodies, including the JLC and the Board of Deputies, were supporting the legislation. Mr Percy considered that many on the anti-Israel marches of recent weeks called for boycotting Israel, including one on the same day as the Hamas atrocities. He highlighted the “nasty, antisemitic, pernicious” nature of the BDS campaign. Andrew Percy strongly pushed back against the idea that “because some people” may react “violently” should be cause to withdraw or amend the Bill – instead making the point that “a country that follows that line of argument is lost”. Percy concluded by quoting Stephen Pollard in the Jewish Chronicle: “You might think that now of all times, when the world has witnessed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there would be a clamour, a rush, even a demand for the BDS Bill to be passed. Now of all times, surely, is the time to stand up and say we see where Jew hate leads”.
CFI Officer Nicola Richards MP called out the BDS movement’s “anti-normalisation charter” and stated that they “do not want peace” and instead call for the “eradication of Israel”. Richards underscored the Anti-Defamation League’s analysis that BDS often recites “allegations of Jewish power, dual-loyalty” and Israeli culpability for “unrelated issues”.
CFI Officer Miriam Cates MP condemned Sheffield Council for passing a pro-BDS motion in 2019 which had “nothing to do with their responsibilities as a local authority and everything to do with an attempt to signal their anti-Israel political views”. She also noted that an Israeli flag was recently “torn down from the Town Hall” as “antisemitic chants” sounded out – calling the scenes “shameful” after the “worst display of evil in my lifetime”.
House of Lords debates Israel Hamas war
Yesterday in the Lords, during a debate on Israel and Gaza, CFI Honorary President Lord Polak CBE called Sky News’ coverage of the Al Ahli Hospital incident “deeply troubling” with the broadcaster taking the “words of Hamas propaganda as if it were the truth”. He also drew focus to Ohad Munder-Zichri, who turned nine years old yesterday in the captivity of Hamas after the terrorist group took him hostage, together with over 200 others – during their rampage and massacre of 1,400 Israelis on 7 October 7.
Former Chairman of CFI, Lord Harrington, condemned Hamas for using Palestinians “to siphon off a lot of well-meaning aid” and for indoctrinating Gaza’s population. He lamented that for the 50% of Gazans 18 or under “it is all they have known”. Lord Gold said he was “heartbroken at the heinous, profoundly evil crimes” of Hamas which have “broken every aspect” of “Common Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention”. Recalling his recent “pilgrimage of remembrance” to Auschwitz”, CFI Officer Lord Shinkwin said that “the post-Nuremberg pledge of “never again” is “not to be rendered meaningless by Hamas’s savagery in the largest single loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust”.
Former Conservative Party Leader, Lord Howard of Lympne, said that “there is no equivalence between the deliberate murder, beheading and kidnapping that took place on 7 October and what is happening in Gaza”, reminding the House that “the victims on 7 October were not being used as human shields”. He was joined by Lord Leigh of Hurley, who redoubled calls on the Government to proscribe the IRGC and by Lord Eaton, who called pro-Palestinian marches on 7 October “disgraceful”.
“Those who glorify Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hizb ut-Tahrir and their ilk are a threat not just to Israel or to Jews but to all of us”, CFI Officer Baroness Altmann declared. “Israel is the only Jewish state. It has known nothing but rejection by most of its Arab neighbours since its inception,” she continued. Lord Sterling said that “we must not forget that until relatively recent times it has been a warm peace” – referring to the 2020 Abraham Accords – and that “one looks forward to a day when a good relationship will develop”. In these “dark times”, Lord Godson highlighted “the explosion of antisemitic attacks in this country since 7 October, which, according to the Metropolitan Police’s own statistics, are up by 1,353%”.
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Conservative Party offered its support for Israel in the Scottish Parliament this morning, as Party Leader Douglas Ross MSP MP said that “my Party stands with Israel” and “we send our love, our thoughts and our sympathies to each and every one who has lost family members and loved ones”. Mr Ross emphasised the “barbaric” nature of the Hamas massacre on October 7th, and highlighted the tragic loss of UK national Bernard Cowan, who moved from Newton Mearns, Scotland, to Israel and became a victim of the attack.
He expressed “disappointment” that the Israeli flag was not flown by the Scottish Parliament following the attack and was joined by Jackson Carlaw MSP in calling for the First Minister to “stand together” with local politicians in communities such as Eastwood, which holds around half of Scotland’s small Jewish community of 11,000.
Hamas trained by IRGC ahead of attack
500 Hamas terrorists reportedly trained in Iran before 7 October, together with terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad – led by officers of the Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The use of motorcycles, paragliders and drones are commonly used by the IRGC – but not by Hamas until 7 October.
Israel’s Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that “before the war, Iran directly assisted Hamas with money, training and weapons and technological know-how”. “Even now, Iran is helping Hamas with intelligence.”
“Hezbollah and Iran supported us with weapons, expertise, and technology,” boasted Khaled Meshaal, a senior Hamas official, during an interview with Al Arabiya news network. The Wall Street Journal quoted IRGC experts at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: “This sort of operation is very difficult to do without Hezbollah and IRGC support”.
Heads of terror groups meet in Lebanon
Terror chiefs from Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad met in Lebanon today to coordinate on their next moves. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas’s commander Saleh al-Arouri and Islamic Jihad’s leader Ziad al-Nakhaleh planned with other Iran-backed, terror groups and released a statement outlining their goal of “victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine”.
U.N. Secretary General controversy
Israel stopped issuing visas to UN officials on Wednesday, following yesterday’s controversial comments by U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, which appeared to defend Hamas massacres on October 7 when he claimed that the “Hamas attacks did not happen in a vacuum”. Senior Israeli lawmakers have called Guterres comments “truly insane”, and that they “tarnish both him and the organisation he heads”.
Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum, stated that the UN Secretary General failed the ‘Never Again test’. Dani Dayan, chairman of the body, said that the outcome of Hamas’ massacres only differs from the Holocaust “because Jews have today a state and an army” – and that the Jewish people are no longer “defenceless and at the mercy of others”. Those who “look for a justifying context, do not condemn the perpetrators, and do not call for the unconditional and immediate release of the abducted – fail the test”, he continued.
The U.N. Secretary General hit back at Israel today, calling claims that he justified Hamas’s massacres “misinterpretations”. “This is false. It was the opposite” he stated, reemphasising that “the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas”, a caveat outlined in his prior comments. The Secretary General remarked that the clarification was “necessary to set the record straight – especially out of respect to the victims and to their families”.
Middle East response to Israel Hamas war
In a hopeful indication that the Abraham Accords will continue to positively transform the region, Saudi Arabia’s de-facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has reportedly agreed to “build on the work that was already underway” after the end of the Israel Hamas War – a reference to the U.S.-led effort to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Crown Prince’s comments came as it was revealed that Saudi Arabia intercepted one of the Iran-backed Houthi missiles fired at Israel last week. Bin Salman and Biden “affirmed the importance of working toward a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians as soon as the crisis subsides”, amid continued efforts by the U.S. and U.K. to explore diplomatic routes to ensure that the Israel Hamas conflict is contained to the immediate region.
In contrast, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyib Erdogan blasted Israel’s war on Hamas calling Hamas terrorists “mujahideen” – an Arabic term with heroic connotations, used for those engaged in Jihad. Speaking at an AK Party faction in the Turkish Parliament, Erdogan said Hamas were “defending their lands” and were not a terrorist group. The Turkish President is yet to condemn Hamas massacre of 1,400 Israelis. Under Erdogan, Turkey has become a staging ground for Hamas to organise and coordinate their terrorist activities in recent years – and has been allowed to operate with impunity
The UAE and Bahrain, which signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, have condemned Hamas brutal attacks though other Arab nations have railed against Israel – including Morocco, which had also in the Accords.
Military developments
Hamas fired long-range rockets toward Israel’s Red Sea resort city of Eilat and Haifa in northern Israel today. The attacks represent the longest-range rocket attacks yet attempted.
The IDF struck several military targets in Syria early on Wednesday morning, after rockets were launched toward Israeli Golan Heights communities on Tuesday. Syria’s state-run news agency Sana reported that eight soldiers were killed and seven wounded in overnight airstrikes carried out by the IDF in the Daraa area.
Hezbollah have continued to launch rockets from Lebanon toward the northern city of Kiryat Shmona. Four were launched, landing in open areas in the north.
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