Is it antisemitic to support Palestinians?

Binyamin Netanyahu's strategy of conflating criticism of his Israeli regime with antisemitism carries immense risks

Charlotte Church has been bitterly condemned for joining pro-Palestinian protest marches

Of all the appalling things humans have done to one another over the past century, the Hamas attacks of October 7 rank fairly high. But, unlike the pogroms in York and London in 1189-90, the Spanish massacre of 1381 and the extermination plan of the Third Reich, it was not an attack on Jewish people because they were Jewish; it was an attack on Israel. This is an enormously important distinction, and one that it suits Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing cronies in government to elide.

Hamas did not attack Jews in the way Hitler did when he was looking for an easy target to blame for the world's ills and his inadequacies. Hamas was attacking the neighbour with whom it has been locked in an atavistic struggle for land -- and the neighbour, incidentally, that has been driving Palestinians off their lands and killing them with seeming impunity. It is true that in its 1988 charter Hamas expressed some repugnant and bizarre antisemitic sentiments, but arguably the organisation has since disowned them, and in any case they should be seen at least partly through the lens of that ancient struggle.

Many British people understand this. They deplore what Hamas did on October 7, but they do not see Israel's response as remotely appropriate. They support the Palestinian people in the sense that they do not want them to suffer any further, and they are appalled by what the Israeli government is doing, especially as it is impossible to dispel the sense of how politically convenient the war is for Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition. These Britons are not antisemitic; they are not Islamist. And the suggestion that they are supporters of terrorism, constantly bleated by politicians such as Suella Braverman and numerous commentators, is baffling and offensive to them. Bearing the colours of the Palestinian flag is meant to convey no message other than: I do not like what is being done to these people -- please stop it. The science minister Michelle Donelan has learnt the hard way that you can't just go round calling people terrorists because they do not like seeing civilians wiped out -- although, naturally, we are picking up the tab for her idiocy.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, with his virulently right-wing security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir

British politicians should think carefully before they propagate any further Netanyahu's dishonest attempt to silence critics by calling them antisemites. They are making themselves look out of touch with what Britain thinks, and in particular Britain's young people. In the latest YouGov polling 28% said they supported the Palestinian side in the Gaza war, and only 16% the Israeli side. Among those aged 18-24, 47% sympathised more with the Palestinians, and only 9% with the Israelis. Thank goodness senior police officers have resisted the malevolent chuntering from politicians and dealt with the protest marches sensibly and calmly.

The perennial violence between Israel and Palestinians should be seen as a brutal, bloody conflict between neighbours, in which religion is used as a way to create division -- just as in most religious conflicts throughout history. For instance, the Troubles were never an argument over transubstantiation; they were about the disputed territory of Northern Ireland.

For Netanyahu to purvey the sense of an existential threat to Jewish people is deeply irresponsible, because it actually feeds the virus of antisemitism. This is why antisemitic attacks have risen in frequency and some Jewish people feel threatened in Britain's cities: Netanyahu is telling the world they must pick a side, either the Jewish side or the Palestinian -- that is, Muslim -- side. He wants the war to continue so he can cling to power and avoid prosecution for the numerous acts of corruption of which his critics say he is guilty. He wants us to think the existence of Israel and indeed the Jewish people is under threat. And he doesn't care if it means that in a peaceful, largely harmonious country like Britain, 800-year-old tensions are reignited.