Thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem yesterday as the murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was finally laid to rest. The 23-year-old Israeli-American, along with five other hostages, had been shot in cold blood by Hamas after enduring 332 hellish days in captivity.
At the funeral, his mother delivered a eulogy freighted with unimaginable sorrow. But in the depths of such grief, this broken woman issued a plea to her slain son:
“Now I need YOU to help us to stay strong. And I need YOU to help us to survive.”
Rachel Goldberg-Polin`s words will – should – resonate with decent people everywhere. The need for fortitude and strength in a fight against the evil prosecuted by Hamas and its Iranian paymasters. Unfortunately, David Lammy seems to have been otherwise diverted when this message was relayed. Instead, in a piece of grotesque timing, the Foreign Secretary announced there would be a clamp down on arms sales to Israel.
Even in the depth of our sorrow for the fallen captives, it was manifestly clear to many in the Jewish community that this was gesture politics. Drill into the maths – and I write as the wife of an accountant (naturally) – and it seems clear Lammy`s decision was predicated on vote-appeasing symbolism. Ministers were ‘only’ suspending 30 out of 350 export licences. Meanwhile, British arms account for only one percent of Israeli imports. In other words, such a move may have little practical impact on the Jewish state as it fights for its survival against a brutalising enemy.
Yet the power of the messaging is seismic. It propagates the falsehood that Israel is in breach of international humanitarian law (when it actually goes to such great lengths to uphold it). Little wonder the Foreign Secretary`s decision will give succour to the barbarians of Hamas who tortured, beheaded, raped and burned hundreds of innocents on October 7.
Meanwhile, here in Britain, Lammy has also betrayed the Jews of this country. For his powerful messaging is bound to fuel antisemitism in the UK – legitimising acts of Jew hatred which hit record levels in 2023 and experienced a grim surge in 2024 after Hamas launched its murderous attack on Israel nearly a year ago.
We have to assume this was not the intention of the Right Hon member for Tottenham. But in what corner of the Foreign Secretary`s blinkered, tactical and utterly misguided mind, could the impact of his decision play out in any other way? He knows about the level of Jew hatred in this country and has spoken out about it. Yet this is the same man who previously nominated Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. He has also restored funding to UNRWA, a UN agency that had housed Hamas terrorists.
When Lammy made his arms announcement, he senselessly bleated about Israel’s right to defend itself. He said that there was “no equivalence” between the Israeli military and the barbarous actions of Hamas. But Labour has once again given the green light to those who indulge in raging, violent and uncontrolled pro-Palestinian protest in the UK by suggesting right is on their side where arms to Israel are concerned.
And it is the Jewish community who pick up the slack: with our students, including my own daughter, suffering on campuses while protest marches in parts of the country have made it impossible for Jews to feel safe. The Labour Party and other elements of the Left repeatedly ‘fail’ to recognise the equation between an ugly attack on the world’s only Jewish state and the rise in domestic antisemitism.
At her son`s funeral, Rachel Goldberg-Polin pleaded for strength to survive. Will David Lammy ever show the strength that is sorely needed to protect both an ally of the UK and the Jews of this country? We can only hope. For the Left to continue with this blind spot is a madness that could come at a severe cost to all of us.
