The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office () (Con):...The noble
Lord, , asked about the current
situation and the state of security as influenced by what we are
seeing in Israel with Hamas. Of
course, as noble Lords will be aware, the UK condemns the
terrorist acts by Hamas against Israeli and international
citizens. It needs to be restated that Hamas alone is responsible
for this conflict. As the Foreign Secretary tweeted,
“The death of any civilian is a tragedy. Palestinian or
Israeli—Hamas is the cause of this loss”.
We support Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself and take
action against terrorism.
Sadly, experience indicates that whenever Israel is attacked,
legitimate Israeli defensive measures are used by some as a
pretext to stir up hatred against British Jews. Following
hostilities between Hamas and Israel in 2021
and other flare-ups in recent years, multiple incidents were
targeted at and designed to increase fear within the Jewish
community. They included vandalism of Jewish businesses,
desecration of memorials and religious sites, physical and verbal
abuse of Jews on the streets, convoys driving through Jewish
neighbourhoods hurling anti-Semitic abuse, and proliferation of
anti-Semitism online. There is an obvious risk that this pattern
will be repeated during the current conflict. Indeed, there is
plenty of evidence to suggest that that is already the case.
The Government have been clear that we will not tolerate
anti-Semitism, and the Prime Minister has announced an additional
£3 million for the Community Security Trust to protect schools,
synagogues and other Jewish community buildings. Unfortunately,
extremist exploitation of conflicts involving Israel is something
with which we are all now too familiar. Escalations in extremist
rhetoric, both online and offline, are likely to continue to
raise tensions and fear within communities, so we must also be
alive to the risk that this has the potential to radicalise and
exploit those susceptible to Islamist or extreme right-wing
narratives.
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