"World leaders need to make this clear and put pressure on Palestinian leadership to move away from Jew hatred," says Lance Forman
Lance Forman is a former MEP for London. He rejoined the Conservative Party in 2020, after moving to the Brexit Party in 2019
A week ago, London hosted its 18th pro-Palestine rally. I say Pro-Palestine rally, but in truth it’s an anti-Jewish hate march.
Were it pro-Palestine, the marchers might have protested when thousands of Palestinians were being killed by Syria’s brutal dictator, but they didn’t seem to care then; it’s only when Israel defends itself that they tend to speak up.
To coincide with the rally, the pro-Jewish side had organised a counter-protest and I decided to attend. We played music and sang songs of peace, but after a while, I decided to head over to the hate mob and see what they were shouting about.
Naturally, I did not walk over holding an Israeli flag, or even a Union, as many of the patriotic British people on the pro-Israel side do, as this could have had me arrested by the police. So, I sauntered over reasonably discreetly.
At the edge of the barrier I saw a young man so I approached him and opened up about the senselessness of all of these protests.
I explained that in the summer I had attended a different rally where pro-Israel supporters were singing their songs, dancing and waving their flags, and literally 15 metres away on the other side of the street, the Pro-Pal mob were doing the same. I asked him, would it not be so much better if we could all sing and dance together.
He responded telling me that he is Palestinian, British born, and that it’s never going to happen because the Palestinians HATE the Jews for stealing their land.
I didn’t bother getting into a discussion about the historic illiteracy in his statement, but instead reflected as follows… During World War 2, the German’s killed six million Jews, one third of the entire population of global Jewry, equivalent to almost five million Palestinians today.
As well as killing them in specially constructed gas chambers in the most painful way possible, Germans stole their homes, their businesses, their assets and their land.
And yet, Jews do not hate Germany for it. We have moved on and indeed have good relations. He was stumped for an answer and decided to walk away and not continue the conversation.
LATEST OPINION:
After 76 years of Israel’s existence, Palestinians need to move on. If they keep dreaming that one day Palestine will be free from the River to the Sea, all that will happen is that more of their children will be slaughtered.
World leaders need to make this clear and put pressure on Palestinian leadership to move away from Jew hatred, which is often promoted in Palestinian schools funded by our own taxpayer, via our contributions to the UN.
Rewarding Palestinian terror with funding and aid is never going to solve the problem and will only encourage the continued and ancient Jew hatred.
The warm peace agreement between Israel and some of its Arab neighbours in the ground-breaking Abraham Accords demonstrates that Jews and Arabs are perfectly capable of making peace.
It’s time for a strong Palestinian leader to come forward, who will convince his people to put the past behind them, give up on hate and make a genuine effort towards peace for their own sake, their neighbours’ sake in Israel and the world at large.
Where is that brave leader?
