Ceasefire held up by trigger-happy Hamas

THERE could be a ceasefire in Gaza tomorrow if Hamas would agree to release all remaining Israeli hostages, but it won’t. Why therefore do so many continue to blame Israel for the appalling suffering that we see daily broadcast on our television news?

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and is a small state surrounded by a mass of hostile ones, some of whose leaders think it should not exist at all. No wonder it defends itself vigorously.

The current hostilities were initiated by Hamas when it launched an attack on defenceless civilians, killing, kidnapping and raping. It knew it would be exposing Gazan civilians to danger and cared not a jot. Yet all the hatred is heaped on Israel.

Now we have an MP in the shape of George Galloway who turned the circus which was the Rochedale by-election into a referendum on Gaza. Doubtless we will hear a great deal from him between now and the General Election and I doubt if the Jewish community will find him reassuring, particularly as his deputy refuses to condemn the Hamas outrage on October 7.

JEWS here do not, as they did on the continent in the terrifying circumstances of the run-up to and duration of the Second World War, live in fear of the state but they fear the bias of national institutions such as the BBC, rowdy, hostile demonstrations and two-tier policing to say nothing of the manic rantings on social media.

As for some of the material which arrives on my website, it would convince even the most cynical that anti-Semitism is alive and well. Nobody wants to go on seeing children maimed and killed so why does not public opinion turn against Hamas whose refusal to release hostages is what is triggering Netanyahu’s bombs?