The siren that woke all of us up in Israel at 3am last Friday after the Israeli air force attacked Iran wasn’t just a warning to take immediate shelter from any reprisal barrage.
It was in effect a shofar blast signifying that the Jewish state was now taking its destiny in its own hands and had engaged in a heroic battle against a great evil that threatened the world.
America, which was promising to help defend Israel against the expected Iranian counter-attack, had nevertheless refused to help Israel take the fight to the regime in Tehran.
So Israel went in alone against Iran, in full knowledge that the tiny Jewish state could so easily become overwhelmed by Tehran’s vast missile arsenal.
It did so because it had no choice. Iran had long threatened Israel with genocide, and time had now run out. Israeli intelligence had information that Iran had enough enriched uranium for nine bombs and was about to weaponise it. It was also ramping up its ballistic missile production to 300 missiles per month.
This presented Israel with the existential crisis it had so long feared. Even though Iran regularly announced that after it had destroyed Israel it would do the same to America and Britain, those countries were refusing to neutralise the threat. So Israel screwed up its courage and did so.
Already traumatised by the atrocities of October 7, 2023, the ensuing war and the unending plight of the hostages held in Gaza, Israelis were now subjected to a further severe trial. Ballistic missiles aimed at murdering civilians were being fired in such large numbers by Iran that some slipped through the Iron Dome and left a growing trail of Israeli dead and wounded.
While America has been helping defend Israel against these Iranian reprisals, Britain has shamefully maintained a pursed-lip neutrality.
Keir Starmer’s reaction to Israel’s initial strike – a display of stupendous military and intelligence genius that killed all the senior scientists and security officials of that genocidal regime within a few hours – was to call for de-escalation and a diplomatic solution that was in “the interests of stability in the region”. What a disgrace. De-escalating the attempt to stop the Iranian bomb means allowing Iran to get the bomb, which Starmer appears to think would represent “stability”.
Britain’s Jewish community, which the government had already abandoned to out-of-control Jew-hatred, was then told in effect to hide for fear of violent attacks by people enraged not by Iran but by Israel’s attempt to defang Iran.
This followed behaviour by the Starmer government in the last few months more appropriate to an enemy of Israel than an ally. It has been recycling falsehoods, distortions and gross misrepresentations of international law designed to cast Israel as a pariah, suspending arms sales and a trade agreement and issuing sanctions against Jewish residents of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria.
Accordingly, when Israel informed the US about its impending attack on Iran, Britain was reportedly left out of the loop as an unreliable ally.
British Jews now face a deeply unpleasant reality. The interests of the people of Israel are becoming inimical to how the British government and too many of the public perceive their own interests, having been terrifyingly indoctrinated into viewing Israel through a prism that inverts truth and lies and defies morality and reason.
Many in Israel now view Britain as lost, having trashed its core values under the twin pressures of Islamisation and left-wing ideologies that pass off cruelty and nihilism as compassion and conscience. Horrifyingly, Britain has moralised murderous hatred of Israel and the Jews.
In Israel, by contrast, despite the grief and trauma of this long and excruciatingly difficult war, its communal spirit, determination and optimism are off the charts.
There’s a sense of relief that deliverance is finally at hand from the long Iran nuclear nightmare. There’s enormous pride in the country’s unmatched intelligence acts of derring-do, its strategic genius and the courage and heroism of its military.
And Israelis see themselves as defending the free world, performing a service for people who don’t even recognise the threat, let alone Israel’s achievement.
In a world that has demonised, delegitimised and dehumanised Israel, it has shown it isn’t cowed or demoralised. Unlike that world, Israel is fighting for a life force against a death cult.
Moreover, if it smashes the Iran-based Shia axis it will reshape the Middle East for the better and deal a blow to China and Russia. It’s disabled Hamas and Hezbollah, precipitated the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and is now neutralising the most dangerous state on Earth.
The world that’s against Israel is a world that’s going down. Not only will Israel win this war to survive and thrive, but it will become the dominant regional power. With Britain and so much of the West mired in demoralisation and defeatism, it will also become in effect the leader of the free world.
In Israel, the feeling is stronger than ever that, right here, Jewish destiny is being re-made.
Melanie Phillips is a columnist for The Times
