According to a report from The Guardian, the Refugee Council and other charities are pushing for the UK to take in refugees from Gaza along similar lines to our having taken refugees from Ukraine. This call was, I suppose, predictable.
We must say “no”.
Gazans are not Ukrainians. They are not from a society pushing towards joining the Western liberal states while trying to make a break from their totalitarian neighbour. They are not from a society which was attacked brutally without provocation. They are from a society that voted to be governed by Hamas, an Isis-like terror organisation. They are from a society that visibly supports Hamas. We have seen how Palestinian parents indoctrinate their children into Jew-hatred, we have seen how they turn out in the streets to cheer terrorist actions by Hamas. Most practice a form of Islam that is incompatible with our values. Few, if any, are seeking to build a liberal democratic state, in stark contrast to the Ukrainians. Similarly, a huge number of Hong Kongers have relocated to the UK after the territory reverted to China. They have gone entirely unnoticed because they share our values and get on with life and work.
We have seen on our streets the result of a growing support for militant Islamism. Who was not shocked by the chants of “Jihad, Jihad”, the waving of Hams flags, the appeals to “Muslim armies”, the naked antisemitism and the simmering threat of violence we witnessed in London and elsewhere around the world last weekend?
We have seen others we have taken in as refugees from the Middle East go on to commit acts or terror, including a case apparently connected with the current crisis.
Accepting thousands of Gazans into the UK will make it worse. It will end in tears. It must not be allowed to happen.
Who knows who Hamas might decide to embed with these refugees?
Simply – and frankly – it is not in the UK’s interests to take refugees from Gaza. It is not in Europe or North America’s interests either, and any similar initiatives must be vigorously opposed.
Put bluntly, only an idiot can think anything good could come of this.
