by Brendan O’Neill, Spectator
Israel’s denial of entry to two Labour MPs is a truly shaming moment. Not for Israel, which, like all sovereign states, is perfectly at liberty to permit or deny entry to anyone it chooses. No, for Labour. That our ally, the Jewish nation, is so wary of Britain’s ruling party that it felt compelled to banish two of its representatives should generate some serious soul-searching in Labour.
The flap over Israel’s ejection of the MPs Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang has been mad. It’s the hissy fit heard around the world. Leafy London is up in arms. ‘I am outraged’, thundered Emily Thornberry on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Israel will ‘rue the day that they did this to British parliamentarians’, she said. What’s she going to do – write a mean tweet?
The performative tantrums of Britain’s bourgeois left are far more unbecoming than what Israel has done. Israel just decided that a couple of visitors from overseas were not conducive to the public good – something we in Blighty do all the time. Yet the way the fuming commentariat is talking about it you’d be forgiven for thinking Israel is a modern-day Stasi that had banged up a pair of valiant freedom fighters.
There are wordy fits of pique over Israel’s ‘shameful detention and deportation of British MPs’. Can everyone please calm down? Ms Mohamed and Ms Yang were offered hotel accommodation. Israel paid for their return flight to Britain. This was not Midnight Express. You don’t have to write a letter to Amnesty International. They’re fine.
Israel said it denied the MPs entry because it feared they would ‘spread hate speech’. They have certainly made insulting comments about Israel. Ms Mohamed accused Israel of intentionally starving civilians in Gaza. She has agitated for a ban on goods from Israeli settlements. Ms Yang called for sanctions against certain ministers in Israel’s government. If Israel views these MPs as hostile actors, is it wrong?