Nicole Lampert
@nicolelampert · Jewish & Israel-focused media — US/UK
Nicole Lampert is a British journalist writing on politics, culture, Israel, and antisemitism.
While British leaders posit a proposed settlement construction as a barrier to the Two State Solution, a Gazan explains how he sees his own land. ‘The glorification of sacrifice on a grand scale.’ A culture of martyrdom and death. He says his society needs to be changed on the inside with our help so that people realise living is more important than death. Until this martyrdom narrative, perpetuated by the West, is ended, there will never be peace.
This is a woman from Gaza who explains the culture of martyrdom in the Palestinian Territories. How ‘many’ other women, mothers, say it’s ’fine if we lose three, four sons to become martyrs’. How they hold wedding ceremonies for the dead sons - the ‘martyr groom.’ She talks of a culture celebrating death and martyrdom which is learned in childhood, in schools. It saddens and outrages her. She wants more for her people.
This is where we are. Our Foreign Minister (a self proclaimed AsAJew) would like to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. A place Jews have lived in for thousands of years (apart from when they were ethnically cleansed by Jordan from 1948-1967. @RabbiWittenberg @Peston @BenKentish are you in favour?
Rabbi Leo Dee whose wife and daughters were murdered by Palestinian terrorists: Dear Andy Burnham, I am perhaps the British citizen who has suffered most directly from Britain’s misguided policies towards Israel and the Palestinians over the past 25 years. My Oxford-educated wife, Lucy, and my British-educated daughters, Maia and Rina, were brutally murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Jordan Valley in April 2023. Since their murders, the terrorists’ families have been eligible for payments from the Palestinian Authority under its notorious “pay-for-slay” system. The terrorist organisations responsible for so much bloodshed have also flourished in an environment sustained for decades by international funding, including British support for the PA and UNRWA. And now you propose boycotting products made by Jews living in the West Bank. You insist that you are not against Israelis. Yet you are prepared to single out Jewish Israelis like me for economic punishment. That is the hypocrisy I find so difficult to accept. For decades, Palestinian terrorism has killed thousands of innocent Israelis, like my wife and daughters, while the Palestinian Authority has operated a system financially rewarding prisoners and the families of those killed carrying out attacks partially funded by the UK. Yet your moral outrage is directed not at those institutions, but at Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria. Of course Palestinians have also been killed by Israelis, including tragically innocent people. But many deaths have occurred during terrorist attacks, armed clashes and Israeli security operations. Equating those circumstances with a government system that financially rewards convicted terrorists and their families obscures a crucial moral distinction. To paraphrase the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: criticising or boycotting Israel is not necessarily antisemitic. Singling out Israel for standards applied to no other country can be. If you genuinely believe your policy is principled rather than discriminatory, I invite you to defend it publicly. I would be happy to debate you on television, anywhere and at any time. Rabbi Leo Dee
The absolute colonialist chutzpah of Miliband is breath-taking: “If we’re frank with each other, people will always say there’s no good time to take these measures. Imagine a world where a new government was elected; people will be saying well now is not the time. “With the greatest sort of humility I’d say we as a British government can’t outsource our political moral responsibilities to the Israeli opposition or to the Israeli electorate. “We have to make our own decisions about legality, values and the actions that follow from that and then the Israeli people make their own decisions, and I’ve been very, very careful to say this: for the Israeli people to determine who they want their government to be, we have to do what we think is right.’
Once again the Palestinians are given no agency. Hamas is a footnote. The fact they are still in charge in Gaza while the PA in the West Bank still uses OUR MONEY to pay for the families of terrorists doesn’t warrant a mention. Why is no pressure put on the people who have rejected the two state solution again and again and again?
As early as tomorrow the Israelis are going to close down the British consulate (to Palestine) in Jerusalem. It’s in the land called ‘Palestine’ in the ridiculous map drawn when we recognised Palestine but facts mean it’s actually in Israel (when the map was drawn the consulate became so confused about where it was/ what country that it ended up removing its address from its website). I can’t see how that won’t help Netanyahu who will be seen as acting strong among those who hate Israel. As Britain recognised the state of Palestine while Hamas was still holding hostages (including Brit Israeli Emily Damari) we are not recognised as friends.
I don’t think the Jewish Labour Movement has criticised the Labour Party since Corbyn went - until now. Even they see this move, happening now, just a few weeks before an Israeli election, as suspect and more about British internal politics than anything else.
Slow handclap as Britain’s actions mean we are less able to help the Palestinians than before.
If this was really about Palestinians and Israel, they would have waited until after the elections in Israel. If Netanyahu wins, they talk to him and then and only then sanctions. If Netanyahu loses, E1 is already off the table. There’s a new PM to work with. THIS IS ABOUT INTERNAL LABOUR POLITICS AND WILL NOT HELP PALESTINIANS ONE JOT.
Are any of them stupid enough to think this is how you get a two state solution? Seriously?
He’s the US ambassador to Israel and has lots of interesting things to say about the impact the sanctions will have on US/ UK trade. But the presenter keeps going back to whether he knew Ed Miliband was Jewish when he accused the Foreign Secretary of ‘Jew hate’. Some of the most dangerous Jew haters in history also had Jewish heritage.
Settler violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There has always been murderous violence towards the settlers.
Whenever Jews tried to say the present growth of antisemitism felt like Germany in the 1930s or the time of the pogroms I would argue back that they were wrong because here the Government was on our side. No longer. However angry they might be about settler violence (and they are right to be while also bearing in mind most settlers are not violent and there is also dangerous violence from the Palestinians) there’s an election in 7 weeks and a new Israeli govt will change settler policies. They pretend this is about the E1 settlement when the E1 was always likely to be part of Israel in any two state solution and the opposition has said it has no plans to build. They claim E1 will ‘destroy’ the two state solution as if the original two state plans wasn’t a stupid unworkable patchwork which the Palestinians keep saying no to. As if Oct 7 didn’t happen. As if Hamas didn’t exist. So I want to know: will the NHS now stop using Teva products - some of which are made in East Jerusalem? Will BBC journalists still be allowed to stay in the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem’s Old City? Has this virtue-signalling govt thought any of this through?
The erudite, angry, powerful @simon_schama on why calling the Israel-Hamas war ‘a genocide’ is a blood libel and antisemitism. I hope the Labour politicians sitting in the room for the @HolocaustUK dinner felt uneasy. https://t.co/8ZmHmIPKXA
British PM tells the funders of Hamas (a proscribed terror group, lest we forget), ‘we are with you’. Doesn’t it make you proud? FML
An anarchist artists who threw eggs at Jewish people outside Hackney Town Hall last month has pleaded guilty to assault by beating. Chiara Lauvergnac describes herself as ‘a professional troublemaker’ and has been heavily involved in pro immigrant demonstrations. She one of a number of activists outside the town hall as the Green activist/ councillors opted to detwin from Israeli city Haifa. She was given a fine of just over £120.
The aid worker whose death led to the Israeli ambassador being summoned. Now Hamas has now claimed him as one of their own.
The audacious cynicism is enough to make you wince while clapping your hands slowly in admiration. Just hours after Andy Burnham sat with Jewish leaders who warned him of the need to reject anyone inciting hatred amid rising anti-Semitism, Ed Miliband was putting out a new video hinting at the supposed evils of Israel. Following a meeting with some unnamed people who had been to Gaza, the Foreign Secretary put out a moody video of himself on Instagram looking even more haggard than usual, part of a post claiming that “the scale of human suffering in Gaza is impossible to ignore” and demanding: “The UK must act, and act more decisively”. He looked agonised as he discussed how “medicines are being blocked and children dying while waiting for vital life-saving treatment”. Far more upset than he apparently ever was about the anti-Semitism of the party he is part of during the Corbyn era: in fact, I don’t recall he ever had a word to say about that. (Rest of the piece can be read via gift link below). 👇🏼
Later this month Ed Sheeran, backed again byMacklemore, will be appearing at the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts which is owned by Robert Kraft who has been a big fighter against antisemitism. Will he allow this antizionism at his stadium?
Miliband listened to activist doctors when actually the UK is part of the International Gaza Support Centre which oversees how much medicine and aid goes into Gaza. If we start sanctions against Israel we will be thrown off the Support Centre so will have less power not more over what goes in. This is about Labour wanting to win back voters and has nothing to do with helping Palestinians.
This tells you everything about how the UK works when it comes to Israel. It has an embassy in Tel Aviv but its ’UK in Jerusalem’ consulate is pro Palestine. It should be in Ramallah but who wants to live there?
It’s interesting to see the fallout from the ‘pro Palestinians’ to an actual Palestinian who dares remind people about the actions of Hamas. https://t.co/6NdkleM4gY
Let’s talk about hospitals in Gaza. This excellent deep dive by @WolfgangTietze3 shows how on October 7, 16 vehicles containing dozens hostages went straight from Israel to Al-Shifa hospital which was so well known as a Hamas headquarters that it had been in a Fauda storyline. As Western propagandist doctors - who always deny seeing Hamas in hospitals - get a hearing with the British foreign secretary, let’s talk about those hospitals today 👇🏼
Just yesterday Jewish leaders asked the government not to rile things up before the high holidays when the terror threat against us is on high alert. Last year two men were killed and three others injured during a terrorist attack on a synagogue. So our twat of a Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband completely ignores them with this moody film bewailing the fact that people are struggling in Gaza. Of course they are. It’s terrible that many of the people of Gaza are living in tents while Hamas continues to keep them hostage having started a horrendous war that has seen thousands die. But none of that is mentioned by Miliband who kosherises Labour’s plans to attack Israel because it’s politically expedient. Cynical cynical cynical.
Connected stories
- UK Announces Import Ban and Sanctions Regime Targeting Settlement Trade
- Miliband Says UK-Israel Security Cooperation Will Continue Despite Clash
- Israel Orders UK Consulate Closure, Ends British Gaza and PA Roles
- IDF Official Says Shin Bet Is Doing Minimum Against Settler Violence
- Foreign Ministry and Huckabee Reject Miliband’s Gaza Medicine Claims