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Israeli Ambassador to Britain: We Are No Longer Willing to Jeopardize Our Security

(Sunday Telegraph-UK) Amb. Tzipi Hotovely interviewed by Tim Stanley - The problem with coverage of Gaza is that emotions run so high, every discussion ends up feeling like an interrogation - and the Israelis push back with force. What outsiders often forget is that beneath the rhetorical fireworks lies a deep pain. Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely tells me "everyone in Israel is traumatized" by the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, murdering and kidnapping more than a thousand people. "We, as Israelis, have been through terror attacks in our coffee shops, on our buses, on our streets, but never in the past did we feel like our houses were not safe." This is their new "vulnerability: the feeling that you cannot protect your own children....I think that October 7th was a watershed moment...all across Israel. No one can say in Israel that he's the same person after." Some governments still live in the mentality of "October 6th" - but Israelis have been shown "that if you have a jihadi, Islamist terrorist group that wants to destroy you on your doorstep, at the end of the day, it'll end up in a massacre." Think of it as living next-door to the "Third Reich." "The aims of the war are very clear to Israel. Hamas shouldn't exist as a political leadership and with military power after we finish." "Israel's policy from the beginning of the war was to deliver aid to Gaza." Some "25,000 trucks of aid got into Gaza. This is not a starvation program, this is actually a flooding Gaza with aid program....The reason why it had to stop was because it was being looted only to feed the terrorists" or "to sell the aid that people were supposed to get for free." "As a Jew, as an Israeli, we value life very much. Unfortunately, our enemies don't....I think it's a clash of civilizations....I find that Western people find it very hard to believe that on the other side, there are people who are using their own children as human shields, but they do....Now, think about it. Do you think the UK would have continued living next to a terror organization that is a threat to your children in Kent? Or in London or in Liverpool? I don't think so." "What did October 7th prove? First of all, unfortunately what we've seen is big support among Palestinians towards the massacre." One poll found 86% of West Bank residents sympathized with the pogrom. The concept of a two-state solution "was rejected by the Palestinians again and again. Israelis had hope [in it] in the 1990s and were willing to compromise, but...every time there was some type of negotiation, there was more terrorism....So Israelis are no longer willing to jeopardize their security any longer."
2025-06-01 00:00:00
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