While the Labor party could once count on the support of the vast majority of British Jews, and British Jews could count on Labor to be favorably inclined toward the state of Israel, those days are long gone. This has been especially true since the far left took over the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Dave Rich explains:

[The] anti-American, anti-imperialist strain of the British left [that now dominates] has deep roots, but the 2003 Iraq war gave it a new impetus, and opened up a broad rift in the Labor party. On one side are supporters of the [Tony] Blair legacy that includes a warm embrace of Israel and of Labor Zionists; on the other stand Corbyn and other veterans of the Stop the War Coalition. Despite the initial mass protests against the Iraq war, the coalition was run by an activist core of far-left groups like the Socialist Workers party allied with Islamists like the Muslim Association of Britain. For this alliance, a visceral objection to Israel’s existence was a key point of unity.

The Muslim Association of Britain has been described by a government minister as the British “representative” of the international Muslim Brotherhood organization. The Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood is Hamas, the radical group that governs Gaza—and which Corbyn has praised for its commitment to “peace and social justice and political justice.” This is not the only case of Corbyn’s appearing to align himself with Islamism: from 2009 to 2012, he was a paid host on the Iranian state-owned Press TV.

For many British Jews and others, Corbyn thus personifies a tolerance among parts of the left for reactionary Islamists that is at best naïve, at worst malign—not least because it overlooks Islamism’s history of murderous repression toward democratic socialists in Muslim-majority countries.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.