It’s a fair question that the world will not answer the Jewish state.

By David E. Kaplan

An interview drama played out earlier this month on a British TV network, exposes the nature and scope of today’s global antisemitism. The varnished veneer removed, a heated clash over the October 7, 2023 massacre proves most instructive and a warning to Jews.

“How should Israel have responded to that massacre? What would have been acceptable to you to get their people [the hostages] back and to protect their country?” asked interviewer Julia Hartley-Brewer of Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist, author and politician  on UK TalkTV, a combative news platform delivering fearless debates and unfiltered opinions.

Trying to deflect the question, the Hamas apologist Yvonne replied:

“The first thing I would do, is [ask] how the hell did this happen when you have the fourth largest army in the …”

Julia would have none of this avoidance and diversion and interrupted Yvonne’s waffle answer with:

“Yeah, Yeah, there will be an [Israeli] inquiry; but answer the question –  What should Israel have done considering you think everything Israel has done is a war crime? Answer the question; what would have been acceptable to you?”

Visibly uneasy under Julia’s unrelenting drilling and groping for words, Yvonne replied with a pathetic:

“What would have been acceptable is to sit back first, ignore the need for knee-jerk reactions and not be impulsive…”

Oh really! Tell that to the 6 million Jews of the previous century who trusted this approach before.

It was getting incredulous and Julia’s facial expressions was a picture of understandable disbelief as she persisted:

“They [IDF] waited 2 WEEKS before they went in, surely that is not impulsive…” nor “Knee-jerk” and then reminding Yvonne that Hamas’ constitution calls “for the destruction of the state of Israel,” she again – now for the third time – asked:

“What could they [Israel] have done that would have been acceptable to you?”

Cornered, Yvonne was still resisting to answer the question and resorted to the time and tested ‘blame the Jews’ response:

“What would have been acceptable to me as a civilized human being that doesn’t believe in striking back, I would sit back and ask, “why did this happen?””

Can you believe this?

Apart from defaming Israelis by insinuating that unlike her, they are not “civilized human beings”, she asserts they, Israelis, should have – following the October 7 massacre – “sat back” and rather than defend themselves from happening again or rescuing the 251 hostages, should instead ask:

 “Why did it happen?”

Are ONLY Jews expected to respond to horrendous violence with introspection?

What was really playing out here was a two-thousand-year-old repeated script of always blaming Jews for being victimized. If Jews are massacred, there is a reason.  They must not “strike back” or defend themselves but ask always why it was happening. Yvonne was only taking her cue from the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, when he publicly characterized to the world the October 7 massacre as ‘something’ that:

“…did not happen in a vacuum.”

If the UN leader can so justify terrorism against Jews, “why can’t I,” Yvonne probably thought.

Backwards and forwards with no direct reply to the most important question of the 21^st century as it pertains to urban warfare, an exasperated Julia reproached Yvonne with a rephrase by specifically relating it to the UK:

“You’re not answering…last chance. What would you do if such attacks, murders and rapes had happened to us in the UK; what would be the acceptable reaction?”

Yvonne’s  agonizing hesitation was met with a bold persistence:

“Why won’t you answer the question?”

After further deflections from Yvonne of “Israeli propaganda,” an exasperated Julia in one final, all-out push, asked:

“What action would Israel be allowed to take in your civilized world view in response to October 7? Answer the question please.”

Yvonne did. Israel should, she said:

“.. go down the legal channel.”

It was an answer defying belief but it was an answer that probably most the world agrees with that the Jewish state, facing an existential threat to its very existence, has no right, like all other states in the UN to physically defend itself. It would appear that Article 51 in Chapter VII of the UN Charter that states that “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations…” does NOT apply to Israel.

It would be easy to dismiss Yvonne Ridley as only one misguided or misinformed journalist that does not represent a global constituency but that would not be true. With antisemitism around the world today characterized as a “pandemic” and  “tsunami” – that no Jew is safe today anywhere in the world following the October 7 massacre – Yvonne Ridley’s perspective on Jews and Israel are far from confined but frighteningly mainstream.

As I am writing, it is now 10.00a.m. on Thursday February 20, 2025 and I am also watching the painful coverage on TV of the return of the remains of four hostages including the Bibas family – the mother Shiri, and her two ginger-haired children, Ariel and Kfir – who had come to symbolize the hostage plight of the Jewish people. Why am I not surprised that Hamas, even during its cruel handover ‘ceremony’ of the remains in Gaza, which was prohibited under the cease-fire and hostage-release agreement is trying to spin it that “WE, Israel, caused” their deaths. The message is clear, Jews are always responsible for their own misfortune. Instead of being an outrageous exception, Yvonne Ridley is the norm. Why else would Jews across the world feel increasingly the need to ‘disguise’ their identity by removing skullcaps or replacing them with baseball caps or removing mezuzahs from the front doors of their homes? The mezuzah, a mark of Jewishness that instead of protecting the occupants of a home has become an invitation to antisemitic attacks such as the one that took place in 2024 in Paris at the home of an elderly Jewish couple whose door, with its mezuzah, was set on fire.

Why are Jews around the world warned not to speak Hebrew in public or display any significant signs that might expose their identity. The world, since October 7, has become hostile territory for Jews.

Any of this familiar?

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