Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The shameful desecration of Israel’s kidnapped children

Credit: Israeli Embassy London

We have seen many grim images over the past two weeks. Images of the apocalyptic, Isis-style violence visited upon the people of Israel by Hamas. Images of destruction and grief in Gaza as Israel hammers Hamas for its crimes against the Jewish people, as is its right.

And yet it is an image from London, not Sderot or Gaza City, that has haunted me all day today. Which has made me feel a visceral revulsion. It’s a photo of two sisters who were kidnapped by Hamas. Emma and Yuli are their names. They are twins, just three years old. They are hugging and smiling in the photo. They are a picture of innocence.

Then you notice the black scrawl above their smiling mouths – someone has daubed a Hitler moustache on them.

Read that again. A photo of two Jewish girls has been desecrated with Nazi-style imagery. Infant sisters violently seized by the anti-Semites of Hamas have been grotesquely maligned on the streets of London.

Brendan O’Neill
Written by
Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.

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