In The Builder’s Stone, Melanie Phillips reminds us forcefully that we must never forget how 7 October 2023 changed the world. On that day Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded southern Israel and brutally raped women and butchered or burned alive 1,100 Jewish men, women and children. They also dragged 250 Israelis, including three-year-old twins, grandparents and young women whom they had already attacked, into Gaza as hostages. They filmed it all on their body cameras, and perhaps the most terrifying thing they recorded was the glee with which they carried out these atrocities.
Phillips, a British writer who lives in Jerusalem and London, has spent many decades fighting Goliaths. Like David, she has fired well-aimed stones at left-wing educationalists, enemies of traditional families and others determined to remake the world according to what she deems destructive progressive agendas. In this fearless and invaluable book she describes the horror she felt that after the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the West did not immediately rally to Israel. Instead:
A tsunami of brazen, frenzied Israel-hatred and anti-Semitism erupted across the West. Ever since the pogrom, western capitals (and especially campuses) have been besieged week after week by thousands of Muslims, the hard left and Palestinian supporters, who have chanted for the destruction of Israel, jihadi holy war and the murder of Jews everywhere.
Phillips is right. I never imagined that we would see demonstrators in London screaming: ‘Death to the Jews.’
It recently emerged that even as the torture of Israelis was taking place on 7 October, pro-Palestinian groups in London were informing the police that they were organising a protest against Israel for the following Saturday.
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