Why can’t some Londoners tolerate posters of kidnapped Israelis?

What is it about those images of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas that so infuriates certain sections of the public? Since the Hamas pogrom of 7 October, people have been putting up posters of the hostages in cities across the Western world. And almost everywhere they have been torn down, desecrated, destroyed, binned.

The faces of the men, women and children seized by the anti-Semites of Hamas seem to elicit an almost reflexive rage in some passers-by. We’ve seen videos of fuming people clawing at the posters to ensure no part of them survives on our streets. Others have daubed vile and racist insults on them. In Finchley Road in London some lowlife even doodled Hitler moustaches on the faces of toddler twins who were stolen by Hamas (the twins have since been released).

Clearly the solution to this poster-ripping frenzy, these ceaseless assaults on images of pogrom victims, was to go digital.