The World Said Never Again...And Yet
Mark Birbeck writes that our flawed response to October 7 should shock us to the realisation that whatever promise was made in the past is now broken. To remake the promise of Never Again means to recognise this failure, and then vow to be part of the bulwark against anti-Semitism's renewed vigour.
On October 7th, 2023, nearly 1200 Jews were murdered by Islamist terrorists in southern Israel, and over 250 were dragged as hostages to the tunnels of Gaza.
The worst killing of Jews since the Holocaust the world said, without pausing to reflect on why we even need to track such a grim statistic.
And now, just over two years later, there's a sense that it may finally be over. US President Donald Trump banged heads together, the story goes. The Abraham Accords are back on track. And the living hostages are — thankfully, miraculously — home.
But the reality is somewhat different; although this particular battle may be nearly over, the real war is gathering pace.
Our Fight
The reason Our Fight was founded in October 2023 was not because of the events of October 7 — at least not directly. Our Fight was established as a response to October 8th, 9th and after.
Our small group was shocked by the celebrations on the streets of the world's capitals, where murders and rapes were being praised as a 'prison break'. We were galvanised by marches and protests that declared Israelis had 'become Nazis', that Gaza was 'like the Warsaw ghetto' and that a war to defeat Hamas — a war against an Islamist terror organisation that openly admits its desire to see Israel destroyed — was instead 'a genocide'.
And as posters bearing the faces of hostages were defaced as fast as activists could put them up, we knew a new organisation was needed: Our Fight was established not because an Islamist terrorist regime took 4-year old Ariel Bibas, his 9-month old brother Kfir, and their mother Shiri hostage before then brutally murdering all three — Our Fight was formed because our society saw fit to gouge the eyes from posters of these babies, to draw swastikas on their faces, to hide the reality of Hamas, to use the United Nations as a platform to accuse Israel of genocide, to boycott, to ban, to jeer, to scream, to spit, and ultimately, on the streets of Manchester and of Washington, to kill.
And for each of these actions, the claim, the justification, for the torment of Jews even while they grieved was that this is what it means to be progressive.
Anti-Israel
As the months passed, the world increasingly turned on Israel — not just on the streets, but in polite society, government, in the civil service, the arts.
In the UK, arms embargoes were imposed, implying that Israel could not be trusted with weapons. Ireland and Amnesty International sought to redefine the term genocide in order to fit the war Israel was conducting. Trade unions and political parties tabled motions of boycott. Campaigns sought to block anything even tentatively connected with Israel, from ballet, comedians, art sponsorship, and vegetables, through to books, orchestras, bands and more.
And the peak of this vicious Israelophobia was the declaration from our spineless government here in the UK, that a state of Palestine should be recognised, even whilst Gaza was led by Hamas, even whilst they used corpses to bargain, even whilst they starved Israeli citizens in their tunnels.
Anti-Semitism
All of which yields the undeniable conclusion: anti-Semitism had not disappeared, it merely awaited the fuel of fresh libels.
The war that followed October 7 may indeed be witnessing its end game. The living hostages are returned, and we cannot imagine the difficulties of trying to rebuild a life after such experiences — whether hostage, family or nation.
But for us here in Britain, our challenge is different. The promise of Never Again is a promise that each generation needs to make afresh. It's made through our understanding of what anti-Semitism can give rise to. It's made through our declaration that we will be part of the vigilance. It is not something that is passed down, inherited, taken for granted — a promise must be a living thing.
Our flawed response to October 7 should shock us to the realisation that whatever promise was made in the past is now meaningless, broken; whilst one part of our society hacked at Israel, the part of society that should have pushed back was not ready. We had no answer, no campaign. Jews and Israel called, and we were lacking.
To remake the promise of Never Again means first to recognise this failure, and then to vow: vow to be part of the bulwark against anti-Semitism's renewed vigour.
It is time to join us.
