I often recall that the cowardice of the political establishment pushed the United Kingdom to refuse asylum to the Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan, Asia Bibi, because it might have caused “violent unrest" among the Muslim population and endangered embassies in Islamic countries.

The left in power in London has now decided to sanction and dump Israel, once again to pander to the Muslim population that is decisive at the ballot box.

The Guardian writes it: “Premier Burnham sees sanctions on Israel as an electoral asset." Whose votes? The BBC explains: “Muslim voters".

From the Daily Mail: “A monumental act of national self-harm to stop Muslim voters from abandoning Labour for the Greens."

At what price?

Former British Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat, explains it to The Telegraph:

“Israel is one of our most important intelligence partners and has been for many, many years. I can tell you, as Security Minister, that many attacks have been thwarted thanks to cooperation with Israel, which has helped us protect British citizens from terrorist attacks."

In August the former head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, revealed that Israeli intelligence had helped thwart many attacks in Britain during his tenure at the agency, between 2016 and 2021. He also reported that a former director of Britain’s MI5 had personally thanked him for helping to avert numerous threats on British soil.

In 2012, Israel was decisive in the security of the London Olympic Games.

In 2016 it emerged that Israeli technology for tracking terrorists could have prevented the Islamic State attacks in Paris and Belgium but was boycotted. An Israeli security company had offered tracking software to the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI), France’s main intelligence agency; it was software capable of flagging the ISIS terrorist cell responsible for the attacks in Paris and Belgium. The offer was rejected, apparently after an official made clear that Israeli technology could not be purchased.

Israeli Mossad has helped thwart some 50 attacks in twenty countries.

Australia stopped in time a plan to blow up a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi. A bomb, hidden in a meat grinder, was to be carried on board. “Israeli intelligence thwarted the downing of an Australian airliner, an unimaginable massacre," Benjamin Netanyahu declared.

A year after the Australian case, Israel stopped a jihadist attack in Denmark. Again in Denmark, Israel thwarted another.

Israel had warned Belgian officials weeks before the attack of inadequate security measures at Brussels’ Zaventem airport. The warning had come from Israeli officials tasked with assessing security standards at airports operating flights to Tel Aviv. The Israelis had found “significant shortcomings" at the airport, the scene a few days later of two deadly ISIS explosions.

Israel helped thwart attacks such as the one planned by ISIS terrorists during a football match between host Albania and Israel. Then attacks in Belgium, Turkey and France.

Donald Trump revealed Israel’s alert about an ISIS plan to blow up aircraft bound for Europe using explosives inside laptops.

Then Israel stopped an Iranian attack in Paris.

After the London bombs of 7 July 2005 it emerged that the leader of the bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, had been in Israel a few weeks before two Britons linked to Khan blew themselves up in a café in Tel Aviv.

Now they are ready to explain on the front pages that the government of Israel “knew" about the attacks of 7 October 2023 and did not move to prevent them.

Brilliant: for a political calculation Israel let the terrorists tear 1,200 of its own people to pieces.

It's the old antisemitic slander trope that the Jews are responsible for their own fate.

Benjamin Netanyahu said: “According to Churchill, democracies suffer from a kind of torpor. A disease, he called it. And they wake up only when they hear the gong, the gong of danger. Well, you are hearing it. We must be strong. We must be more powerful than the barbarians, otherwise they will not merely be at the gates: they will smash the gates and destroy our societies."

We are still there, at the sentence of the great Saul Bellow: “In their concern for the decadence of the West, the Israelis have a lesson for the world."

Are they so decadent and so obsessed with giving moral lessons to those who defend themselves against terrorism that they are ready for this electoral calculation that will dump the cost onto the world's lives and security?

A bit like François Hollande’s socialist government: “We knew that terrorists had infiltrated among the migrants."

They knew, and the gong would sound at the Bataclan.