One important reason why Rishi Sunak flew to Israel on Thursday in the wake of President Joe Biden’s trip is that British intelligence chiefs have advised him there is a real risk of the conflict in the region spilling over into the UK.
This is why the terror level in the UK has been raised.
Ken McCallum, the director general of Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, said there was a risk that “self-initiated” individuals who may have been radicalised online might respond in “spontaneous or unpredictable ways” in the UK after the terrorist attacks on Israel and what could become a drawn-out conflict.
“There clearly is the possibility that profound events in West Asia will either generate more volume of UK threat and/or change its shape in terms of what is being targeted, in terms of how people are taking inspiration,” he said.
On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers — three of them born in the UK of Pakistani parents — struck London’s transport network, killing 52 people and injuring over 770 others.
As it is, three Jewish schools in London have had to close and there have been several pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the UK.
The total number of people self-identifying as Jews in England and Wales in 2021 was 271,327.
That compares with the UK’s Muslim population of about 3 million.
Rishi has to walk the tightrope of expressing strong support for Israel and condemning Hamas as a terrorist organisation — which he has done in no uncertain terms — while showing sympathy for the cause of the Palestinian people and, more immediately, urging Israeli forces to keep civilian casualties to a minimum.
