The National Jewish Assembly (NJA) welcomes Israel’s bold and necessary strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership. Operation Rising Lion has delivered a powerful blow to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism – a regime responsible for destabilising the region, threatening Israel’s existence, and fuelling global terror networks, including attacks on British soil.
The NJA condemns Sir Keir Starmer’s weak response, in which he stated: “The reports of these strikes are concerning and we urge all parties to step back and reduce tensions urgently.” This is the very language of appeasement that has emboldened Iran for years and allowed it to bring its nuclear programme to the brink of weaponisation.
NJA Chairman Gary Mond said: “Sir Keir Starmer’s call for both sides to ‘step back’ is a disgrace. It is a morally bankrupt false equivalence. Iran is a genocidal regime racing to build a nuclear bomb – Israel is acting in self-defence to prevent catastrophe. The UK should be thanking Israel, not lecturing it.”
Let us be clear: today’s strikes were made inevitable by years of failed British, European, and Obama and Biden-era policy. The UK’s championing of the disastrous JCPOA deal did nothing to stem Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It only enriched the regime and allowed it to expand its terror apparatus across the region and the world.
It is staggering that the UK continues to moralise towards Israel while doing little to confront Iran’s regime. Tehran is the chief patron of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. It murders its own dissidents, represses its people, and has repeatedly plotted terrorist attacks in Europe – including in Britain.
Instead of hyper-fixating on Israel, the UK government should focus on dismantling the radical Islamist networks poisoning British society and standing with our democratic allies against theocratic tyranny.
The NJA fully supports Israel’s right to defend its citizens and demands the UK government show some long-overdue gratitude to the one country taking meaningful action against the gravest threat to regional and global security today.
