Common sense

In summer 2014, Hamas launched thousands of rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities. Israel responded with a military operation to stop the attacks. At the same time, then-MP Shabana Mahmood joined a coordinated protest outside a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Birmingham. About 200 activists blocked the store because it stocked products from Israeli settlements, forcing it to close for several hours during peak Saturday trading. Mahmood later bragged that the action cost the supermarket hours of business and urged the public to join boycott campaigns against Israeli goods. She did not treat the rocket fire as the central problem. While Israeli civilians were under direct attack, she focused on economic pressure designed to isolate and weaken Israel. Such actions reduce trade, investment, and practical support for the country defending its people from Islamic terrorism. In effect, she sided with the economic front of the campaign against Israel while it fought to stop the military front. That same person is now the UK Home Secretary—the minister responsible for policing, counter-terrorism, and the physical safety of Jewish communities across Britain. During a rocket war, she helped organize direct action to damage Israel’s economy instead of condemning the rockets. Readers outside the UK may not remember the 2014 protest. The sequence is simple: rockets hit Israeli cities; she helped shut down a British store over Israeli products and promoted the boycott; today she holds the job meant to protect British non-Muslims. The contradiction is not theoretical. It is operational.