Britain’s colonial legacy undermines its moral lectures against Israel - opinion

Britain likes to present itself to the world in judge's robes. It issues warnings, delivers lectures, demands restraint, and hands out moral grades. But behind the polished manners, elaborate ceremonies, and refined accents lies a heavy historical debt.An empire that built its wealth partly through conquest, exploitation, and domination of distant peoples cannot treat its past as a footnote while using Israel's distress as an opportunity to display moral superiority.

Before London lectures others, it should take a long, hard look in the mirror.For generations, the Royal Navy was a powerful instrument for expanding British rule. Its guns secured trade routes and imposed commercial interests on populations that had never asked for British protection. The First Opium War illustrates this with particular brutality.When China tried to halt the trade that was flooding the country with narcotics, Britain went to war.

Its victory forced China to open ports and cede Hong Kong to British rule. This was the freedom proclaimed by the empire: the freedom of the powerful to profit from the ruin of the weak.In India, the Amritsar massacre of 1919 became a symbol of a government willing to fire on a crowd to preserve its authority. In Kenya, detainees suffered torture and abuse during the suppression of the Mau Mau uprising. In the Chagos Islands, residents were driven from their homes to make way for military needs.From Asia to Africa and across the Indian Ocean, the same thread of hypocrisy can be traced.

Whenever strategic interests spoke, the locals' rights were pushed aside. These are not myths invented by Western critics. They are documented facts.

The determination to retain distant territories was also evident in the Falkland Islands. In 1982, London sent a military force some 13,000 kilometers to reclaim the territory by force.

That extraordinary distance illustrates how deeply rooted Britain's willingness to fight for land thousands of miles from its shores remains, as well as how sensitive it is to its own security and sovereignty. Yet when Britain judges other countries, it often fails to take their interests into account.Britain's betrayal of Jewish refugeesFor the Jewish people, the historical reckoning is especially painful. The White Paper of 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine precisely when European Jews desperately needed escape routes from the Nazis.Britain fought Adolf Hitler, and its contribution to victory is beyond dispute.

But that does not erase the fact that the gates were closed.British policy turned the Jewish plea for rescue into an administrative and security problem. People seeking life encountered quotas, patrol ships, and deportation orders. This was a moral failure that cannot be whitewashed by ceremonial speeches about human rights.

The shameful spectacle continued even after the Holocaust. Tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants were detained in camps in Cyprus. In the case of the exodus, Jewish refugees were forcibly returned to Europe and eventually to Germany.Those words deserve to be repeated: survivors who had reached the threshold of their homeland were sent back to the country from which the machinery of extermination had emerged.It was a barbaric and discriminatory policy, accompanied by institutional indifference, that harmed Jews at the moment of their greatest vulnerability.

That memory denies London the right to demand polite forgetfulness from the Jewish people.As Britain appears to be moving with its eyes open toward losing control of its future, its leaders seem to prefer lecturing a country overseas rather than confronting their own reflection.Violent demonstrations in the streets of London sharpen the question: Is the government capable of protecting public order and drawing a clear line between the freedom to protest and acts of violence and intimidation?

The right to demonstrate is not permission to harm people or terrorize the streets. It is easier to rebuke Israel than to answer British citizens who seek security and a government determined to defend its values. Criticism of Israel is no substitute for domestic policy, and moral lectures cannot conceal the British government's helplessness.

Those who refuse to follow democratic rules or preach hatred of Jews are not entitled to an exemption in the name of cultural sensitivity. The problem is not the origin of immigrants. It is a policy that is afraid to set clear expectations.A government that confuses tolerance with surrender to Islamist extremism abandons the public, including immigrants who genuinely seek to integrate into British society.Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's announcement should be examined against this background.

In her speech, she said that around one quarter of referrals under the reopened resettlement program would involve Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees.Mahmood also received funding from Islamic Relief for a humanitarian visit to Pakistan in 2010. The German government has previously alleged personal links between figures associated with the organization and the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic Relief denies such connections, and the issue has been raised in Parliament.The British public and its elected representatives should demand figures, budgets, security screening procedures, and measurable integration standards.

Compassion alone is not a plan. The public is entitled to know who will bear the costs, how local authorities are preparing, and what will be done when political promises collide with reality, as is happening in English cities today.Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's fiery speech against Israel and in favor of imposing sanctions also demands sharp scrutiny. He accused Israeli figures of ethnic cleansing and war crimes and promised measures targeting settlements.He condemned the October 7 massacre, but the difficult question remains: Does the supposedly moral language conceal political hypocrisy?

Is pressure on Israel intended partly to appeal to Muslim voters? It is clearly easier to rebuke Israel than to confront its enemies.Does Miliband's meeting and handshake with the Iranian foreign minister serve some hidden agenda? Diplomacy must be judged by results. Is Britain restraining a regime that threatens Israel and the free world, or merely granting it more time and legitimacy?Smiles and photographs are no substitute for deterrence.

London must prove that threats against Jews and Israelis are met with action, not merely forceful sentences and carefully drafted news releases.Britain is not immune from criticism, and moral authority requires responsibility. A government that seeks influence must also listen to Israeli concerns. Britain must distinguish between compromise and capitulation and stop pretending that history began only in the present era. The world also remembers imperial Britain, when human rights were not always among its highest priorities.

The Labour Party risks leading Britain into a profound crisis. Will it choose moral gestures over effective government and slogans over responsibility? The British Empire has already disintegrated, but the habit of speaking down to others has not disappeared.Britain is not responsible for all the troubles of the world, but it is certainly responsible for some of its deepest scars. It therefore needs less self-righteousness, greater historical honesty and the courage to defend the values it demands from everyone else.A country that once closed its gates to Jewish refugees should exercise particular caution when lecturing the Jewish state about morality and justice.

The author is the CEO of Radios 100FM, an honorary consul and vice dean of the Consular Diplomatic Corps, president of the Israeli Radio Association, and previously served as a monitor for Israel Army Radio and as a television correspondent for NBC News.