When Thatcher died 10 years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu hailed her as ‘a staunch friend of Israel and of the Jewish people’ about her forceful condemnation of an Israeli attack on a nuclear reactor in Iraq. She said such actions caused “great grief” for the country’s friends by cutting the ground from under their feet, explaining how her opposition to such aggression was rooted in a passion for freedom and contempt for terrorism.
This attack in 1981 was defended by Israel’s leadership on the basis of thwarting development of weapons of mass destruction. “There won’t be another Holocaust in history,” said the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, leader of the Likud Party. “Never again.” Thatcher’s resolve that Israel should respect democratic values and international law offer sharp contrast to the pusillanimous response of both Rishi Sunak andto the latest unfolding horrors in the Middle East.
This was, bear in mind, a time of bigotry in Westminster and open prejudice barring Jews from public places; indeed, she joined one protest as a young Tory politician against a golf club excluding Jewish people. Several members of Edith’s family were, so she believed she might have died too without the intervention of that grocer’s family in Lincolnshire. “Never hesitate to do whatever you can, for you may save a life,” said Thatcher.