Former British PM Tony Blair blasts West on antisemitism, rejects 'genocide' charge against Israel

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair forcefully rejected claims that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza in a Thursday op-ed for The Free Press, while also criticizing Western leaders for failing to confront rising antisemitism across democratic countries following the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

Blair argued in his article that the recent antisemitic attack on four Jewish community ambulances in London constituted a part of “a pattern in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.” 

“If the arson attack on four ambulances run by a Jewish charity this week in London were an isolated incident, it would be bad enough. It isn’t isolated, unfortunately. It is part of a pattern in Britain and elsewhere in Europe,” Blair wrote. 

“Last year in the UK there were more than 3,700 incidents of antisemitism, with a sharp increase in attacks on visibly Jewish people and public figures, including the attack on a Manchester synagogue in October,” the former prime minister noted, referring to an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur carried out by Jihad Shamie, a Syrian-born Islamist who murdered two Jews and wounded four others.

British and other Western authorities have condemned the antisemitic attacks. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the recent attack on the Jewish ambulances in London as a “deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack.” 

However, Blair noted that “their words haven’t stopped the attacks” on Jews and Jewish institutions across the Western world. London Police arrested two male suspects, aged 45 and 47, and are still looking for a third suspect. 

Blair noted in his op-ed that the UK registered last year its second-highest annual total of anti-Jewish incidents in recorded history, and constituted a 4% increase from 2024. 

He also addressed the situation in the Gaza Strip, noting that “the suffering of Gaza” and the devastation in the enclave are real. While acknowledging that criticism of Israeli tactics is legitimate, he emphasized that the war cannot be detached from the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 people were kidnapped from southern Israel.

He further stressed that many of Israel’s harshest critics ignore that the Iranian ayatollah regime, Hamas, and Hezbollah openly reject the Jewish state’s right to exist and seek its destruction. Blair strongly condemned those repeating the “charge of genocide” against Israel, arguing that it assaults the Jewish memory of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered during World War II.

He also criticized Western leaders for failing to understand the roots of contemporary anti-Jewish hatred in Western societies. He pointed in particular to what he called an “unholy alliance” between Islamists and parts of the Western left, which he said fuels much of today’s hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people. He further condemned segments of the left that view Jews as “fair game” because of their perceived support for the Jewish state.

Blair linked much of the rise in contemporary antisemitism to Western leaders’ unwillingness to confront widespread anti-Jewish rhetoric among radical Muslims in Europe, North America, and Australia.

U.S. President Donald Trump initially considered appointing Blair to a senior post-war role in Gaza as part of his emerging “Board of Peace” framework. While some anti-Hamas militias in the enclave supported the idea, he ultimately did not receive a formal position in Gaza’s post-war administration.