Northern Irish MP condemns Irish support for Hamas after witnessing Israel’s trauma firsthand

The Northern Irish Member of Parliament Sammy Wilson has supported Israel for many years and was impressed by the country’s resilience and democratic strength during a recent visit. 

"I wanted to say with some authority, I’ve been there, I’ve spoken to people, I’ve seen on the ground what people have suffered,” Wilson said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

He has faced hostility in his home country for his strong affinity with Israel. Wilson was therefore not surprised that he was criticized for visiting Israel because he believes “nobody on the other side wants the truth to be shown.”

“I have heard it time and time again in the House of Commons when I stood up to defend Israel in debates in the House of Commons. I’ve a number of pro-Gaza MPs sit behind me, they usually hiss and shout and try and shout me down. And, of course, the Labour Party, on the other side now, is so dependent in maybe 200 or 300 of their constituencies on the Muslim vote that they seem to have closed their eyes to any kind of objectivity when it comes to Israel,” Wilson said.

Born in Belfast, a city long scarred by terrorism and violence, Wilson says he deeply identifies with Israel’s efforts to defend itself against terrorist groups seeking its destruction.

“For 30 years we had terrorist organizations trying to destroy us, take us out of the United Kingdom, commit acts of genocide along the border, driving the Protestant population out. And there was also a hostile country, which was our neighbor [the Republic of Ireland], that actually made a claim to our territory until the year 1998, and also harbored terrorists,” he explained.

“So I think there was an identification in Northern Ireland with the kind of issues which you face and the problems which you face, and I was interested in going along to talk to people on the ground, to talk to politicians, to talk to people who were involved in the army, and others, and just to hear from some of the victims of terrorism as well,” Wilson added.

Ireland has positioned itself as one of the most anti-Israel countries in Europe and the wider Western world.

Last month, far-left politician Catherine Connolly won the Irish presidential election by a considerable margin. She has branded Israel a “terrorist state” for defending itself and has controversially legitimized the terrorist organization Hamas, which openly calls for Israel’s destruction and the murder of all Jews worldwide. 

"[Hamas] were elected by the people the last time there was an election. Overwhelming support for them back in 2006 or 2007. They are part of the civil society of Palestine. We're reliant on them for figures in relation to the deaths," Connolly argued in September. 

Wilson was impressed by Israeli democracy during his visit to the country. 

“There’s this image of Israel being an autocratic state which seeks to stamp down on anybody who is not a Jew, but there is a 3.25% electoral threshold which enables an individual to form a party – we don’t have that kind of openness,” he said. 

“I mean, you’ve probably got a more open democracy than we have here in Northern Ireland,” he added.

Wilson was also impressed by seeing Christians, Muslims and Jews mingling freely in Israel without any visible tensions. 

“There are places in Northern Ireland where I could not walk about or sit and have a cup of coffee in a café, if I was wearing the kind of identification that we saw as we walked around Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other places,” he recalled. 

Wilson also visited some of the Israeli border communities where Hamas terrorists massacred civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. He strongly condemned people at home that express support for Hamas and its atrocities against the Jewish people. 

“That’s the kind of cruelty that your enemies are prepared to engage in, and yet we have people in the streets of London, people in the House of Commons, who support it. I have constituents who write me letters praising Hamas, defending their cause, wanting me to highlight the need to give them more support. And I just think to myself, you know, do these people even realize what they’re asking, what they’re supporting? Are they so blinded by either antisemitism or their left-wing ideology to close their eyes to all of this stuff?” 

Ireland has transformed from a traditional Catholic society into a secular country with a strong left-wing political orientation. Yet, despite the transformation, Wilson believes that antisemitism still plays a central role behind the widespread Irish hostility towards Israel. 

“The Roman Catholic Church blames Jews for crucifying Jesus. That was deeply embedded in the psyche of Irish Catholics. And I think that that has driven a lot of the antisemitism that there is in Ireland. Today it’s pro-Palestinian in its manifestation, but I think that it’s antisemitic in its origin,” he assessed.

In April 2024, a study of the Irish school system revealed “medieval” levels of antisemitism in Irish textbooks and genera attitudes towards the Jewish people.