IN 1939, Jewish refugee children like my dad arrived at Liverpool Street Station in London.
A statue there shows youngsters who had fled anti-Semitic persecution at the hands of the Nazis.
So it was shocking to see the station taken over by a pro-Palestinian mob on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people packed stations in the capital to demand a free Palestine “from the river to the sea”.
It is one thing to call for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel, but this hateful chant means a Palestinian state from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean, the area which includes Israel.
That would mean the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and we saw on October 7 what that looks like: The massacre of the Jews who live there.
Whether they admit it or not, that is what it means.
How intimidating would it have been for Jewish commuters, never mind those from Israel.
And it is utterly deluded to call for an immediate ceasefire. This is not campaigning for peace. It is demanding Israel lays down its weapons, because a ceasefire would obviously not be observed by the terrorists, who would use it to plan their next attack.
These barbaric monsters tied defenceless families together and burned them alive, massacred babies and raped young women. They kidnapped everyone from old ladies who survived concentration camps in the Holocaust to toddlers seized from their parents.
Over the past few weeks Hamas has fired more rockets at Israeli civilians than the Germans aimed at Britain in The Blitz.
The Hamas charter calls for Jews to be killed and says peace would mean the surrender of “Islamic land”. That is what Israel is up against, and why it has no choice but to defend itself.
It is heartbreaking to see the impact on innocent people in Gaza, but we must recognise that responsibility for their suffering lies completely with the terrorists who use civilians as human shields. As long as they are allowed to do so, more civilian suffering will continue.
People in Gaza are in harm’s way because Hamas hides its fighters and weapons in hospitals, schools and refugee camps.
And where Israel does all it can to minimise civilian casualties, Hamas’s whole objective is to kill as many civilians as possible.
As usual, Iran is behind it all. Tehran is determined to derail peace talks between Israel and moderate Arab states and sponsors terrorism across the Middle East, in Europe and here in the UK too.
The scenes at Liverpool Street were bad enough, but protests have been even worse.
A mob outside Downing Street reportedly called in Arabic for Hamas to “hit and bomb Tel Aviv”.
Central London is being taken over every Saturday by thousands of people attacking Israel.
I went down to watch at the weekend. There were loads of signs calling for Israel to be eradicated but I didn’t see any calling for peace, for Gaza to be freed from Hamas or the release of hostages.
Some of them even chanted about a massacre of Jews by a Muslim army.
The weekend before, at a rally organised by (pan-Islamist and fundamentalist group) Hizb ut-Tahrir, people held a banner with the slogan “Muslim Armies! Rescue the people of Palestine” and the crowd yelled “jihad, jihad, jihad”. You don’t need me to translate what they were calling for.
All of this is having a terrible impact on Britain’s Jewish community. The Community Security Trust, which protects Jewish people, has recorded hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents across the UK.
Restaurants and synagogues have been vandalised, students are reporting racist abuse and schools have closed.
Decent British people know whose side they are on when it comes to racism and must reach out to support their Jewish neighbours.
We know whose side we are on when it comes to terrorism too. Many of us remember the IRA blowing up pubs and shopping centres. And we have all seen Islamist terrorism in cities such as London and Manchester.
That is why Sun readers overwhelmingly support Israel in its fight with the Hamas terrorists.
They know this is not just Israel’s fight, but ours too.
If Hamas wins, more radical Islamist terrorism could spread to the UK and Europe.
It is about time we stood up for our values of democracy, freedom and fairness. The authorities have to get a grip: Where were the British Transport Police on Tuesday night and why are police officers tearing down posters with pictures of people who have been kidnapped?
People chanting slogans supporting terrorism should be locked up — and if any of them are not British citizens, they should be booted out of the country. The Jewish community in Britain must be protected and those who commit hate crimes or support terror groups such as Hamas prosecuted.
And Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps must be banned once and for all.
