'Jenrick challenges BBC Today presenter over failure to ask about Israeli hostages'

From a news item in the Daily Telegraph today about an interview on the BBC with the British minister in charge of immigration.

'Her final question regarded comments by Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence, that Israel risked a “strategic defeat” if it did not work to protect Palestinian civilians. Mr Jenrick replied: “Well, we have had a number of frank conversations with Israel at every level in which we have encouraged them to pursue this vital war in a responsible manner.'

'“We’re also working with international organisations to get as much aid and medicines into Gaza as possible and we’ve increased British funding to those organisations by many millions of pounds. That’s the right thing to do.'

'“But your line of questioning has not once asked about the hostages, it’s not once asked about the imperative of defeating Hamas.'

'“And we have to support Israel in that effort and the eradication of Hamas will be a blessing to people in Gaza, to people in Israel and frankly to the whole world.”'

I too wish Hamas did not exist and the PLO ruled Gaza, but what business is this "quarrel in a faraway country" of the British government?

Admittedly the Arab Israel dispute is our fault but, Pilate-like, we washed our hands of the Holy Land in 1947.

Why does HMG want regime change in Syria or worry about all sorts of distant places?

Perhaps the Anglo-American alliance embody the ideals which led Roosevelt to design the UN, which he naively hoped would ensure world peace. But we do not keep the peace and most UN countries see us and Israel as colonialists.