The effects of Israel’s destruction in Gaza and its recent attacks on Iran are being felt around the world, and they have brought a large shift in the thinking of ordinary people in the United Kingdom.
A new survey by NatCen, one of the country’s leading research organisations, has found that nearly 80 percent of British people now regard Israel as a serious threat to world peace. In 2005 fewer than half thought so. After the long and bloody conflict in Gaza and recent events in the Middle East, that picture has been reversed.
A separate survey found that only 17 percent of people in the UK believe no genocide is taking place in Gaza, meaning most people now see Israel’s actions as extremely destructive.
The effects of the war are not confined to newspapers or politics; they have reached the daily lives of British people. Instability on world markets caused by the conflict with Iran has pushed up the cost of electricity, food and mortgages in the UK.
To manage the situation, the country’s central bank was forced to raise interest rates. Where people had hoped costs and interest rates would fall, the war has squeezed household budgets further.
Israeli attacks in Gaza have so far killed about 75,000 Palestinians, more than 22,000 of them children, according to the figures. Nearly 175,000 people have been wounded, and thousands more civilians are missing under the rubble.
The attacks did not stop even after a ceasefire was declared on paper. In Lebanon, too, several thousand people have been killed in Israeli attacks. Watching such a humanitarian disaster unfold has wiped out what little sympathy many Britons had for Israel.
Israel’s closest ally, the United States, has not escaped this anger. The survey found that 74 percent of British people now also see the US as a major threat to world peace.
British discontent with America peaked after disagreements with European allies and its direct part, alongside Israel, in bombing Iran. Many people who for years regarded the US as their closest friend now see Washington as an obstacle to world peace.
NatCen has carried out research of this kind on British society and politics for almost four decades.
Its latest report says that because of conflicts around the world, the British public now lives in a new reality of permanent political instability. The contest for power on the world stage between Russia, China and Iran, and the bloody conflict in the Middle East, have left British society in deep uncertainty and anxiety.
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