Johnson expressed support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and distinguished the Israeli state from “totalitarian entities” like Hamas.
Owen Tilman
Editor-in-Chief, The Buckley Beacon
Last Thursday, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson participated in an event co-hosted by the Buckley Institute and Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at Yale University. In his prepared lecture and Q&A, Johnson expressed support for the Israeli government’s military incursion in Gaza, Ukrainian resistance to Russian territorial aggression, and lessons Americans might take from British political history.
Last Tuesday, two days prior to Johnson’s visit to Yale, was the two-year anniversary since Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took roughly 240 hostages. Since the October 2023 attacks, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has left 67,000 Palestinians dead, allegedly a third of whom are under the age of 18. While the Israeli government disputes the toll, the United Nations’ Human Rights Office believes it to be an undercount—and in August, internal data from Israeli intelligence indicated a civilian death rate in Gaza of 83 percent.
Johnson, who describes himself as a “massive supporter of Israel,” puts the blame for the tall numbers on Hamas.
“It’s very, very difficult to see what else any Israeli government could have done, given the sheer scale of the atrocity that was committed on October 7, 2023,” Johnson told The Buckley Beacon in an interview. “They genuinely have tried to minimize losses of civilian life. If Hamas wanted to end this thing 729 days ago, all they had to do was release all the hostages, and the remains of the deceased.”
Since Johnson’s visit to Yale, Israel and Gaza have agreed to the first phase of a twenty-point peace plan drafted by the United States, which secured the release of twenty living hostages taken by Hamas in October 2023. A temporary ceasefire has also been reached, although questions loom over its long-term efficacy.
In his interview with The Beacon, Johnson—who was prime minister of the United Kingdom and leader of its Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022—disavowed incumbent British prime minister Keir Starmer’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state.
“I don’t see what it achieves,” Johnson said of Starmer’s move. “I think everybody feels the anguish of the people who have been suffering in Gaza,” Johnson said. “But if I had to blame anybody, I’d blame Hamas. … They had Gaza from 2005 on and they totally blew it.”
When asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war, Johnson alluded to hypothetical conversations he would have had with Netanyahu to ensure minimal casualties in Gaza.
“If I’d been Prime Minister,” Johnson said, “I certainly would have gone in to see Netanyahu and said, look, just convince me that you’re not killing people unnecessarily. I would have said, give me the facts I’m gonna need to explain to the public that you’re not using this conflict to maintain yourself in office, number one. And number two, that you’re not killing people unnecessarily.”
In the United States, the yearslong Israel-Gaza war has provoked a series of protests on university campuses, with some escalating to violence. In the past ten months, President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to revoke the visas of international students who participate in pro-Palestine demonstrations, and freeze federal funding to universities like Harvard for hosting students that are “supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit dedicated to protecting free speech on college campuses, has supported Harvard in an ensuing lawsuit against the Trump administration, citing concerns over academic freedom.
In his October 9 lecture, Johnson took issue with attempts to compare Trump’s treatment of American media to the treatment of media in other countries.
“I’m one of the very, very few European politicians who’s willing to say that I like Donald Trump,” Johnson told the crowd of roughly 380 attendees. “You would think by listening to the liberal media around the world that Trump’s gentle ribbing, irreverent treatment of the media was on a par with what the authorities were doing in Iran or China or North Korea.”
In his interview with The Beacon, Johnson emphasized the need to be “cautious” about speech restrictions, including those aimed at “anti-Semitic” or “anti-Israel speech.”
“I’m generally skeptical about measures to inhibit normal debate,” Johnson said. “I was kind of in the analogous position to you guys when I was at Oxford, I ran a society that was based around the idea of free speech. And there’s plenty of statute in my country that stops you inciting racial hatred or stops you inciting violence. … To your point about measures taken to stop anti-Semitic or anti-Israel speech—you have to be very careful how you do it.”
Johnson’s interview comes at a time when polling indicates that public opinion of Israel is souring among American voters on both sides of the aisle. In March, Pew Research polling indicated over half of American adults have an “unfavorable” opinion of Israel—an 11-point increase since March 2022. In the same time frame, the poll found that the share of Republicans under the age of 50 who disapprove of Netanyahu and his offensive in Gaza jumped from 35 to 50 percent.
When asked about the growing opposition to Israel among younger conservatives, Johnson attested to his own experience witnessing the shift in opinion, and reiterated the difference between western democracies and what he called “totalitarian entities.”
“I’m very worried about that, because I hear it. I can see it, I can see what’s happening. I think it’s just mushy,” he said. “There’s a huge gulf between the values of the totalitarian entities like Hamas, and governments like Putin’s, and the Mullas in Tehran, and North Korea, and a lot of other countries actually. In the end, Israel is a beautiful, free country, it’s a democracy. I think we’re losing moral clarity.”
On November 5, the Buckley Institute is set to host neoconservative commentator and journalist Douglas Murray for an event at Yale University.