Northern Irish MP Sammy Wilson visited Israel as a longtime supporter of the Jewish state and left with something even more valuable: He is now a firsthand witness who can speak with authority back home.
“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 told Jerusalem Post reporter Mathilda Heller after his recent visit. That is exactly the kind of voice Israel needs more of in today’s hostile international climate.
Wilson, from the Democratic Unionist Party, never hid his support for Israel. He also knew his visit would draw fire. “Nobody on the other side wants the truth to be shown,” he said, describing how pro-Gaza MPs in the House of Commons “hiss and try and shout me down” when he defends Israel.
In his view, parts of the Labour Party are “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.”
These are not criticisms that can be easily dismissed as “Israeli propaganda.” They come from a British politician who lives with political consequences, who understands the pressures within the UK system, and who has chosen to stand with Israel despite them.
Wilson's Northern Irish perspective
Wilson also brings a unique Northern Irish perspective that resonates deeply with Israelis. He spoke about 30 years of terrorism in Northern Ireland, attempts “to destroy us, take us out of the UK, commit acts of genocide along the border,” and a hostile neighbor that once claimed his territory and harbored terrorists.
“So I think there was an identification in Northern Ireland with the kind of issues and problems that you face,” he said in reference to Israel. In this context, after reviewing some related footage, Wilson described the “cruelty that your enemies are prepared to engage in” and contrasted it with constituents who praise Hamas.
Wilson asked whether people are “so blinded by either antisemitism or their left-wing ideology as to close their eyes to all of this stuff.”
His simple rhetorical test is powerful: “If this happened in Northern Ireland, what would you expect our government to do?”
Heller’s report also highlighted how much of the reality Wilson saw surprised him. He noted the “normality” of life in Israel during war, recalling that outsiders once believed no one in Northern Ireland could leave their homes.
He was impressed by Israel’s democracy, understanding that the 3.25% electoral threshold enables small parties and allows minority voices to be heard. “You have probably got a more open democracy than we have here in Northern Ireland,” he remarked.
Perhaps most striking was what he saw of coexistence. Wilson described Jerusalem streets and Tel Aviv cafés where soldiers, Orthodox Jews, Muslim Arabs, and Christians mix, sit together, and work side by side.
Further, he visited an educational institution in Tel Aviv, where Arab students with family in Gaza study with Jewish students who have fought in Gaza, and reported that “there wasn’t the tension that one would have expected.”
Wilson also did not shy away from confronting antisemitism in Ireland. He cited research that found antisemitic attitudes among Christians in Ireland at “medieval” levels and said the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that Jews were to blame for the crucifixion was “deeply embedded in the psyche of Irish Catholics.”
Today, he argued, this hatred appears as pro-Palestinian activism but is “antisemitic in its origin.”
A new strategic priority
Israel’s Foreign Ministry, public diplomacy bodies, and civil society must treat this as a strategic priority. The country should systematically bring MPs, mayors, clergy, educators, and community leaders from across the political and geographical map to meet victims, visit the North and South, see mixed cities and campuses, and encounter Israel’s democracy and diversity up close.
Not everyone will be convinced. Wilson himself acknowledged that with people who can tolerate atrocities, “no argument… is ever going to have an impact on them.”
Yet there remains a large group “up for grabs,” as he put it, people confused by “endless propaganda” and the “drip-feed poison” of biased coverage.
To reach them, Israel needs more allies who can stand in their own parliaments, churches, and town halls and say, “I was there, I saw it, and I will tell you the truth.”