Left-wing actors’ protests against Israel are close to fascism, says Maureen Lipman

Left-wing actors’ protests against Israel are “close to fascism”, Dame Maureen Lipman has said.

When it comes to hatred of the Jewish state, the “Left and the Right are interchangeable”, according to the Coronation Street star.

Speaking to The Telegraph six months on from the Oct 7 massacre, Dame Maureen revealed that “not a day goes by” when she does not think about the hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

She also hit out at her fellow actors, saying: “The bandwagon has been against Zionism for a very, very long time. And certain people like to jump on that bandwagon. It is very fashionable.

“As we say, anti-Semitism is a light sleeper. It is not fashionable in the world of wokism and diversity to admire the Jewish state. It is fashionable to wish it to be wiped out as an entity.”

Asked what she made of actors who have taken a stand against Israel, she said that their “Left-leaning polemic is very, very close to fascism”.

Last October, an open letter signed by well-known actors condemning Israeli military actions was criticised for failing to mention brutal terror attacks carried out by Hamas.

More than 2,000 artists, actors and musicians in the UK, including Tilda Swinton, Steve Coogan, Charles Dance and Maxine Peake, signed the letter.

They called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and claimed that: “Our governments are not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them.”

However, the letter did not mention the terror group Hamas and the massacre it had carried out earlier that month of around 1,200 people, nor did it mention the 253 Israelis it took as hostages.

‘Put yourself in their place’

Dame Maureen said: “For me, there is not a day that goes by that I don’t imagine myself as a mother saying to my kids going off to a pop concert, ‘drink plenty of water and make sure you don’t get raped multiple times and I won’t see you again for the next six months’.

“It strikes me all the time, every day that the hostages have vanished from the public’s interest. But those who perpetrated the crimes seem to be in favour with the people who like to walk up and down Oxford Street demanding that rivers and seas be cleansed,” she said.

Her remark was in reference to the chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”, which is seen by some as a call for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Dame Maureen went on to say: “Within 24 hours of this massacre, the world had decided it was their fault, they kind of deserved to be abducted and chained to a radiator under the ground for six months. And it is very hard to keep the momentum going because the world has moved on.

“I feel it viscerally – as a daughter, as a mother, as a friend, as a sister. I am doing the little bit that I can to say, put yourself in the position of the friends, the lovers, the person whose father is denied medicine and chained up.

“Put yourself in their place, and then maybe just be a little more humane.”

As part of a hostage deal and week-long truce in late November, 105 hostages were released. Some 134 remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip, with many thought to be held by Hamas in their vast underground tunnel system.

Dame Maureen is due to speak at a rally today, organised by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the 7/10 Human Chain Project and the National Jewish Assembly, to call for the release of Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.

‘I feel helpless’

The 77-year-old actress, who received a damehood in the Queen’s 2020 Birthday Honours for services to charity, entertainment and the arts said she feels there are not enough people speaking out about the hostages.

“I feel helpless to just stand there and do nothing,” she said. “I feel frightened when I do stand there. The worst thing is, I am just so tired of every occasion being about Judaism.

“For the first 70 years of my life this did not apply, and I hate it that I am now defined and defining myself as a Jewish this and a Jewish that. It’s not the case, I am a British citizen, so are my parents and so were their parents. I don’t want this to go on. It doesn’t do my work, my career any good.

“But nevertheless the hostages are underground after six months. And they are being assaulted and abused.”

She said she was concerned by the rise in anti-Semitism in the UK, adding: “People just don’t put themselves in the shoes of the Jews”.

She said she wished that Israel was “granted a level playing field” adding: “I want them judged in the same way as other countries.

“We have to judge Israel by the same standards of other young countries. But the same judgements are not applied. And we know why that is. It is a very frightening world.”