Prince Harry is due to visit Birmingham in July for the “One Year to Go” Invictus Games events. It’s still up in the air as to whether Duchess Meghan will join him, and whether they bring the kids to possibly spend time with King Charles. Well, ahead of Harry’s Birmingham visit, he’s written an essay in the British outlet the New Statesman. He’s calling out the rising antisemitic and anti-Muslin hate crimes in the UK. He wrote this following yet another horrific antisemitic terrorist attack in London earlier this month. An excerpt from his piece:
Over the past several years, I have spoken about the consequences of a world in which outrage outpaces humanity – where fear and division are amplified faster than truth, and where people are too easily reduced to categories, identities or opposing sides. What concerns me now is how dangerously that same moral blurring is taking hold across parts of Britain.
There are moments when the values we hold are tested, not in principle, but in practice. Moments when staying silent is easier, but speaking out is necessary. I have always believed that we have a responsibility to stand against injustice wherever we see it, and to do so in defence of our shared humanity. That belief does not change with geography, nor does it yield to discomfort. It is precisely why I feel compelled to speak now.
At times like these, silence is not neutrality. Silence is absence. Too often, it is that instinct to stand on the sidelines that allows hatred and extremism to flourish unchecked. Britain has long prided itself on valuing reason over outrage, dialogue over division and civility over noise. At moments like these, those values matter more than ever.
Across the country, we are seeing a deeply troubling rise in anti-Semitism. Jewish communities – families, children, ordinary people – are being made to feel unsafe in the very places they call home. That should alarm us, but also unite us. Because hatred directed at people for who they are, or what they believe, is not protest. It is prejudice. Recent incidents, including lethal violence in London and Manchester, have brought this into sharp and deeply troubling focus.
Across the globe, there is deep and justified alarm at the scale of loss in the Middle East. Images from Gaza, Lebanon and the wider region – of devastated communities and entire neighbourhoods levelled and reduced to rubble – have shaken people to their core. For many, the instinct to speak out, to march, to demand accountability, to call for an end to suffering – is both human and necessary.
But these two realities are being dangerously conflated. We have seen how legitimate protest against state actions in the Middle East does exist alongside hostility toward Jewish communities at home – just as we have also seen how criticism of those actions can be too easily dismissed or mischaracterised. Nothing, whether criticism of a government or the reality of violence and destruction, can ever justify hostility toward an entire people or faith.
Harry also referenced his awful 2005 incident, where he wore a “Nazi costume” for a birthday party, and the photos were published in the British tabloids. Harry wrote: “I am acutely aware of my own past mistakes — thoughtless actions for which I have apologised, taken responsibility and learnt from. That experience informs my conviction that clarity matters now more than ever, at a time when confusion and the distortion of truth are doing real harm — even when speaking plainly is not without consequence. It requires responsibility from all of us.” During his recent visit to Ukraine, Harry’s security speech was allegedly vetted by Britain’s Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper. This piece has the feel of something vetted by the Starmer government as well, if not the palace. The both-sides language and general tone gives this a feel of a speech made by Harry’s father, you know?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
