The Tel Aviv neighbourhood of Hatikva is everything Israel’s critics across Europe fail to understand. This run-down suburb is home to many working-class Mizrahim: Jews who, save for their skullcaps, would not look out of place in a London mosque. They, or their parents, came to Israel from across the Islamic world: Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen.

Finally safe in the Jewish homeland, many have become some of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most ardent supporters. These deeply religious taxi drivers, cleaners, administrators and shopkeepers still feel the trauma of life under the iron fist of Islamism. Boycotts and finger-wagging from London or Paris will not sway them. They will vote for the strongman they believe most likely to launch the fastest and farthest-reaching rockets, quashing any possibility of a return to the Islamic world they left behind.

A partnership between the opposition and the Arabs could signal a change in direction to the world

A partnership between the opposition and the Arabs could signal a change in direction to the world

Twenty minutes away, in Neve Tzedek, affluent, secular Israelis of Ashkenazi descent see things differently. Sipping martinis, they hear I live in London and ask: ‘Are you OK?’ I’m curious why they are so concerned and they tell me they are watching the rapid expansion of Islamism in Europe. The increasing sight of niqabs; Jewish communities subjected to campaigns of terror by new arrivals in their countries.

Israel is the first line of defence against Islamist domination spreading from the Middle East, and these Israelis, many descended from Holocaust survivors, are dumbfounded by Europe’s embrace of people who........

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