Does Britain need a ‘pledge of allegiance’?

The Hamas attack on Israel has sparked a raft of ugly clashes on UK streets. Mary Dejevsky asks if such ‘culture war’ confrontations are evidence that we have failed to properly integrate disaffected third-generation citizens

Pro-Palestine supporters gather near the Israeli embassy in London following the country’s surprise invasion by Hamas, which killed hundreds (PA)

The images have nothing on the elemental horrors recorded in and around Gaza over the past week, but they still shock – as indeed they should, because they show raw confrontations happening not in the contested territory of the Middle East, but right here in the UK.

Two women are filmed tearing down posters publicising the plight of missing Israelis, believed taken hostage by Hamas. A lone man, with an Israeli flag on his back, wading into a pro-Palestinian rally – outside the Israeli embassy in London, the night following the Hamas attack – to be taunted with cries of “scum”, and “you need to leave”.

There will be many, myself included, who have found themselves unwitting spectators of related if less immediately threatening scenes: cavalcades of honking cars emblazoned with green, red and black Palestinian flags; remnants of marches with similar flags, now drooping in the grip of tired but exuberant revellers; or, on Whitehall, a quieter, but massive, assembly of Israeli supporters, a forest of blue and white.