Sarah Helm, the wife of Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, took flak last week after appearing to support Palestine Action, the banned terror group, on Twitter. The police looked, but took no further action.
The Spectator can reveal that there is vastly more material, far more controversial than this, in Helm’s tweets. Helm has defended Hamas, questioned reports of mass rape by the terror group, blamed the 7 October attacks on the creation of Israel in 1948, compared Israel to the Nazis, and appeared to praise Syria’s then dictator Bashar al-Assad for remarks in which he had called the Jewish state an ‘outlaw colonial entity’ populated by ‘herds of settlers that are closer to barbarism than to humanity.’
She has also called for western military intervention against Israel and attacked her husband’s own government for its ‘complicity’ and ‘appeasement’ towards Tel Aviv. Here are some of the highlights. All of these posts are still up at the time of writing and several were made while Powell was serving as national security adviser. What on earth must the pillow-talk in the Powell-Helm household be like?
Questioning Hamas rape attacks
On 5 December 2023, just under two months after the Hamas attacks on Israel, Helm quote-posted a claim that the rape allegations made against the terror group were ‘atrocity propaganda’ which used the hashtag ‘DontBelieveIsrael’. She added herself: ‘It is certainly puzzling that not a single Israeli rape victim has given their own testimony on this.’
In March 2024, after the UN found ‘clear and convincing information’ of rape and sexualised torture against hostages held by Hamas, Helm attacked the findings as ‘utterly meaningless’, the UN’s work as ‘botched’ and said it ‘should never have been published’.
Comparing Israel to the Nazis
On 10 April 2024, Helm posted, above another post about an apparent Israeli attack on a family home: ‘Himmler 1943 “We came to the question: How is it with the women and children? I decided to find a clear solution here as well. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men .. and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up”.’
Helm also reposted a claim attributed to the Suez crisis-era Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, that Israel was ‘as Nazi as Germany’.
Apparent praise of Assad for attacking Israel
On 13 November 2024, Helm quote-posted remarks by the then Syrian dictator, herself commenting above them: ‘This is important. Assad is stepping up to the plate.’
Speaking of Israel, Assad had said: ‘We are not dealing with a state in the legal sense, but rather with an outlaw colonial entity. We are not dealing with people in the civilised sense, but rather with herds of settlers that are closer to barbarism than to humanity.’
Helm later claimed – responding to someone who asked if she knew Assad had besieged, bombed, starved, tortured and killed Palestinians at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria – that yes, she was ‘trying (failing clearly) to point out the grotesqueness of it’.
Defending Hamas
Last October, Helm posted that ‘after the 2014 war it was HAMAS that crushed emerging Isis/Salafi groups before they took root… People inside Gaza today say they fear the Arab gangs – Israeli collaborators often – far more than Hamas trying to crush them.’
Reaction to 7/10
On the day of the Hamas attacks in 2023, Helm quote-posted another user’s celebratory picture of a Hamas bulldozer breaking through the Erez checkpoint into Israel (or ‘the main gate into Israel’s Gaza prison’, as Helm put it.)
The next day, Helm posted that ‘1948 [the creation of Israel] is the root cause’. Given the timing of the post it appears Helm was referring to the root cause of the attacks.
Called for western military intervention against Israel
In October 2024, Helm demanded: ‘UN/Nato/EU/whoever it takes – Gaza needs an iron dome/no fly zone NOW. Just do it. We know you can.’
Attacks on her own husband’s government
In July 2024, she tweeted: ‘The suffering of the people of Gaza knows no bounds. Their resilience of the people of Gaza knows no bounds. The complicity of America &allies knows no bounds.’
In October that year, she attacked the UK’s ‘decades of appeasement’ of Israel.
Powell is already thought to be moving towards the exit. His wife’s posts may hasten that along.
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