This is a dark week in our history. The grandchildren of the Kindertransport, thousands of Jewish infants and adolescents who found refuge from Nazi Germany in these islands, are now asking themselves, Is it safe to stay? The terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, which killed two good family men and seriously injured four other worshippers, was devastating if not surprising. Devastating because it was not surprising. Jews have highly attuned antennae for persecution, unsurprisingly, and many said they knew what was coming. The fact that their concerns went unheeded, even as antisemitic attacks increased dramatically, is more than an oversight, it points to a clear dereliction of duty by the authorities and even, although it pains me to say it, a reluctance to treat racism against Jews with the seriousness other forms of racism are treated.
Back in July, a report into antisemitism in the UK found an “onslaught of antisemitism” since the 7 October Hamas massacre in southern Israel. Individual Jews found themselves ostracised at work, Jewish schoolchildren were warned to hide identifying blazer badges or religious insignia. At the same time, the weekly pro-Palestine marches, barely concealed carnivals of frenzied support for the Islamist psychopaths who massacred 1200 men, women and children, created an atmosphere of dread that left many British Jews scared to enter their own cities.
When one did, he was told by police that his presence was “antagonising” and he could be arrested for a breach of the peace. Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Anti-semitism, was wearing a kippah skull-cap when he was on his way back from synagogue in central London and ran into a pro-Palestine march. A police officer accosted Gideon saying, “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.”
Imagine if police accused a British Muslim of looking “openly Muslim” and suggesting to do so was a provocation. But they never would, of course. Muslims are a “protected characteristic”, according to the hierarchy of policing needs and young officers are taught that Islam is always “a religion of peace”. (A bold position to maintain with over 40,000 jihadists on MI5’s terror watchlist.) Jews, as I was told quite seriously by one senior police officer, are viewed as Israeli and, therefore “white supremacists”.
According to these warped priorities, the most persecuted people in history, victims of an actual industrial-scale genocide that killed six million human beings, are not victims at all, but aggressors. “A failure to apply the protections rightly afforded to different vulnerable groups equally to Jewish people in the same positions,” was one of the antisemitism report’s conclusions.
Exactly right, as we have seen with countless examples of two-tier policing where marchers chanting slogans supporting Hamas (a banned terrorist group) and “globalise the intifada” are given the benefit of the doubt while pro-Jewish protesters like Our Fight are manhandled and arrested on the flimsiest pretext.
Well, we saw what “globalise the intifada” looks like in practice at Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue on Thursday morning. The attack appeared to be another case of wilful blindness by the authorities. What was a man who brazenly called himself Jihad Al-Shamie (Holy War of the Syrian) doing in possession of a British passport? These Islamists barely bother to disguise themselves, gauging, quite correctly, that the state is too spineless and frightened of “community sensitivities” to arrest or deport them.
If there is any ray of light breaking through the darkness of the synagogue attack it is that government and media, who have been all too happy to ignore rampant antisemitism, now have no choice but to confront it. And Jews, normally reluctant to make a fuss or draw attention to themselves, are incredibly angry and not afraid to express it. They have been betrayed.
Many of us feel ashamed of our country today, but too few of the people who should be taking a long, hard look in the mirror are feeling that shame. The Labour government recently recognised a state of Palestine without attaching any conditions, like the release of the hostages, and handed Hamas a “victory” which one terrorist leader described sickeningly as a “fruit” of 7 October. Sir Keir Starmer made that choice to appease the left of his party, allowing one vocal ethnic minority to dictate the United Kingdom’s foreign policy at the expense of another. Now, Sir Keir talks about Britain “wrapping its arms around the Jewish community”. As one irate Jewish friend texted me: “Starmer ignores the fact that he represents some people who want to wrap their arms around Jews’ necks and strangle them. If you don’t acknowledge there’s a problem you can’t solve it.”
Two years ago, when a group of us founded British Friends of Israel not long after the 7 October massacre, we did so to assert Israel’s right to self-defence, but also to stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters who have contributed so much to this country. We had no idea how bad things were going to get. Thousands of you willingly signed up and I have to say that, whenever I have visited a synagogue or a civic gathering, Jews always come up to express their profound gratitude for everyone’s support. Thank you so much. As they sit in the synagogue, “feeling like a target” as another Jewish friend said yesterday, it really matters to know that their fellow Britons care, and never more than now when the Jews’ worst nightmare is a reality.
Let us be under no illusion that the evil which presently stalks our Jewish community will leave the rest of us alone. Two Saturdays ago, I went to Israel to interview Eli Sharabi, a freed hostage who was held for 491 diabolical days by Hamas in Gaza. Eli’s book Hostage is a remarkable account of that ordeal and what it took to retain civilised values under starvation and torture. Eli was finally released, only to discover that the people he had survived for—his British wife Lianne and their daughters, Noiya and Yahel—had been murdered. “You don’t have to care about me,” Eli said, “I am an Israeli, no problem. But remember Lianne, Noiya, Yahel—slaughtered with their British passports in their hands. And Hamas didn’t care. They didn’t have boundaries. So Israel is only the first stage for them.”
Having observed Hamas up close, and heard their bloodcurdling views on global domination, Eli Sharabi believes that it is not just Israelis or Jews who are at risk. On Thursday evening, Eli texted: “My heart goes out to the Jewish community in the UK. This extremism lay behind my days in captivity and it is terrible to see it on the streets of Britain.”
Below is the link to my Telegraph interview with this remarkable man. In his resilience and humanity, Eli Sharabi embodies what we in the West ought to be defending.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/45688e9ed1b0869d
Am Yisrael Chai.
Allison Pearson
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