Manchester synagogue attack was repulsive but no surprise to British Jews

If you listen to the reactions of British Jews to the Manchester synagogue attack, they will tell you that they are devastated, shocked, repulsed and disturbed. But there is one word they have not used: surprised. They feared that an attack like this was coming. They did not know where or when or how but they were sure that someone, somewhere, would attempt to murder Jews. After all, there have been antisemitic murders in France, Germany and the USA and there was no reason to think that the UK was immune.

Now we know that a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, Jihad Al Shamie, took the opportunity to murder Jews, and on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. So why are Jews shocked but not surprised? The answer is that they have lived through an explosion of antisemitism, a tsunami of Jew hating rage, since October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more Jews than on any day since the Holocaust.

You might have thought that the Jewish community would be allowed to grieve in dignity, in some cases for loved ones in Israel who had perished. But within hours, antisemitism was already spiking.

Two days after the attack, while mutilated and burned Jewish bodies were still being collected in Israel, the first of the anti-Israel demonstrations took place in London. Thousands marched in glee following Hamas's assault, well before Israel had begun its invasion of Gaza.

These marches, held with alarming regularity, have been a carnival of prejudice and bigotry. Marchers have alleged Jewish control of the UK government, the media and the banks, an age old conspiracy theory dressed up in political form.

They have compared Jews and Zionists to Nazis, merging Jewish symbols with the swastika. They have ignored Hamas's savagery, which is often called 'resistance', and torn up posters of hostage victims.

They have framed Israel and its supporters as baby killers, importing a poisonous lie from Hamas and Qatar. These people, let us not forget, also hate the West and are more than willing to support Iran, the Houthis and other malign actors in their struggle.

The marchers demand to 'globalise the intifada' and 'cleanse the world of Zionists'. This is no mere academic jargon. It is a violent call to arms against Zionists (read Jews). For some, it means stabbing, shooting and car ramming Jews. For others, it means another October 7, echoing Hamas's own promise to repeat their appalling atrocities if given half a chance.

Indeed, if you want proof of how insult can be added to injury, just observe that within hours of Manchester's deadly attack, another 'pro-Palestine' march was held in that city which featured a banner calling for 'one solution, intifada, revolution'.

There is a word for this sickness: incitement. And it is creating a hostile climate for Jews in this country.

Jews have also faced the rising tide of hatred in public life: in our health service, in union meetings, at our universities and in the world of arts and culture. If you are a Jew in these hostile environments, you will only receive favour by disowning your identity altogether.

To state the obvious, Jews are no more combatants in a Middle Eastern war than are British Muslims. If people disagree with Israeli policy, they have democratic and peaceful means of protest. They can send aid to Gaza. They can write to their MPs. They can demonstrate without incitement.

Killing Jews is not a political protest; it is cold blooded murder. Most Muslims in Britain understand this and, despite strong disagreements over the war, manage to get along and live peacefully with their Jewish colleagues and neighbours. The majority also reject the poison of extremism within their midst.

But there is a problem of antisemitism within the Muslim community and the government must stop denying it. Nor can Islamist ideology, which depicts Jews as devils and views Israel in Satanic terms, ever be appeased. Like Nazism, it is an eliminationist ideology which seeks death for its enemies. Political concessions like recognising 'Palestine' will never work.

But it is not enough to point the finger at the loathsome antisemites in our midst. It is those who enable them, deliberately or inadvertently, who should hang their heads in shame. In the face of rising Jew hatred, the authorities have ducked the challenge.

Between them, the Metropolitan Police and the CPS refused to prosecute an imam at an east London mosque who, shortly after the October 7 attacks, called for the destruction of Jewish homes.

It led Lord Walney, the Government's former independent adviser on political violence and extremism, to describe it as a 'a shocking decision'. Neither do these institutions proscribe the terms 'intifada' and 'jihad', ones which send a chill though the Jewish community.

At universities, the CST tells us that there has been a huge surge in campus-related antisemitic incidents. This has included calls for "Zionists" to be excluded, abusive behaviour and implicit support for terrorists.

According to a campus survey from 2024, nearly 30% of all students surveyed described the Hamas atrocities as 'an understandable act of resistance', a figure that rises to 38% among students at the Russell Group of universities.

Yet when students complain, too often they are fobbed off and told to speak to 'wellness advisors'. In other words, the authorities are failing to act.

There is undoubtedly a crisis of antisemitic hatred in the NHS, with dozens of reported incidents affecting Jewish patients and staff. As Dave Rich, head of policy at the CST, has said, these cases are 'utterly shocking' as they come within an institution that is supposed to safeguard all patients, regardless of their background.

Then there is the BBC. They have refused to describe Hamas as terrorists, despite their Jew-hating rampage of October 7, claiming that this term is too subjective. Let us process that. The BBC refused to label the perpetrators of the worst one-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust, a day when 1,200 people (almost all Jews) were brutally murdered, burnt, raped and disfigured, as terrorists. They have also refused to call October 7 a terror attack.

If they ever do include such descriptions, it's usually with weaselly attribution that makes clear that it's the UK government, not the BBC, that considers Hamas to be terrorists.

Yet they have rightly used that label for attacks at the Bataclan, 7/7 and London Bridge. The double standards are nauseating.

This is the same BBC that livestreamed calls to eliminate the IDF, which commissioned a documentary featuring the son of a Hamas minister and which has whitewashed that group's antisemitic language.

The government has repeated its usual platitudes that 'there is no place for antisemitism in Britain'. Sadly, we know that there are many public spaces where this enduring hatred is alive and well.

To its credit, the government has provided funding to the CST and poured resources into trying to tackle antisemitism. But it also needs to examine how key institutions in this country have let down the Jewish community, and propose countermeasures.

That means zero tolerance for hate preachers, an end to incitement on our streets, compulsory antisemitism training in public services, including adopting the IHRA definition, expulsions for racist doctors and a threat to scrap the licence fee without BBC reform.

In the short term, there must be a visible police presence outside synagogues, schools and other Jewish communal spaces. In addition, the Jewish community needs an enhanced security plan from the government.

Those things may not stop the next attack but they will show that the authorities are serious about the problem. Until then, British Jews will remain sceptical that anything will change.