Antisemitic terror in Manchester
Yesterday, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, two people were murdered at a synagogue in Manchester and four more are in hospital, critically wounded. Members of the public shouted to firearm officers that the terrorist had a bomb strapped to his waist. Police have treated the attack as “a terror incident” and said they had made two further arrests.
Last December I wrote a piece here on The rise of antisemitism in the arts. I wrote, “On December 5th Rob Rinder will be chairing a discussion about whether Jews are still welcome in the arts in Britain today. There are two striking things about this event. First, that it is taking place at all. As we shall see it is happening because it is unfortunately very timely and relevant. Second, that the advertisement doesn’t give a location. It just says, ‘North West London venue’…
“Recently, there was a very unpleasant anti-Israel demonstration outside JW3, Britain’s largest Jewish cultural centre. Policemen and women were there to prevent violence, but unfortunately — as so often in London — the police did nothing to stop the violent chanting and waving of Palestinian flags to intimidate local Jewish residents. The Jewish Literary Foundation, which hosts Jewish Book Week every Spring, has just been presented with a substantial security bill which it will struggle to pay. And, finally, the Barnet Literary Festival, which takes place in Barnet Library every year, has had to take place online this year because of the Council’s security concerns.
“The larger issue, why Jews are increasingly excluded and discriminated against in British culture, is unfortunately even more pressing. Last year when I went to see Tracy-Ann Oberman starring in The Merchant of Venice 1936 my wife took a plastic bottle of water. The security people at the door asked her to drink from it to prove that it didn’t contain acid in case she was planning to throw it at the actors.”
The hate marches in British cities started the day after October 7th (another Jewish holiday). Not after the bombings and the invasion of Gaza, but the day after the rapes of young women, the murder of children and the elderly. The Israel-haters just couldn’t wait.
Yesterday, after the murders in Manchester, Heidi Bachram’s husband was on duty outside his synagogue and a car drove past with people chanting, “Babykillers”, at the Jewish worshippers. The targets were not Israeli politicians, but Jews at worship.
It is worth noting that no Labour politician has spoken at the biggest demonstrations in central London against antisemitism. It is also worth noting that despite the expressions of concern from our Prime Minister and the Labour Mayor of London, they have been strangely ineffective in dealing with hate marches in our capital city. They have spoken eloquently against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, but have not been as eloquent on the subject of Israeli hostages held by Hamas or women raped and child hostages murdered by Hamas.
Similarly, BBC TV and radio news reporters and presenters have spoken frequently and emotionally about “genocide” and “famine” in Gaza, they have conducted uncritical interviews with spokesmen and women from NGOs, doctors working in hospitals in Gaza and Palestinian civilians. I have written in detail elsewhere about the levels of bias in our mainstream TV news programmes over the past two years. Again it started immediately after October 7, when Mishal Husain on the Today programme and John Simpson, presenter of Unspun World on the BBC’s News Channel, both refused to call Hamas “a terrorist organisation”.
Is there any kind of relationship between this bias against Israel and the rise of antisemitic violence in Britain? Let’s put this another way. If you have a constant flow of reports of attacks on hospitals, images of allegedly starving children, talk of famine and genocide, all on our most trusted and world-renowned news programmes, then some people, not even many let alone most, will think some kind of reprisals are justified, not just against Israel but against Jews at worship.
Have the executives at the BBC and Sky taken action? Have they publicly called for greater balance in their reporting? Have they reminded presenters and reporters of their obligations as the public face of TV and radio news programmes?
In the meantime, how have they covered the effects of all this on Jewish life in Britain? All the security people outside synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish cultural organisations and the huge financial and emotional burdens of this? I first saw this on the streets of Berlin in the 1990s: German police outside synagogues, armed with machine guns. Never in Britain, I thought. Now this may become commonplace here too.
Not longer after I saw these scenes in Berlin, I took out German citizenship rather than contemplate living in a Britain that might elect Jeremy Corbyn. Our Prime Minister served in Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet in Labour’s disastrous 2019 election defeat. Now MPs from the Labour Left frequently speak of “genocide” and “famine” in Gaza, the language of Corbyn. In part, some do this out of principle and belief. But in part, others also do it because they want Muslim votes in borderline constituencies. They want to be careful what they say about “grooming gangs” and “illegal migration” and now they will be careful what they say about attacks on synagogues. When our Prime Minister spoke at the Labour Conference about “patriotism”, is this moral cowardice what he meant? When he told the cheering audience that Nigel Farage “doesn’t like Britain”, is this what he meant?
Will we have to get used to more arts organisations boycotting Jewish conductors and artists, surrounding synagogues with police, refusing to properly fund security for Jewish schools and cultural institutions? Will British Jews have to get used to antisemitic violence on a scale we have not seen since the riots of the 1940s?
The Israeli commentator, Hen Mazzig, told GB News on Thursday that “more security in synagogues is an admission of failure”. He was right. We need to deal with the causes of the new antisemitism, not the symptoms. Neither Sir Keir Starmer nor Sir Sadiq Khan chose to speak at the recent March Against Antisemitism. They were never asked by our TV news programmes why not. Perhaps too busy? But today, Sir Keir broke off his engagement in Denmark and flew back to address the cameras. He told the nation that Britain must defeat rising antisemitic hatred. Of course. But how? He forgot to say who is responsible. A lone wolf or, with two arrests and dead terrorist, three lone wolves? We will soon find out who they were and perhaps that might offer some clues. But will our politicians and the news channels be interested? If not, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a good time for them all to do some atoning. If not now, when?
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