THE authorities have declared Thursday’s attack on a Manchester synagogue as terrorism, but not Islamist terrorism. Deliberation is warranted before judging any criminal’s intent. Yet Britain’s elite is going out of its way to avoid the Islamist causes of rising anti-Semitism.
The attacker, Jihad Al-Shamie, was shot dead by police. He fits the profile of most terrorists in the West: young, male, Muslim, second-generation immigrant (he arrived as a child from Syria), with a history of crime of escalating violence.
Police are investigating whether he threatened pro-Israeli politicians 13 years ago. He was on bail for an alleged rape. Anonymous sources claim that he was never referred to the counter-extremism programme Prevent, although such a denial is often followed by revision.
His father praised Hamas fighters and wished them well on the day they invaded Israel to murder, rape and kidnap civilians. He is now claiming to be shocked at what his son did. If Jihad Al-Shamie were not dead, I doubt if we would know anything about him or his father yet, for fear of ‘inflaming community tensions’.
Western European politicians are in the habit of avoiding the fact that most deadly terrorists are Islamist. We should be able to admit this fact without being accused of denying that most Muslims are not terrorists, that most victims of terrorism are Muslims, and that non-Muslims too can hate.
For years, Britain’s government (going back through Conservative administrations too, in common with Democratic administrations in the US) has invented a myth that most violent extremists are white supremacists. British popular culture routinely depicts terrorists as white supremacists, and the victims as Muslims, lest any reality is called out by a politician, lobbyist or journalist as ‘Islamophobic’. Inevitably, exaggerating Islamophobia has made Britain’s government Islamophilic.
Both biases are discriminatory. They’re bad for social cohesion and for counter-terrorism. Britain’s government won’t take the counter-Islamist actions that are normative in other Western countries. For instance, it hasn’t banned the Muslim Brotherhood. It still consults the foul and unrepresentative Muslim Council of Britain. In July, it proscribed Palestine Action, but not because of any terrorism by Palestine Action, rather because it broke with the Labour Party.
Islamism has been allowed to normalise on our streets and in our institutions. For the last two years, most protests in Britain have been in support of Gaza and hence the terrorist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, and against Israel.
Political assembly is fine. But these protests routinely feature chants in favour of Hamas, intifada, Palestinian expansion ‘from the river to the sea’, and the killing and rape of Jews.
Freedom of speech is fine. Except that Metropolitan Police ignored anti-Semitic chants while they arrested a bystander for being ‘openly Jewish.’ The Met later admitted the arrest was wrong, but has continued to privilege one side.
On Thursday, within hours of the Manchester attack, pro-Palestinian protesters were back on the streets of London, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and other cities – not in protest against the attack, but in protest against the Israeli detention of Greta Thunberg and fellow activists on a flotilla headed for Gaza.
The Telegraph heard plenty of insensitivity, if not hate. One protester said: ‘I don’t give a f*** about the Jewish community right now. I thought about it and I’m sorry about what happened, but the whole story and why we’re here is because of [Israel’s arrest of Thunberg].’
Forty people were arrested for trying to march on Downing Street or for assaulting police officers, none for hate speech or supporting a proscribed organisation.
The UK’s Chief Rabbi tweeted: ‘This is the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come. For so long we have witnessed an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred on our streets, on campuses, on social media and elsewhere – this is the tragic result.’
The Spectator’s Jonathan Sacerdoti wrote: ‘Let no one feign surprise. The signs have been visible. The hate has been loud. And the consequences are now bleeding into the streets.’
Robert Jenrick (a husband and father to Jews), writing as Shadow Home Secretary, described the attack as ‘the product of years of rampant anti-Semitism,’ and warned that we must stop ‘tolerating’ it.
There is no suggestion that Keir Starmer’s administration will stop tolerating anti-Semitism. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Starmer personally for the ‘barbaric’ attack, by failing to curb ‘a toxic wave of anti-Semitism.’ ‘Weakness in the face of terrorism only brings more terrorism. Only strength and unity can defeat it.’
Starmer is offering unity, but not strength.
One of his arguments when campaigning for leadership of the Labour Party was opposition to its anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn. For credibility he lent on the fact that he, like Jenrick, is husband and father to Jews. But Starmer oversees a government intent on outlawing Islamophobia, avoiding the whole truth about Muslim rape gangs, and putting the rights of mostly-Muslim illegal immigrants ahead of mostly non-Muslim residents. And last month he recognised Palestine as a state, without any expectations for how it should behave, be governed, or draw its borders. Even the BBC recognises that Starmer’s policies are driven by his party’s Muslim base.
Thursday’s attack has not changed him. On the day he rushed back from a European summit in Denmark to Downing Street for briefings, but his broadcast from there was lame. He said the attack is ‘horrific’; the attacker is ‘vile.’
He admitted ‘rising’ ‘hatred’ of Jews in Britain, but failed to specify the haters or why hatred is rising. Apart from saying ‘Britain must defeat it,’ he offered no solutions, other than a ‘promise’ that ‘I will do everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve, starting with a more visible police presence.’ The Mayor of London, too, has promised more policing.
Policing is sensible, but what is Starmer offering longer-term? He promised ‘that over the coming days, you will see the other Britain, the Britain of compassion, of decency, of love’. That’s nice. But that’s not a solution.
On Friday Starmer visited the synagogue, where he said he would ensure the Jewish community is ‘safe and secure’. He visited Greater Manchester Police to thank first responders. But again he specified no causes or solutions.
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was with Starmer, but was equally evasive. She said she is ‘horrified by the anti-Semitic terrorist attack’ and that ‘those who seek to divide us, they will fail’. She called the anti-Israel protesters ‘unBritish’.
But Mahmood is the same person who characterised most British flag-wavers as ‘white’, ‘male’ and ‘bad’, who once called for direct action against British companies doing business in Israel, who characterised Reform UK’s immigration reforms (despite adopting some of them) as ‘worse than racism’, who led the push to outlaw ‘Islamophobia’ and who repeatedly pretends that ‘Islamophobia’ is normative and rising without citing anything other than subjective experience before she ever acknowledges anti-Semitism.
Notably, Starmer and Mahmood avoided the vigil outside the synagogue on Friday afternoon. Starmer sent David Lammy, the hater of Israel, Donald Trump, whites and Western history. Somehow, Starmer thought Lammy was the man to be his first Foreign Secretary, his second Deputy, and his primary ambassador to grieving Jews. Some in the crowd chanted ‘shame on you’ as soon as he was introduced, and again as he promised unity.
Starmer’s government isn’t credible.
