Manchester, Muslims and Murder

Islamism, antisemitism, and its western sympathisers:

For those not in the know, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most holy of days in the Jewish calendar. So for a jihadist to kill Jews at a synagogue in Manchester on that very day was about as horrific as it gets. And of course next Tuesday it will be exactly two years on from the October 7 attacks. So this is a very tense time for Jews around the world.

And the simple truth is this: most Western governments have actually helped to bring about all this ugly Jew-hatred, antisemitism, and Israelphobia. Indeed, Starmer recognising a ‘Palestinian state’ is just one of many things Western leaders are doing to put all Jews at risk.

And Carney, Macron and Albanese have done the same, and their countries are also having huge problems with vile antisemitism. No surprises there. For the past two years the West has been directly involved in contributing to these problems, by either doing nothing to protect Jews, or actually fomenting hatred of Israel and the Jews.

Thankfully many rational and concerned voices have already spoken out about the Manchester attack, and featuring quotes from some of them here is a worthwhile exercise.

Melanie Phillips

British Jews have been warning about the lethal incitement against them for a long time, but have been totally ignored.

Keir Starmer says now he will do everything possible to keep British Jews safe. The fact is he has done nothing to keep British Jews safe. He said hatred against Jews is rising once again and Britain must defeat it once again. But his government and his party have been fuelling it.

Jews in Britain have been unsafe for years. All synagogues and communal events have long been guarded. Some Jewish schools have been forced to erect barbed wire. But for the past two years since the October 7 massacre in Israel and during the war that has followed in Gaza, Starmer’s government has allowed gross incitement against Jews to run riot unchecked.

The all-too regular demonstrations against Israel, organised by Hamas and the far left and supported by many of his MPs, have heard a constant chanting not only to destroy Israel but also to kill Jews. And yet the police have done absolutely nothing to arrest these people, to charge them, even though these are examples of clear criminality.

Instead, we’ve heard bleatings about protecting freedom of speech. Well, freedom of speech is great, but it’s different from incitement and intimidation which has been going on in these demonstrations. One demonstrator was captured on video saying “All Zionists must die”. Does Britain really think that statement is to be applauded as freedom of speech and protected?…

Anyone waving the Palestine flag or wearing it as a lapel pin is announcing in effect their support for a genocidal project to destroy Israel and murder Jews. And yet that terrorist flag is everywhere, and Jewish patients in Britain are having to confront it on the uniforms of NHS staff. So to all this, Starmer’s response is not just inadequate. We are living through an attempt to destroy Israel and to drive the Jewish people from the world.

Starmer, his government and his Labour Party are part of this monstrous exercise. So are the media, led by the BBC, Sky and the Guardian, the universities and the schools, the Church of England, the arts, the cultural establishment — the whole of Britain’s elites are part of this. The Syrian-heritage antisemite who attacked the Manchester synagogue is the person who’s responsible for the carnage he wrought there. But Britain’s political and cultural leaders have this blood on their hands too.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

These are the consequences of a policy that passively allowed Islamists to wage a campaign of subversion against British society. By subversion, I mean the long, patient process of transforming a free society from within. As I have written before, it is a form of political warfare that operates through covert means rather than direct confrontation, exploiting vulnerabilities in target societies to achieve strategic objectives. It works in tandem with terror. When the bombs and knives falter, the falsehoods fill the gap. When terror wanes, subversion accelerates.

Rod Dreher

Jews are about one-half of one percent of the population of Great Britain. There aren’t enough of them to fight for their existence against Muslims, who make up about 6.3 percent of the UK’s overall population. That is to say, there are about 13 British Muslims for every British Jew. Perhaps the authorities will figure that they are a small sacrifice to make for the sake of appeasing the vast number of Muslims in the UK. After all, if the working-class white girls of Rotherham and other areas were expendable, why not Britain’s Jews, eh, Keir Starmer?

Four years ago, a small convoy of pro-Gaza Muslim protesters drove through London shouting through loudspeakers, “F—k the Jews! Rape their daughters!” UK officials were simply appalled. Well, it’s only gotten worse since then. If you were Jewish, how much confidence would you have that you could continue to live in Britain?

Mark Leach

The civilizational war between Jihadist Islam and the West has come to Manchester, England. And not just Manchester, but everywhere there are Muslims being radicalised towards embracing Jihad against Jews, Christians and infidels in the West.

This is the same war that is being fought in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Sudan, in Nigeria, in northern Kenya. Here is something to remember and drop into conversations with your skeptical friends: there have been around 48,000 of such Jihadi attacks since 9/11…

You cannot claim to oppose antisemitism without addressing Islamic antisemitism. It’s very uncomfortable, and as we know personally, a fast track to losing friends and getting cancelled. But it has to be done. We have to have these discussions in a way that is full of understanding, free of fear or racism, but nevertheless courageous and strong.

Samantha Ettus

Today Islamic jihadists attacked Jews as they were heading to Heaton Park Shul, an Orthodox Synagogue in Manchester, England on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. Two people killed, four injured, and countless more traumatized by what they witnessed upon arrival. This is what terrorism looks like. Wake up, world. Unless you are a jihadist, you better join the team fighting them. Hint: If you have been shouting Free Palestine, you have been bamboozled by a terrorist regime.

Tommy Robinson

Make no bones about it, the suspected Islamic terror attack on peaceful Jews at their place of worship in Manchester is the consequence of Keir Starmer’s regime allowing hate marches to take to our streets following the October 7th massacre. After all that vile hatred, Starmer publicly give in to them. Blood on your hands!

Brendan O’Neill

When I think of my Jewish friends who have been crying out for two years about the slow but steady growth of anti-Semitism, and about how they were too often ignored or accused of exaggeration or told they were trying to silence anti-Israel activism, it makes me feel profoundly ashamed. Jews pleaded for the attention of politicians and activists and influencers, but they rarely received it. People looked the other way as Jews said they no longer felt safe in certain towns and cities in this once great nation. 

It is possible that the horrors of Heaton Park come not from a vacuum, but from all that. From a culture of silence. From a reluctance to grapple with the return of Jew hatred to 21st-century Europe. Enough is enough. The ugly rebirth of anti-Semitism is always a sign that a society has veered off the path of Enlightenment and taken a very dark turn indeed. Heaton Park is a warning to Britain, and to humanity. If we fail to heed it, not only our Jewish citizens but our society itself will be in greater trouble than we can imagine. Where Jews are not safe to worship, barbarism has superseded civilisation.

Gerald Posner

Today’s lethal Manchester synagogue attack is no surprise. Pro-Hamas mobs have flooded UK streets for 2 years ? “Jihad” chants ? Blood libels on banners ? Calls to destroy Israel. Police looked away. Politicians stayed silent. Keir Starmer’s Britain cracks down on free speech online while allowing it flourish in its streets. The UK has abandoned its Jews.

Rowan Dean

Yesterday’s murder of Jews celebrating Yom Kippur at a synagogue in Manchester by a vile man of Syrian descent has been rightly condemned by many Brits as the inevitable culmination of months, in fact two years, of desperately weak leadership by Britain’s Labour PM Keir Starmer.

Hillel Fuld

The Manchester synagogue attack scared you? I got news for you. If things don’t change in the UK and other European countries, that was only the appetizer. They’ll keep trying until it’s not 2 dead Jews, but 20. Or 200. The leadership hasn’t connected the dots it seems.

In sum

I could offer many more important pieces of commentary on this. But this much is clear: Jews throughout the West have been saying for the past two years how much things remind them of Germany in the 1930s. They have every right to think such things. Last century we vowed that the Holocaust would never happen again.

Too many in the West – including Western leaders – seem to have forgotten all this.

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