RUTHFULLY YOURS

The experience of being a Jew in Britain over the past two years has been one of trapdoors of depravity. You fall through one on to what you think is firm ground, only to discover that there is always further to fall. Yesterday was a prime example.

The terror attack on a Manchester synagogue was, of course, the sort of shock that changes things forever. This was something that all in the community had feared, yet it had thankfully failed to materialise. In France, yes, there had been attacks like this on many occasions. The attack on Charlie Hebdo, the defenestration of elderly Jews in Paris and Lyon, the anti-Semitic rape last year of a 12-year-old girl. But in Britain, nothing of that nature.

Well, so much for that. Today, it emerged that the community security guards had prevented the attacker from entering the Heaton Park synagogue, at huge personal cost, with one killed and the other seriously injured. Their everyday heroism – as is common with such atrocities – provided a shining light in the darkness that descended at the hands of Jihad al-Shamie.

Yes, nothing will ever be the same for Jews in Britain, if indeed they remain here. As it turned out, however, the attack itself was only the first trapdoor of the depravity.

Before the blood was dry, the condolences came pouring in. What’s wrong with that, I hear you ask? Nothing, I suppose, when the people offering the condolences are genuine. In this case, however, you couldn’t move for disingenuousness and hypocrisy.

Take, for example, a certain Jeremy Corbyn. ‘I am horrified by the news of multiple stabbings at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur’, he posted to his 2.5million followers on X. ‘We must defend a society where people of all faiths can practise their religion in safety and peace.’ This from the man who, a few years ago, referred to the genocidal anti-Semites of Hamas as his ‘friends’.

Nobody can see into Corbyn’s soul of course, if indeed he has one. But many observers found the words ‘crocodile’ and ‘tears’ coming to mind.

Which brings me to his successor. Last week, Sir Keir Starmer was basking in the adulation of Hamas after he recognised a Palestinian state without any preconditions. While this week’s Trump peace plan boxed the jihadis in, Starmer’s policy did the same to Israel.

Trump was clear: he wants Israel to win. He demanded the release of the hostages and the surrender of Hamas as a precondition for any ceasefire. As for Starmer, well, he may have not wanted Hamas to win, but he certainly wanted Israel to lose.

This was part of an overall stance that condemned Israel as the guilty party, rather than the jihadis of Hamas – the group, that is, who started the war and is refusing to release the hostages and stop the ‘genocide’ to which it is supposedly being subjected.

Does this make Starmer a ‘friend’ of Hamas terrorists? From their celebratory response to his decision to recognise a Palestinian state, it would certainly seem like they see it that way. So spare us your condolences, prime minister. Stay away from our synagogues. You, I’m afraid, are part of the problem.

Too strong? Perhaps. But then came a further trapdoor, in the form of violent pro-Palestinian protests that defaced London, Edinburgh and Manchester – Manchester! – in the hours after the attack last night.

One photograph has been haunting me since. It was taken in the aftermath of 7 October 2023 and shows a mob of Gaza activists marching through the city behind a banner that says: ‘Manchester says one solution: Intifada revolution.’ You didn’t think they meant it, did you?

Not so fast. With the investigation ongoing, we have no idea whether Jihad al-Shamie was influenced by such things, though it is likely perhaps. What we do know, however, is that for two years, the climate of Jew-hate in Britain has been intolerable, and the protests have been at the heart of it.

It was in the week of the 7 October attack that the Jewish Chronicle, which I edited at the time, revealed that many of the key organisers of the marches had significant past links to Hamas, with some even pictured with jihadi leaders in Gaza. Difference, as they say, it made none.

Which brings us to where we are today. Trapdoor after trapdoor, all the way down. It is sickening to see all those leftist politicians who have smeared Israel with their every breath for two years suddenly using the Manchester attack to try to sanitise their reputations. It is sickening to see the baying mobs on the streets, without so much as a whisper of ‘not in my name’.

It is sickening to see so many people not even bothering with the mask anymore, or being satisfied with the thinnest of disguises. Why not? In Starmer’s Britain, that is all that is required.

Shame on them. Shame on all of them. The Jews have always stood up for Britain, including serving with distinction in the Second World War, as my grandfather did. Shame on Britain for not standing up for the Jews.

Jake Wallis Simons is author of Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself.