Britain

Last week, on Yom Kippur—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar—two Jews were murdered outside a Manchester synagogue in a horrifying antisemitic attack. In the pages of The Jewish News, Richard Ferrer lays bare the cowardice of Britain’s leadership, which has led to this terrible moment: as he notes, the first fatal antisemitic attack in Britain since the 17th century.

Something must be done. This attack has to be a wake up call. It cannot be that British Jews are expected to cower in fear, and that those who are putting them in danger—radical Islamists—are ceaselessly coddled and appeased.

The response to the violent surge in antisemitism cannot be banal remarks; what is required is naming and shaming the Islamist extremism that is driving it and taking concrete steps to counter it.

As Ferrer writes:

The question to our government is simple: what are you going to do? Not say. My God, how they love to say and say and say. Empty words won’t keep us alive. WHAT. ARE. YOU. GOING. TO. DO?

British citizens who still believe in what this country is meant to stand for need an unafraid, coordinated response to Islamist extremism and how it is being enabled by the Corbynite hard left. It must be handled with the same seriousness the state confronted the IRA in the 1980s.

Strengthen laws on incitement. Invest significantly in the Prevent programme. Fix the broken culture at the Crown Prosecution Service. Deport radical preachers and shut down “charities” funnelling money to Iranian-backed groups. Expel foreign nationals who incite violence on the streets and social media. End the indulgence of doctors, academics and others in positions of public trust who openly support Hamas. And stop the boats.

Have the courage to tell hard truths about an evil that has been indulged in plain sight. An evil that has infected our politics, culture, courts, media, education, the NHS and every other corner of public life.

Read Ferrer’s powerful cri de coeur in The Jewish News.