Georgia L Gilholy is a journalist.
At the time of writing, two people are dead after a man rammed his car into worshippers outside a Manchester synagogue. He then left the car and stabbed people. Reports also suggest the attacker appeared to be wearing a bomb vest.
A string of politicians took to social media to express their “shock” at this vile act, which transpired on the most solemn day of the Jewish Year: Yom Kippur, the “day of atonement”. There are many emotions I felt upon receiving this news, but shock was not one of them- nor should it have been for anyone who has seen the fate of British Jews over the past few decades.
One Sky News reporter bizarrely referred to the attacked site as a “mosque”. Either they are so poorly educated that they failed to distinguish the difference between a Jewish and a Muslim place of worship, or they were unable to bring themselves to admit that Jews were the victims of this attack.
But, sadly, the onslaught against British Jews is nothing new.
Doctors who openly spew vitriol against all Jewish people are allowed to continue practicing in the NHS.
Last year, a group of young men attacked three Jewish Israelis in Leicester Square after overhearing them chatting in Hebrew.
The victims called police, who refused to attend the scene, and simply told the traumatised trio to “calm down”. The mainstream media, including the BBC, which receives our license fee, repeatedly spread lies about Israel and Jews.
In 2021, Mohammed Iftikhar Hanif and Jawaad Hussain drove through a heavily Jewish area of North London with Palestine flags on their cars, yelling “Fuck the Jews & rape their daughters”. The CPS subsequently dropped all the charges, and these men now walk free among us.
Later that year the BBC reported that Jewish teenagers shouted “dirty Muslims” before they were attacked while lighting a menorah.
They did not.
As in so many episodes in modern Britain, the real victims were cast as the aggressors, while we were instructed to sympathise with their vicious attackers. In 2022, Ofcom stated that the BBC had committed ‘significant editorial failings’ on the matter. Not one person is known to have lost their job over the matter, and evidently, nothing about the outlet changed.
The following month, a man entered my local kosher corner shop and yelled about “Palestine” while threatening staff with a knife. This violent offender received no prison sentence and was allowed to continue living in the area. Only GB News and Jewish media reported on this woeful episode.
This list is terrifying and ever-expanding, and has accelerated since the October 7th massacre which left over 1,400 Israelis dead at the hands of Islamist terror. Our towns and city centres have been flooded with endless anti-Israel demonstrations by thousands of people, a major chunk of whom have a disproportionate obsession with the Jewish state, meddle in tin-foil-hat Islamist, leftist and fascist conspiracies about it pulling the strings of world politics, and regularly display pro-terror slogans, imagery and clothing.
Remember that in the weeks following Hamas’ October 7th massacre clips of imams preaching antisemitic vitriol across the UK—including in mosques that get taxpayer funding—repeatedly went viral? In almost all cases, no action was taken by the police or the Charity Commission, which many of these organisations are regulated by.
What happened in Manchester yesterday, is not just a deep tragedy for this country, but a global embarrassment. Sir Keir Starmer left a political summit in Denmark early to attend a COBRA meeting on the incident. The UK’s reputation is in free fall, and our spiralling appeasement of violence and extremism, which disproportionately targets Jewish people, is a huge factor in why.
We all know exactly why this trend has emerged. Firstly, because our society lacks confidence and pride in itself, and has thus made itself open to the threats from Islamists and their lapdogs on the Far Left. Secondly, because it is this very political culture that has willingly imported millions of people from cultures, where no major Jewish communities now function because they were long ago driven out.
Recent polling suggests that almost 60 per cent of British Jews hide their identity over fears of prejudice, it is clear Britain is creeping towards something ugly and unrecognisable.
The number of people in Britain holding what the Campaign Against Antisemitism charity considers to be entrenched antisemitic views has doubled in less than five years to over a fifth of the British population. Half of the Jewish community has considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to antisemitism. Among 18-24-year-olds, it is two-thirds.
Jew hatred is a psychological sewer from which it is hard to emerge, and Britain long ago began sinking into its mucky depths for the sake of political correctness. Thursday’s brutal attack was a disgrace, but it is the kind of thing many of us have long expected. As for any real wake-up call among our establishment regarding this soaring antisemitism, do not hold your breath.
As Harvard professor Ruth Wisse notes: ”Antisemitism is not about the Jews, but about those who organise politics against them. And any society governed by that ideology is doomed.”