‘Britain has surrendered to Islamism’

The Manchester synagogue attack earlier this month may have been shocking, but it was sadly not surprising. Islamism and anti-Semitism, the two evils that brought us here, have long been allowed to spread unchecked. Warnings have continually fallen on deaf ears. Writer and broadcaster Jonathan Sacerdoti returned as a guest to The Brendan O’Neill Show last week to discuss how far Britain has fallen. You can watch the conversation here.

Brendan O’Neill: What were your first thoughts when you heard about the Heaton Park synagogue attack?

Jonathan Sacerdoti: I won’t be the first person to say that it’s something we expected, but hoped would never happen. When I was processing the news, I recalled a Sky News interview I did 10 years ago, just after the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege in Paris. I said something along the lines of: ‘We all know it’s coming to the UK as well, and it’s time that our government and police force stepped up to make sure it doesn’t.’ Well, they didn’t, and it happened. I wasn’t patting myself on the back for having successfully predicted it. I felt really disappointed that I, and others, hadn’t managed to communicate properly how obvious it was to us back then.

Islamist terrorism targets Jews. But it doesn’t just target Jews. It also targets Westerners. It targets Brits. It targets liberal people, women, gay people – and not only did the government fail to heed our warning, but it actually made the situation much worse, too. Since 7 October 2023, and particularly since the new Labour government came to power, there has been endless tolerance for marches and parades that are full of anti-Semitism and pro-terrorist sentiment. Our foreign policy has become even more drastically anti-Israel than it was. As a fellow Brit, as a fellow Jew, I was devastated to hear that those people had been killed – just as I was devastated when I heard about the kids who were targeted in the Manchester Arena bombing. We are not safe anymore.

O’Neill: How do you think the situation for Jews in the UK got to this point?

Sacerdoti: Yom Kippur is a very solemn day for Jews. We fast, repent for our sins, take stock of the year just past and make promises for the one to come. When I looked back over the year before and thought about how Jews ended up in this position, it occurred to me that people simply don’t care.

We are told constantly that the pro-Palestine marches are full of lovely, well-meaning middle-class Brits who just want the best for a persecuted people. Well, yes – there might be some people like that out there demonstrating. There might even be a lot of them. But there are also a lot of Islamists. There are also a lot of people chanting for the death of Jews – maybe not explicitly (though sometimes they do), but often using phrases that equate to it, such as calling for jihad. The cries of ‘Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud’ we’ve been hearing on these marches refers to the Battle of Khaybar, where the army of Muhammad slaughtered Jews and raped the Jewess Saffiyah. ‘From the river to the sea’, ‘globalise the Intifada’ – we Jews certainly understand what these phrases mean, even if others don’t. The intifada is a wave of terror attacks targeted at Jews. Why would you permit people to call for it on our streets?

On top of all this, we have had the ludicrous media portrayal of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza. How people can’t spot the lies, the misinformation, the distortion of the truth is beyond me. But I think all of these ideas have spilled over into other parts of society, and so many of our institutions have been captured by those who – knowingly or unknowingly – push a terrorist agenda. The upshot of that is that both well-meaning people and much less well-meaning people, like Jihad al-Shamie, now feel emboldened to express their anti-Semitism. So Jews are now in this horrible position where they know that they can be killed, while at prayer in the synagogue, in the UK.

O’Neill: What do you think is the temperature of the country after the attack?

Sacerdoti: In another news interview, I heard someone say they’d asked the pro-Palestine protesters to hold off on protesting for a week out of sensitivity for the Jewish community. I couldn’t help but think, why this week? Will it be okay next week? Was it okay last week? I mean, if it’s just about ‘sensitivity’, spare me. I’m not sure I care if you do it this week or if or next if you’re effectively going to dance on Jewish graves either way.

When I went to the Unite the Kingdom march with my husband, people knew that I was there. My husband wore a kippah. The response was exclusively positive. The only abuse he received was on the way home afterwards from somebody from Antifa. It’s hilarious that it was a so-called anti-fascist who abused a non-white, Jewish, gay immigrant to the country. I truly believe there is a vast undercurrent of support for the Jewish community in Britain – I just wish it could find its voice without people having to be killed first.

O’Neill: How pervasive is the securitisation of Jewish spaces now, such as synagogues, schools and community centres?

Sacerdoti: Interestingly, it’s spread. I went to the theatre the other day to see a production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome by the Gesher Theatre Company, which is Israeli-Russian, and there was security outside this theatre in the West End. They had metal crowd-control gates around the entire front of the theatre, as well as a handheld metal detector. This wasn’t even a Jewish event.

The Jewish community has had security forever, but it’s definitely increased over the years. When I was a child, going to the same synagogue I go to now, there was a fair amount of security. During my teenage years, they built a little shed in the courtyard of the synagogue to do security checks. Eventually, 15 or 20 years ago, that became a reinforced brick building, and there are cameras all over the place. It’s normal for us. When they built the Jewish Community Centre on Finchley road, it literally had a drawbridge between the pavement and the building. They designed it as elegantly as they could, but it’s literally like a mediaeval fortress. It was weird, but we’ve grown used to it. We even have this body, the Community Security Trust, which provides volunteer, trained security guards for all Jewish events. It’s amazing that the community is able to do this for itself, but depressing at the same time.

O’Neill: What did you make of Keir Starmer’s decision to recognise Palestine?

Sacerdoti: I think it was a bit ridiculous. But also, it wasn’t just Britain. It was a decision shared by a few states, some of them quite significant. This sends several messages. Firstly, that we’re rewarding the Palestinian commitment to violence. Secondly – and more importantly – this is a British surrender to terrorism in general. It showed that in the face of Islamist terrorism, Britain is weak. That if the right response is difficult, Britain will simply opt out. I don’t think Hamas is wrong to have said this is a direct result of the 7 October attack. I don’t see how anyone could read it differently. I think this does permanent damage to the UK’s position in terms of any future negotiations in the Middle East. It has rendered the UK irrelevant. It betrayed an ally that it relies on heavily, and the effects of the decision will be felt by the Jewish people in this country.

Jonathan Sacerdoti was talking to Brendan O’Neill. Watch the full conversation below: