Bondi Beach terror attack: A day of shame for the West

0:02The Telegraph

0:09The horrific attack at Bondi Beach was carried out by a father and son who pledged loyalty to the Islamic State. But what role has the West played in normalising anti-Semitic hate? We speak to one of the UK's most prominent Jews, Shadow Attorney General David Wolfson. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tomini.

0:40Commilitaries, 16 people are dead after the attacks on Sunday at Bondi Beach. The killers have been named as Sajid Akram, 50, and, this is an astonishing detail, his son, Navid, 24. The older man died at the scene while his son is currently in a critical condition in hospital. They clearly targeted a Jewish Hanukkah event on the beach, and the victims included a 10-year-old girl called Matilda, a British-born rabbi, a retired police officer, and a Holocaust survivor. So we know now that two Islamic State flags were found in the Bondi Beach gunman's car. A senior official has confirmed that with Australia's ABC News.

1:26A flag could be seen on the bonnet of the car in footage from the scene. there were some reports of perhaps IEDs, explosive devices in the cars, they remain unconfirmed. But we knew pretty quickly, didn't we, with the press conference that was held in Sydney on Sunday night that it was a terror-related offence. What I found particularly sinister about it as the news was unfolding yesterday as I was at GB News, so I had planned to do an entire show interviewing guests on various different domestic political-related matters. And you had to tear all that up in an instance. Just tore that all up because the news was emerging at around nine o 'clock and it became pretty apparent that the horror was on such a scale that we would just have to turn my program into a rolling news program.

2:12That's always quite difficult because you're wanting to report the facts as they happen because you're in a position where you're updating the audience. But you've got to be really careful to not misreport things that appear on social media. so there are unconfirmed reports of the death toll and what may have happened then the footage is coming out and of course we have the juxtaposition of the horrifying footage this is what it's like these days isn't it covering news videos just emerge almost immediately yes we had this with charlie kirk you feel like you're watching things in real time i think it's actually in the advent of 9-11 this expectation that there will be video and we will see it so when we initially saw some of the more gruesome videos, which were just horrific, of bodies strewn around on the floor.

3:00That's when you then get a sense of how serious it is. So to see the gunman with the guns shooting and then see this remarkable footage of Ahmed Al Ahmed, a fruit seller, this man jump on one of the gunmen, wrestle him to the ground, get the weapon. How on earth he resisted the urge actually to shoot the assailant dead. Yes. Goodness only knows. And another member of the public then throwing something at him. I wasn't sure what that was. But then I looked at the footage and the thing that struck me about it was how pathetic the gunman looked without the weapon in his hand. I agree. Flailing about.

3:37He looked frightened. He looked, it was just, I just thought, well, this is, this just about sums it up. You know, you're a nobody with nothing and yet you have this powerful weapon in your hands. you're firing into a defenceless crowd the people who were having the hanukkah barbecue i mean i've been have you been to bondi no i have not i've never even been to australia okay so i've been to australia several times got relatives out there my brother lives in brisbane and the great thing about australian beaches is they have these proper barbecue zones if you lit a barbecue on a beach in the uk you'd probably be arrested in australia it's actively encouraged and they're often next to play areas so in this case these two gunmen are firing not only on people having barbecues and there's a unique sense of defenselessness i think about being at the beach because you're there and you're swimmers and it's a very exposed area it's a beach and it's next to a playground yes and i was watching it unfold and as is ever the case in these scenarios even though i'm not jewish and let's be very specific about this because people have tried to be a bit circumspect.

4:39This was an attack on the Jewish community on one of the holiest days in their calendar, just as the Heaton Park synagogue attack took place in Manchester on Yom Kippur on purpose. This was a moment for Jews from that area to gather together and celebrate their equivalent to Christmas, as we like to call it. It was targeted. But there's always this there for the grace of God go I element because you look at families with their kids it's the most natural thing to do in Sydney yes you go down to the beach and also people who don't go to Australia Bondi Beach is it's a big thing at Christmas and it's a big thing at New Year because Christmas is their summer right exactly so that's where you go the Australians are having barbecues on Christmas Day not roasting turkeys so I just think I mean it takes a unique sort of evil mindset to fire into defenseless people having a barbecue together with their children and this is the other thing that I was sort of trying to do the rolling news coverage actually trying to keep it together and it makes me upset now you know what did some of the kids witness what have the kids seen the kids in the playground and how is that going to affect them and then obviously you then reflect on the Jewish community and how they're feeling right now and I think there's a unique horror to the terror, modern day terror.

6:02This is different, isn't it, to what we grew up with with the IRA and explosive devices in cars and in shopping centres. That then graduated into a different kind of terrorism when it came to events like 9-11 and 7-7. We now seem to have entered the era of really, really deranged people taking it upon themselves to do things and then say that it might be affiliated with Islamic State or something. I feel the IRA was more political. It was more targeted. They would sometimes give an advance warning. I'm not trying to do PR for the IRA. No. I just mean it was a different kind of phenomenon, whereas this is now bordering on cult-like behavior and it's almost about sociopathy.

6:43Yeah, a father and son plotting, telling the rest of their family they're going on a beach holiday. The pre-meditated nature, Tim. They're booking an Airbnb. They're getting the weapons. I mean, let's not forget as well, Australia has the tightest gun laws in the world. After the attack in the 1990s in Tasmania, they cracked down on these weapons. Yes. So the horrifying nature of people with this mindset being able to get hold of weapons that were firing 50 bullets in swift succession. One eyewitness said they thought they had machine guns. That was the rapidity of the fire into the crowds. Yes.

7:22it just makes you extremely even as a gentile you think we said this earlier at the editorial meeting i live very close i went to school with a lot of jewish girls because i live close to north london and our local shopping center would be brent cross you know i'm not going to take the kids to brent cross this christmas to the sales as i might normally do and i'm saying that as a non-jew so imagine people now living in golders green or whatever thinking well there's an event being held for Hanukkah or whatever, there may be a Christmas market. Shall I go? I'm embarrassed about it as an Englishman that it's happening in my country.

8:00In the same way, I'd feel embarrassed if there was graffiti using the P or the N word. That shouldn't be happening in my country. I was scheduled to do Thought for the Day that morning, which we pre-record for Monday. And they asked, do you want to do it? It would have to be about Bondi. And I said, absolutely not. You get someone else to do it. From the Jewish community? Either find a Jewish person or an Australian. All I will offer to you right now is bromide and cliche. Yeah. Moreover, I was quite angry when I saw it happen. And I was really impressed. I was listening to you on the radio, listening to you narrate it, because of course, you also have to be very careful about the information that you share, because much of it was speculative.

8:44And you don't want to hand out anything that's wrong or alarmist and sometimes you have guests on like you had pauline hansen yes very right-wing australian i think senator for one nation she wore a burka in parliament and got banned for a week and she is the nigel farage donald trump of australia she is yeah she used to run a chip shop she was huge big in the 90s and uh you know they are going to say things which may go a little too far but when this all started to happen. And as soon as I saw it, I knew what it was. I knew this was Islamists, and I knew they were killing Jews because they're Jews.

9:18And there is this strange time between when we see something and know instantly what it was, because we've seen this crap so many times before, and when the state officially tells us that we're allowed to call it that. And that in-between time is this really strange moment in which I get really angry, in which I feel like I'm being gaslit by people saying, don't call this what this is. Yes. Because we all know. I received instantly from a friend, I almost don't know why, but I received messages which were the videos of the gunman firing and people lying, screaming on the ground. So there's that horrific immediacy, which again, now is something we apparently have to live with, that when horrible things happen, you will see them on your phone.

10:04I saw that that just filled me with such horror and disgust and then I saw the press conferences with various Australian officials And I know there's a case for saying they struck the right tone by telling people to calm down and let the police do their job There was one official who kept saying this is not the time for retribution and from a Christian point of view. That's correct That's what you should say But i'm Seeing the videos I know what this is and i'm inside screaming with rage that this has happened again. Yes. And I'm afraid I look at the state officials and I just feel, honestly, they're hollow, hollow men who in some part have contributed to this happening because they have failed to stop it from happening.

10:50Yes. And that might be very unfair. I'm just being honest because I think that's how millions of people were feeling on Sunday morning. Oh no, not again. Why do we have to live with this? wisetness being stopped. Also, the thing that angers me is the undercurrent. There was immediately an undercurrent of, well, the Jews have brought this on themselves. I didn't even want to go there. I don't even want to consider it. It automatically happens. It's not just evil. It's so dumb. The Twin Towers go down. Yeah. I know. The Jews all took the day off. Well, the Jews all took the day off or there was just the Americans brought it on themselves.

11:28Yes. When this terror is perpetuated, it's the only terror I can tell that is sort of apparently justifiable in some way because of quotes. It's up for negotiation. Genocide in Palestine. It's to be litigated. There's a conversation to be had around it. It's suddenly complex in a way that no other kind of terror attack is or should be. You know what? You can chew gum on a walk. You can say it's wicked to kill children in Gaza and you can say it's wicked to shoot people on Bondi Beach. Why don't we just aspire for a world in which people don't kill each other for political motivations? Yeah. What did you make of Anthony Albanese, Australia's prime minister, in the press conference he did?

12:09Because quite a few people said his statement was found wanting. And we just need to contextualise this. There has, like in the UK, been an ongoing debate about the safety of Jews in Australia. The population there is about 120 ,000. And actually, if we consider the population of Australia is about 26 million. We're about 70. We've got around 370 ,000 Jews. So actually, as a proportion of the population, it's quite similar between the Australians and indeed us. And anti-Semitism has gone up by some estimates by 700 percent in Australia since October the 7th. They've been wrestling with exactly the same themes that we have.

12:49The pro-Palestinian marches and whether some of the rhetoric amounts to hate speech. Proposals went before the prime minister in July. There was a 49 point proposal as to how to reduce anti-Semitism by cracking down on various different aspects of the marches, of the rhetoric and of a degree of a lack of security around some Jewish places of worship and schools and all the rest of it that might help to ameliorate the situation. But it's exactly the same debate that's been going on there, that's been going on here. Albanese stands up and I must admit, and I'm not just saying this because it's politically motivated, he's a Labour politician, he's left wing and I'm right wing.

13:28I found him totally unconvincing. I thought, wow, the Australians have elected Keir Starmer. He even looked the same. There seems to be this generation of grey middle-aged men that the West is electing right now, Schultz, possibly even in Canada, as if we need to get this out of our system of electing these dry technocrats. I would say one thing for Jacinda Ardern, not a fan. I once wrote a scathing review of her memoir, but there was a horrific shooting in New Zealand on her watch. And the way she handled it was a study, a textbook example of how you display what she would call empathetic leadership.

14:05and she has a point that the leadership is I'm afraid not just doing but being seen to do and you want someone who is calm and in control but you also want someone who I feel again I come back to right now I'm just angry I want to look in their eyes and know they share my revulsion and fury and I don't get that from him but I'm reluctant we mustn't comment too much upon a country whose politics we don't know I know but they have got something in common with Britain both Albanese and Starmer have recognized Palestine. Right. And overnight Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, accused Mr Albanese of, quotes, pouring fuel on the anti-Semitism fire by recognizing Palestinian statehood.

14:48And to be fair, Tony Abbott on the other side of the ideological fence. And he was asked on BBC Radio 4 whether one of the answers to this was to crack down on gun law. As we've already discussed, they have very tough gun laws in Australia. And he said, well, yes, possibly, but actually that wasn't really the nub of the problem. This is a day of shame for my country. And frankly, I think the prime minister is throwing up a smokescreen to say that what this shows is that we need better gun laws. Sure, we might need that. But what we need most of all is zero tolerance of anti-Jewish hate speech.

15:27And frankly, in Australia and indeed in quite a few other countries, including Britain, there has been far too much tolerance of anti-Jewish hate speech over the last two years. We haven't deported hate preachers. We haven't banned hate marches. We haven't prosecuted people for saying that the Jewish people of Israel should effectively suffer a new Holocaust. And the trouble is, if you hate the Jews of Israel, you'll end up hating the Jews of Australia and Britain. And if you hate them enough, we see atrocities like that that we witnessed at Bondi Beach last night. There has been too much hand-wringing impotence in the face of this evil by government in Australia, and I suspect in government in Britain as well.

16:21So again, there's a mirror situation going on in these two Commonwealth countries, isn't there? And the global context is obviously October 7th and Israel's reaction to it. And there have been many incidents in Australia since then of overt anti-Semitism. To give an example, on October the 8th, so just the day after, hundreds of people gathered at Sydney Opera House to chant, gas the Jews. On October the 13th, 2024, anti-Semitic graffiti was sprayed on a Jewish bakery in Sydney, including threats to harm the Jewish owners. In October 20th, 2024, a kosher restaurant, Lewis's Continental Kitchen, was torched in an arson attack.

17:00There have been also, Tim, numerous attacks on synagogues. One in Melbourne was torched, another one in Sydney, a further one in Sydney was vandalised with swastikas. Arson and vandalism at another synagogue in Sydney, all different episodes. A Jewish childcare centre in Sydney was set on fire and vandalised. In February earlier this year, two nurses in a Sydney hospital were suspended after proudly declaring on TikTok that they would murder their Jewish patients. This is extraordinary, isn't it, just reading it out. I mean, the normalisation of Jewish hatred. I remember the incident with gassing the Jews being chanted at Sydney Opera House of all places, a centre for culture.

17:38And you hear those sorts of remarks. Yes. There is something we were again discussing this this morning. Post-1945, the mantra of the Holocaust. Never again. Never forget. And here we are. Jewish child care centers being torched. We re-engineered much of our society and culture to ensure that would never happen again, to the point of rewriting our laws about speech, introducing human rights laws, opening our doors to asylum seekers, all in the spirit of persecution of ethnic groups must not happen again. And it's just tragic that 80 years later, it is happening again. It's partly about Islamic immigration, let's be honest, although so significant and important that the man who brought one of the attackers down was himself Muslim and indeed a former policeman in Syria.

18:38So a migrant Muslim. And also, Tim, this extraordinary man, honestly, apparently before he tackled the gunman, he turned around and said something like this. I might die. Tell my family I saved lives and then rushed the shooter. Imagine being that courageous. That's a really important thing that I hope people are going to focus on in the next few days. But it is partly a consequence of immigration. It's a consequence of Israeli policy and the anger, some of it legitimate, that that stirred up. But I think the way in which the same old tropes are being used and the fact that anti-Semitism has so long been a part of Christian identity as well, up until about 1945, it feels as though there's been legitimizing of something ancient and darker here that's being stirred up.

19:29Well, basically, it's the old trope of, you know, they get what they deserve. As people say, it's the oldest hatred in the world. Yes. Also, I mean, yes, we are witnessing something close to what was witnessed in the run up to the Second World War with some of the rhetoric and the arson attacks and swastikas, etc. Except that it's not state endorsed. It's not state endorsed. That's a critical thing. But this is not so much about a persecuting state. This is about an inept state, an impotent state. I think that some of the theme of it and some of the look of it, you know, some of it is Shakespearean in its tone.

20:06It's sort of Shylock-esque references once more to sort of Jews conspiracy theories online that are quite reminiscent of the kind of Jews rule the world. They're the money men. I mean, none of it has changed. And there is something uniquely depressing, is there not, about a Holocaust survivor having been killed? you survive the holocaust and then you're gunned down at a barbecue celebrating hanukkah on bondi beach yes and what sick damaged deranged mind imagines that killing a child is a political statement i'm conscious that we're discussing this as gentiles we need to hear from a jewish voice so we're going to speak to lord david wolfson the shadow attorney general to ask how does it feel to be Jewish in the West today?

20:54And what's his advice to the government about combating anti-Semitic hate?

21:02Lord Wolfson joins us now, Shadow Attorney General. David, if I may, we were chatting only a couple of weeks ago because we interviewed you about the ECHR report that you wrote for Kemi Badeok, the opposition leader. And we weren't really talking about these matters initially. And then I did lean into the Jewish question, so to speak, because you yourself had been very vocal about the rise in anti-Semitism in the UK. Your own daughter, Abby, had had an awful experience at Bristol University. She went there for an open day and pro-Palestinian protesters descended on the campus and made her and your wife feel extremely uncomfortable.

21:39And so we're talking generally about the threat to Jews and whether you felt safe in this country. And now here we are again today. What you said then, you said the Jews with canaries in the coal mine. now seems frankly tragically prescient. What's your reaction to what happened in Bondi on Sunday? Well, what happened in Bondi on Sunday was shocking and appalling, but it was not surprising. I'm afraid we have become used to Jewish festivals becoming days when Jews are targeted. Remember the October 7th massacre in Israel happened on Simchat Torah, which is a Jewish festival. Two Jews were murdered at synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur.

22:24And here we have an attack in Sydney on Bondi Beach on the first night of Hanukkah. And this, of course, is not a coincidence. This shows that these attacks are premeditated, I would suggest, by people who know what they're trying to do. They are not making a point about Middle East politics. they are simply attacking Jews because they are Jews. And that is why they are drawn, it seems, to attacking Jews on days of worship. Why do you think we've seen a rise of violent anti-Semitism in the West in recent years? The short answer to your question probably starts with the general movement to equate support for Palestinian statehood.

23:16And to be clear, I'm an advocate of the two-state solution. I believe that the Palestinians need to have self-determination, but it's a move to equate that with the destruction of the state of Israel. And once you start talking about the Jewish state being destroyed, it's a short step to talking about Jews being attacked and being destroyed. That's the short answer to your question. The longer answer to your question probably involves three and a half thousand years of history. I think that's really interesting what you say. Of course, the history of anti-Semitism is ancient. But from what you're saying, it seems to me that the discourse around Israel, this idea of from the river to the sea, means Israel must be destroyed.

24:01And because in the minds of many people, there is a direct link from Israel to Jewish people generally, that kind of rhetoric puts Jewish people in the crosshairs. It makes people think about doing violence to Jewish people generally. It normalizes it. I mean, let's be clear. If the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, didn't exist, there would be no Israel. And if there were no Israel, then the eight or so million Jews who live there would not be in the land of the living. I mean, that is just basic politics. So if you shout death to the IDF, you are necessarily calling for the death of Jews in the state of Israel.

24:43To give another example, we all know what happened in the Intifada. In the Intifada, people who were standing buying bread were blown apart when people walked into cafes as suicide bombers. And people who were taking bus rides didn't reach their destinations because the buses were blown up and they were murdered on those buses. So when you shout, globalise the Intifada, as we've heard on the streets of London, when you march down Manchester and Birmingham in the past few weeks with signs calling for Intifada and also red triangles, which have become the symbol of support for Hamas, you are necessarily calling for the death of Jews.

25:30Now, of course, I accept a lot of people on these marches don't know what they're doing. I'm willing to, so to speak, forgive them for their ignorance. But they need to be shaken out of their ignorance. And the leaders who are not ignorant need to be held to account. And my concern is that as a society, we have singularly failed to hold these people to account. When there were calls for jihad at one of the early marches on the streets of London, the Metropolitan Police responded that their experts had informed them that jihad had a range of meanings, including self-improvement and personal reflection.

26:16Now, I'm sure that as a matter of theology, that's true. But when you're calling for jihad on the streets of London, it has an unambiguous meaning. And we did nothing about it. Indeed, the only time there's been a muscular response was when the West Midlands police decided that the way to avoid problems on the streets of Birmingham, when Aston Villa were playing Maccabre Tel Aviv, was to ban the Israelis. we've shown ourselves willing to step in to deal with threats of violence but only when it involves preventing israelis and jews watching football otherwise our authorities i'm afraid have acquiesced time and again when i go to synagogue in central london i've walked past these marches and you can see by the attendance or rather the non-attendance of people in synagogue the effect it has.

27:15London has become a place where Jews do not go on Saturday afternoons. And the problem is that we have allowed this to happen. And we need, I think, eventually now to sit up and have a proper political and societal response to this. what's your response to this post on x which i think is probably emblematic of the view of some on the left it's been posted by dale vince who was once a labor donor he's donated to causes like extinction rebellion and others i quote commenting on the shootings in australia today netanyahu said anti-semitism spreads when leaders stay silent nothing to do with israel committing genocide in Palestine then.

28:07Netanyahu wants anti-Semitism to be a thing. It validates him. He acts to make it so. Well, of course, saying that Jews are responsible for or encourage anti-Semitism for their own purposes is itself an anti-Semitic trope. I'm very clear about this. anti-Semitism is caused by anti-Semites. And to blame Jews for anti-Semitism is like blaming young girls for being raped. It is absolutely abhorrent. I note actually that in a further post, Mr. Vince uses the word Holocaust to characterize the number of turkeys which are eaten at Christmas. I think he has a real problem and should learn some history.

28:55He might want to learn why there is a state of Israel, and he might want to learn something about the Holocaust. But one can criticise prime ministers of any country for their politics. I mean, this isn't about not criticising the state of Israel. There are marches almost weekly in the state of Israel against the government of Israel. There are no shortage of Israelis who don't like their government very much, just as I would say, if I may, I don't like our government in the UK very much. But that doesn't make those Israelis any less patriotic about their country, nor I hope does it make me any less patriotic about ours.

29:33But those Israelis are not calling for the death to the IDF. They're not calling to globalise the Intifada because they know what that means. That means Jews died. And Mr. Vince ought to know that as well. When states fail to condemn violent rhetoric, do you think they become complicit in violent action? That's always a difficult question. There are times, I think, when it's fair to say, if you stay silent and don't speak up, you're complicit. Equally, I wouldn't want to say that everybody is complicit merely by staying silent. I think I would distinguish between people in positions of power and authority and those who are not.

30:18If you're in a position of power and authority, you have to speak up and be unambiguous about it. And one of the things I was concerned about yesterday was that the initial responses by a number of world leaders were well below the type of forthright condemnation which you would expect. Indeed, many of them were unable to use the word Jews or Jewish or Chanukah or terrorism. Now, eventually most, but not all, of them got there, but only after something of an outcry. And we need to use our language carefully. We need to call out evil when we see it. And this is evil. And it's an evil which strikes at society, one of the points I was making in my article yesterday was that this, of course, is a problem for Jews, but it is not only a problem for Jews.

31:18To quote the late Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, a society which contains antisemitism within it is a society which is sick. A society which tolerates antisemitism is a society which is suffering from a terminal illness. That is an iron rule of history. And that's why, as Camilla said at the start, I use the phrase that Jews are the canary in society's coal mine, because that is the lesson of history. people may start attacking Jews but in the end let's be clear this is an attack on basic civilizational values that we in the west hold dear and defending Jews is in this case I would suggest defending our basic societal values.

32:07There will be some who will say these two whatever their motivations were ultimately mad, crazed, bloodthirsty. And that's what we should focus on, that they are exceptions. They don't tell us much about the wider state of society. There'll be others who say no things could have been done, that they're the product of a political context. And Australia does have to do soul searching about why this happened. Where do you stand on that? To what extent do we just say, look, these people are just mad and evil? or is this actually an indictment of public policy and the culture of the West? Well, of course, we don't know the details yet about the full background of the father and son in Australia.

32:55There are conflicting reports as to whether they had links to terrorist groups. We certainly know, it seems, that one, I think it's the son, was known to the Australian Security services. What I would say is that any society where this happens needs to take a good look in the mirror and ask itself, are we doing everything we can to prevent these sorts of attacks? My concern at the moment is that we are not doing everything we can to prevent them. And indeed, we are fostering an atmosphere where people are allowed with impunity to walk down the streets of London and call for the death of Jews. We wouldn't tolerate that, I would suggest, with any other group, and we shouldn't tolerate it in this circumstance either.

33:48And I know that it's going to take resolve. I know that there is going to be a political price to pay. But if we don't pay the political price, we are going to pay a far greater price in terms which I think are now very obvious to us. When it comes to the motivations behind this and the reported links to Islamic State, there is again going to be a dialogue about the radicalisation of Islamists in the aftermath of October the 7th. And yet we have the appalling atrocity carried out by these two sick men who are Muslim, being foiled by another Muslim man, Ahmed al-Ahmed, who is clearly looking at these two maniacs and putting his life in harm's way to stop this from happening.

34:44I mean, as a Jew, David Wilson, thinking about the perpetrators, but then their role in their own religious community, what thoughts are going through your mind, not least when you watch that extraordinary footage? I mean, I don't think I've seen anything like it. Well, absolutely. That's why I was very keen yesterday to underline that fact. Indeed, I pointed out in one of my social media posts that the phrase, whoever saves a life saves an entire world, is not only found in the Talmud, but is also found in the teachings of the Quran. Of course, these two faith groups, Jews and Muslims, we share such a lot.

35:29And it would be completely wrong. It would be indeed abhorrent to say all Muslims are responsible for these attacks. Of course they're not. We've seen very strong statements put out by various Muslim groups absolutely condemning them. And the way forward ultimately is a proper dialogue between not only Jewish and Muslim groups, but indeed the whole of society to make sure that these people who are extremists and have philosophies which are repugnant to the vast majority of people in our society are properly shunned. So what one certainly does not say that there is a problem, so to speak, with Islam.

36:11I do think there is an issue, as indeed the Home Secretary has said, with Islamism. Islamist ideology is different. That is a political ideology, which I would say uses a perversion of the teachings of Islam to support a political ideology. And that is why, if we are going to deal with this situation, all of society need to come together to underline this is a problem for Jews, but it is not only a problem for Jews. How worried are you about the safety of Jewish Britons here in the UK? Not least as we're marking Hanukkah this week, David. I'm going to an event this afternoon in Westminster, funnily enough.

37:00Yes, the truth is that we have in this country the Community Security Trust, which is a communal organisation which works to protect Jewish life and Jewish institutions. We are also grateful for the monies which the government gives us to subsidise the cost of maintaining the Community Security Trust, both under the previous government and this government. That is not a political issue. But I would put it this way. A Jewish life in the UK where our synagogues look like fortresses and our children have to learn the difference between an evacuation alarm, like a normal fire alarm when you leave the school building, and an evacuation alarm where an alarm sounds and all the pupils have to come into the building because there's an attack from the outside.

37:58that is no way for Jews to live but that is the daily life of Jews in the UK when I go to synagogue I meet people who have stab vests patrolling the perimeter Jewish schools often have plastic in the windows and not glass so we're grateful for the support from government and other institutions to keep Jewish life safe. If Jewish life is not safe, there's not going to be Jewish life here at all. But it is not an answer merely to say, in response to events like Bondi Beach, we will increase Jewish security or security around Jewish institutions. We do not want to live in a ghetto, even if it's a ghetto for our own security.

38:51We simply want to be able to live like everybody else. I want to be able to walk into a synagogue in the way that I walk into a church. And are we reaching a point now where Judaism is having to become a private rather than a public religion? Well, of course, the lesson of Hanukkah, as I said in my article in the paper this morning, is that we light our candles in the windows and in our doorways and in the public square, precisely because we want Jewish life to be part of civic society. But I'll tell you this, I'm invited to a number of Hanukkah celebrations, including, for example, one in the temple.

39:33I'm a barrister, that's where I work. Like many invitations to many Jewish gatherings, it has location available on request. When I go to a Jewish charity dinner, it often says central London location and I'm told where to go the day before. That doesn't happen to any of the other events I go to. I'm told where to go well in advance. Now this has become normalized and this I think is part of the problem that over the past 5, 10, 15 years we as a community have begun to normalize things which ought to be extraordinary. It ought to be extraordinary that we have people with stab vests outside synagogues.

40:22It ought to be extraordinary that six-year-olds are told how to hide under desks if people are shooting through the windows. It ought to be extraordinary that I get an invitation to a Jewish charity, Jewish Care, for example, which looks after our aged, our infirm, our mentally ill. It ought to be extraordinary that I can't be told until the day before where it is I'm going to. So I'm grateful to the government, all governments, for keeping us safe. But we want to be kept normal. We want to leave the extraordinary. What's your message, lawyer to lawyer, David Wilson, to Keir Starmer? Because is there something the Prime Minister can do here or change here, legislatively or otherwise?

41:11I mean, intriguingly, we've got ministers this week wrestling with their Islamophobia redefinition. And we're just reporting on the Telegraph website right now that they've put that on hold. Do you have a message for Keir Starmer? I don't want to make this party political. I'm sure that the prime minister in his heart. In fact, I know that the prime minister is a strong supporter of the Jewish community. I don't want to make this a political debate. Frankly, it's too important for that. But what could he do? I think there are a number of things he could do. And just to pick on two, first of all, we could make it clear in law that when the police are looking at whether to permit a demonstration or the route of a demonstration, the frequency of those demonstrations is a matter to be taken into account.

42:03Because what we've seen is that week after week after week, Jewish life in central London has been brought to a halt. That's the first thing. And the second thing he could do is to be very clear that one of the, let me put it in terms which will appeal to the Prime Minister, one of the human rights which we need to focus on is the right of communities to go about their business in peace and undisturbed and not to have calls for their death shouted on London streets. that I would suggest is a right which is at least equal to the important right to protest and to demonstrate. David Wilson, thank you very much.

43:08Thank you.