How Britain became a breeding ground for Jew hate

0:03Gideon Falter: The Telegraph.

0:09Camilla: Are Jews in Britain under attack and more importantly, has the British state failed them with its policy on Israel?

0:17Gideon Falter: We speak to Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the campaign against anti-Semitism, to discuss the daily threat that Jews now have to live with. And has the Labour government made things better or worse?

0:27Camilla: Welcome to The Daily Tea with me Camilla Tomeny and me Tim Stanley.

0:41Camilla: So Tim we now have the names of the two innocent people who were killed in that horrific attack on a synagogue in the outskirts of Manchester on Thursday. 53-year-old Adrian Dolby and 66-year-old Melvin Kravitz. Three more are seriously injured and still in hospital.

1:00Gideon Falter: The attacker, a 35-year-old Syrian-born British citizen named Jihad al-Shammy, is also dead after being shot by the police. And tragically, it's also now emerged that as the police did so, one of those poor people killed was struck by a stray bullet whilst hiding behind the synagogue door. One of those with non-life-threatening injuries was also hit by a bullet.

1:22Camilla: I mean, it was a day of absolute atrocity, but also a degree of bravery, Tim. We know that the rabbi and others tried to shield those inside from the attack. We now know that Grant Shapps, the former defence secretary's father-in-law, a man called Michael Goldstone, was among those who helped to barricade the doors. Also, I found very moving, Tim, that footage of the rabbi outside in the aftermath of what happened comforting that young Jewish boy who seemed understandably distraught. All yesterday, you and I were seeing the newsroom operation take hold. And it was surprising, wasn't it, how many people we quickly identified as being directly involved with the synagogue or knowing people affected.

2:06Camilla: It was Yom Kippur, so it was quite difficult to get hold of Jews who were fasting for the day. They were with their families. They're expecting it to be a solemn occasion, one of the most significant in the Jewish calendar. And of course, we wanted to try and get to the journalism of the matter, find out what happened, but also get the immediate response from members of the Jewish community.

2:26Gideon Falter: It's a very small community of about 300 ,000 people. It's also a vulnerable one, which for about 20 years has been having to live with heightened protection, and in a sense is braced for a tragedy like this, because you have security guards at Jewish schools as well as at Jewish synagogues. And that just tears your heart out that in Britain, which prides itself on being a safe and tolerant place in the 21st century, people are targeted by murderers like this. Questions are going to be raised about the killer. We have to be very careful about ascribing motivation. Other people were arrested. It's an open investigation.

3:09Gideon Falter: interpretation, people are going to land on the fact that his first name was Jihad.

3:15Camilla: Yes.

3:15Gideon Falter: I'm sorry, but that is the first thing that stands out to me.

3:19Camilla: Well, there's two interpretations. Let's just deal with that because it's a hot potato. There are some, obviously, that associate the word Jihad with terror. And there are others in the Muslim community that argue that Jihad refers to a sort of moment of joy or triumph and that it shouldn't be so negatively described.

3:38Gideon Falter: They are right. Jihad is supposed to, in Islamic teaching, be a spiritual war, not a physical war. But the problem is, is there is a minority of extremists who interpret it to be a literal physical war against Christians, Jews, and non-Muslims. I'm sure he wasn't given that name in order to mark him out as one of the extremists. he is the descendant of syrians who came to this country so if he was radicalized anywhere and again must must be very careful about describing motive but if this is due to islamic radicalization then al-shami was the product as much of great britain perhaps arguably more of great britain

4:21Camilla: than of syria yes well he was here for nearly 20 years tim so he comes in in 2006 as a young boy he's 35 years old so most of his life has been spent in the UK and it does pose very serious questions about how a man who escaped a war zone and was offered sanctuary in the UK has been led down a path or followed a path to carrying out a terrorist attack on a nearby synagogue.

4:59Gideon Falter: The same happened with the Ariana Grande concert attack, which was facilitated by the children of Libyan refugees, right? So we have to ask that question. But the fact that he has lived here most of his life means this is not an immigration issue as such. This is not a question of how does a dangerous person enter the country. It's a question of how does a person become a danger while in the country. So that's one part of it we need to discuss is, is the state doing enough to identify extremism rooted out and prevent this from happening. But the other thing we need to discuss is the response, not of the Islamic community.

5:37Gideon Falter: I mean, for example, if we quote the attacker's family, they said the news from Manchester has been a profound shock to us. The Al-Shami family in the UK and abroad strongly condemns this heinous act. Our hearts and thoughts are with the victims and their families. We pray for their strength and comfort. May God have mercy on the innocent victims. That's a good, clear statement.

5:59Camilla: Yes.

6:00Gideon Falter: More surprising and shocking is the reaction of demonstrators, anti-Israel demonstrators, who thought it was appropriate in this time to go and protest.

6:12Camilla: Now, the argument from some of those demonstrators is it was peaceful, it wasn't meant to show any sort of revelry in light of the tragedy that had unfolded only hours earlier. But let's just deal with some facts of the matter. Violent clashes did break out between pro-Palestinian protesters and police outside the gates of Downing Street last night. A total of 40 people were arrested, according to the Met, mostly for breaching the conditions of the protest, but six for assaults on officers. The police said they were responding to an earlier call to protest at 19 locations on Thursday evening. Now, this was about the arrest of Greta Thunberg.

6:55Camilla: So Parliament Square saw protests, Cardiff Central, Sheffield Railway Station, Farnborough Station in Surrey, Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly. I'm sorry, Tim, morally and ethically, it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what colour you are, what religion you practice. Is it right for people to stage a protest, a pro-Palestinian protest, in a city that is still grieving, only started grieving actually, for two innocent Jews killed by a terrorist at a nearby synagogue? I mean, it just doesn't pass the taste test. I'm sorry, it just doesn't.

7:33Gideon Falter: Imagine if an asylum seeker had been killed, and on that same day, people chose to hold an anti-immigration protest. It would be that tasteless and immoral to do. And it raises this question of a double standard when it comes to Britain's Jews. Jews. We saw it in the wake of October the 7th. They were not given time to mourn. Normally, when this kind of atrocity is carried out against Jews, and it was a pogrom, normally you would anticipate there would be a few weeks of allowing them to grieve. Instead, the protests began almost immediately. Why are we constantly being asked to be sensitive correctly towards other ethnic minorities who are attacked or oppressed.

8:20But when it comes to the Jews, the right to protest,

8:25Gideon Falter: the right to speak your brains, for some reason, takes priority.

8:28Camilla: Also, why does the suffering of the Jews and the Jewish community quickly get turned into? But what about Gaza? What about the genocide?

8:39Gideon Falter: Yeah. As though it's bigger, it's more important, screw you. We want to talk about that instead. And in fact, there is an air of resentment that Jews grieve. Oh, you're making this about you.

8:54Camilla: Can we also talk about a degree of, I'm sorry,

8:59Tim: derangement that may have crept in here,

9:02Camilla: particularly curiously among white middle-class protesters? I just want to point to a protester in Surrey who told The Telegraph, and I quote, I don't give an F about the Jewish community right now. I thought about it and I'm sorry, but what happened? But the whole story and why we're here is because of what happened yesterday. She was referring to the flotilla. First of all, I actually do question Thunberg's motivations and mental health right now. Those who are supporting her seem to have a completely skewed idea of what it actually is to be a liberal and a progressive. To be a true liberal and a progressive is to champion the rights of all minorities, not just a few.

9:52Camilla: But to say after two Jews have been killed at a synagogue, I don't give an F about the Jewish community right now. And I'm sorry, that view is representative of some, not all, for the same reason we don't condemn everyone on the Tommy Robinson march as being racist or far right. We're certainly not going to suggest that anyone on a pro-Palestinian march is inherently terrorist supporting and pro-Hammas. We're not going to say that. But that sentiment of I don't give an F about the Jewish community seems to be running rampant among those who are campaigning on this issue.

10:29Gideon Falter: And what's interesting is that's coming not necessarily from Muslims, but from white lefties.

10:35Camilla: Yeah.

10:35Gideon Falter: It just seems that sentiment is more frequently expressed among those sorts of people than among Muslims. I should add that the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who I feel put out a very strong and compelling statement, has called for a protest in London to not take place tomorrow. That is the Palestine action, defend our juries protest. And the Met police has also asked for that not to go ahead.

11:01Camilla: Coming up next, we're going to be discussing all of this with Gideon Fulter, the chief executive of the campaign against anti-Semitism, who has had some very strong words to say about the government's response to Jew hate in the UK.

11:25Camilla: Shall we bring Gideon Fulter, chief executive of the campaign against anti-Semitism, into the conversation. Gideon, when you initially responded to this horrific attack, you used some pretty strong words. Let me just read them back to you. You said, Today the blood of British Jews is on the hands of virtue-signalling politicians who have poured fuel on the fire of extremism with their posturing and appeasement. Police forces and police chiefs who have failed to tackle the mobs on our streets, universities and schools that have tolerated incitement. You blame the BBC for bias and moral collapse.

12:00Camilla: You've said that they've turned into spokespeople for Hamas. And you've said that they still refuse to call them terrorists. You also called out regulators like the Charity Commission that has failed abjectly to address dangerous rhetoric at mosques. And the central thesis of this podcast is, is Britain failing its dues? You seem to think that the answer to that is a categoric yes, Gideon.

12:25Tim: Yeah, I mean, unquestionably, yes, because there are dead Jews outside the synagogue. And when we heard that news, it didn't surprise anybody at synagogue yesterday. It didn't surprise anybody. Everybody felt that this had always been a matter of when, not if. and it was the inevitable consequence of Britain letting radicals and Islamist extremists run rampant and either appeasing them or worse, adding fuel to the fire, which is what has happened now under successive governments, but lately particularly in the last two years, but really ramping up and ramping up. We have just seen absolute madness on the streets.

13:08Tim: I mean, last night, as the bodies were still barely cold. We have people in Manchester where the attack happened, in London, in Glasgow, all up and down the country at various demonstrations calling to globalise the Intifada. I mean, what do people think an Intifada is? An Intifada is dead Jews in pools of blood, stabbed or run over outside a synagogue. That's what Intifada is. And that's what they are still chanting for. And whereas in the aftermath of the Southport terrorist attack, you had people sent straight to prison. We've now got a situation where not only did these demonstrations go ahead last night and nothing was done about them, but you've got this absurd situation where the police, the Met police, are tweeting with a group called Defend Our Juries, which is a misnomer if ever there was one.

14:06Tim: This group is the one that organises these protests where people get together and say that they support this terrorist group, Palestine Action, which wrecked British RAF jets at Bryce Norton. They all stand together saying, I support Palestine Action, and they all get arrested. And the police is in the situation where they've sent a letter to this group saying, would you mind if we had some of our police officers back at the weekend? so that instead of arresting all of your lot, they could be protecting Jewish communities at this time of need. And this group have said, no, no, we're going to carry on doing what we what we do.

14:44Tim: Screw you. And the police have said, OK, then, as you were, that's the situation now. So two tier policing is very real. But also so is this problem where our politicians just appease and appease. So, you know, to answer the question, unquestionably, this country is failing its Jewish community. But I think there's a bigger question as well, which is, is this country failing itself? Because it's not just Jews who are affected by the politics that we're seeing play out.

15:15Gideon Falter: Gideon, can I ask, what is it like now to raise a Jewish family in Britain in 2025? What kind of fears do you have to put up with and live with? What kind of security do you have to have?

15:30Tim: I mean, the security situation has been pretty bad for a long time. So I don't remember a time, in fact, my entire life going to synagogue, you had sometimes airport style security to get in. And I'm talking things like airlock doors. So you'll have seen that when the attacker, when the terrorist, Jihad al-Shaimi, drove his car into the gates at the synagogue. Those were pretty secure gates which were able to withstand an attack. He then got into the synagogue's sort of outer perimeter and tried to get in through the door. The synagogue security were able to lock it down. Why were there security to synagogue?

16:12Tim: Well, because every synagogue in the UK has a security rotor where members of the community have to get training from an organization called CST, Community Security Trust. They have to go on a rotor. So instead of praying on Shabbat or Yom Kippur even, they have to go and stand outside come rain or sun, and they have to secure their community, which means that when somebody tries to drive a car through your gates and stab people in your community, your job is to very quickly lock everything down. And so all of our synagogues for my entire lifetime have been secured and fortified. But not only that, you know, I can just tell you just going back not that far, just over the last couple of years, I went to a synagogue not so long ago where there was a big Palestine protest outside.

17:04Tim: And I was in the airlock door. So one door opens and it has to close before the next door will open. That's how it works. And I was in there with an elderly lady and two children. And from the inside, from the synagogue side of the door, we suddenly hear this pounding, this frantic pounding on the door. So before we open the outside door, we reopen the inside door. And it's the father of these two children berating the elderly lady, who is his mother saying, what are you thinking, mum? What are you thinking? You can't take the kids walking home. We're going to have to stay here. We're going to have to stay here with the kids until the Palestine protest is done outside.

17:46Tim: And he was panicked. He was afraid. And, you know, when I looked at synagogue yesterday, people were telling family members, don't come, stay home. It's Yom Kippur, if Jews of pretty much any level of observance will observe Yom Kippur. And to tell people, don't come to synagogue on Yom Kippur. This is a level of security and fear, which I just don't know how anybody can stand there, particularly the Prime Minister and say, I will do whatever it takes to keep our Jewish community safe. How about tackling this two-tier policing that we've got. How about dealing with these jihadists and some of the sermons that we've been hearing at mosques?

18:36Camilla: Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that, Gideon, because the perpetrator in this case is somebody who was born in Syria, who came to the UK as a young boy, actually had been in the UK for nearly 20 years. And for reasons that we don't yet know, and we shouldn't leap to assumptions, but has decided to carry out this terror attack against the Jewish community. Where do you think the anti-Semitism is coming from predominantly? How is it being incubated? What can be done about it?

19:13Tim: I think there are two things happening. And one is that you've got this constant drumbeat of incitement against Jews. So they said, you know, Israel is an apartheid state and gradually got that into language. They then said that Zionists are apartheid lovers and got that into language. Then it became baby killers. Then it became genocidal. And the fact is, yes, there is a war going on thousands of miles away. That is unfortunately a very sad and bloody war instigated by hamas but that's going on thousands of miles away and when you allow the language in this country to become so charged that anybody who has ties to israel in any way gets labeled as some kind of genocidal maniac which is what's been happening you basically say that jews zionists whatever you want to call them are subhuman they're not worthy of even living and we've been seeing that absolutely turbocharged going on for a couple of years now and we've started to see that creeping in more and more to political language in fact you'll have noticed just at political conferences that are happening now we had someone from one of the major trade unions even standing up at the Labour conference saying we've got to make sure that we call this a genocide all of the time.

20:38Tim: It's dehumanizing. And the fact of the matter is that when the families of the two people who were killed are comforted by mourners, they will come and they'll give them the traditional greeting, may you be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. You know, the Jewish religion is imbued with connection to the state of Israel, the Jewish state. And if you decide that the Jewish state is uniquely evil amongst all states, that's the first thing that's going on and it's been a drumbeat which has been going on particularly on the BBC our national broadcaster and then there's a second thing which is going on which is this appeasement where the institutions that are supposed to protect us which are supposed to tackle this just do nothing and politicians allow them to do nothing in the way that we're seeing you know with this with with the aftermath of this attack after Southport don't demonstrate we will send you straight to prison.

21:33Tim: After Manchester, do what you want. Could we have some of our police officers back at the weekend to protect Jews? No? Okay, fine. You carry on as you were.

21:42Gideon Falter: Gideon, we should note that the Prime Minister's wife is Jewish, his children are being raised in a Jewish tradition. Why do you think Labour is struggling to project a clear moral line on this?

21:55Tim: I think the last government was also pretty bad. We've had successive governments which have done practically nothing to help us. And the thing that has led to a huge amount of anger in the Jewish community, and I'm angry, is because we have been warning about this for years. We have been saying, learn some of the lessons of the Holocaust. This is how societies get radicalised. This is how people think it's OK to kill. And the last government did nothing about it. But the current government, not only is it failing to listen, it's actually also pouring fuel on the fire. And for a lot of Jews, there was a massive turning point just recently when the prime minister went out and said, we don't need Hamas to disarm.

22:38Tim: We don't need Hamas to return the hostages. We don't need the Palestinian Authority to stop teaching children to hate Jews and kill Jews. We're just going to recognize a Palestinian state unequivocally. And that kind of message just emboldens all of the people who think, you know what, we're winning. We're winning and our message is righteous.

23:01Camilla: In terms of cracking down on Islamic extremism, Gideon, one of the problems is that some mosques where imams might be preaching very dangerous sermons and indeed in madrasas, I don't know, perhaps even the conversations that take place in quite shady Sharia courts and councils aren't accessible to the public. and therefore there is this growing sense that some sentiments, particularly extremely negative sentiments towards the Jewish community, have sort of festered behind closed doors. What does one do about that?

23:40Tim: So you're right, there is a problem with that. But a lot of what we're seeing is actually pretty public. We're seeing a lot of sermons that are posted on social media. They're there for all to see. And there was a sermon that sticks in my mind at one particular mosque where soon after October 7th, the imam stood up and started saying, curse the Jews, break their words, this, that and the other. And basically a sermon against Jews calling for his followers to go and take action against the Jews. And he was clever about it. He started off by saying, you know, I condemn anti-Semitism and then went and delivered this sermon.

24:24Tim: this is not stuff that's hidden away it's been reported to the charity commission it's been reported to the metropolitan police the met has decided for whatever reason not to go anywhere with this the charity commission god knows what they have done i mean as a regulator which is the de facto regulator of mosques in the uk because pretty much every mosque is a charity as is most you know most churches synagogues religious institutions they have done practically nothing And you know what's so frustrating is I was talking about this just a month ago. We held Britain's march against anti-Semitism.

24:59Tim: We had about 70 ,000 people come and we invited all the main political parties to come and speak. And the government declined to send a representative of the government. And just the other day, our march was on September 7th. and on 30th of September I got a letter from Downing Street saying you know thanks for the invitation sorry we weren't able to send anybody and I just thought the government's just not listening it's literally not turning up it's literally not listening all of these recommendations that we're all coming out with are recommendations we've been saying on repeat for two years And until there is a real recognition that this country is losing its soul to this fanatical extremism and a real political determination to root it out and to force our police forces and our regulators and all of our institutions to actually do their job and defend society rather than finding meek excuses for not doing anything.

26:06Tim: until that happens it's not just jews who are at risk because someone like jihad al-shaymi you know we shouldn't leap to conclusions about what he thinks and and what his motivations are but i i will warrant that whatever it is he thinks about jews he thinks about a lot of decent normal british people too and he went for a synagogue but it could just as easily have been somewhere like Manchester Arena, where we know all too well the bloody aftermath of that attack.

26:38Gideon Falter: Gideon, friends of mine in France who are Jewish say that their anti-Semitism is now mainstream in politics. And some of them have or are considering leaving to go to Israel. You are British. British Jews are British. But if this situation continues down this path, are significant numbers of Jews going to say, I just don't feel safe in Britain, I'm getting out of here.

27:02Tim: I think, yes, we do polling of the British Jewish community. And the last polling we did was about a year ago now. And already then the majority of British Jews were saying that they'd been considering leaving the country over antisemitism. And we keep hearing from politicians, you know, there's no place for antisemitism in Britain. I don't know if there's a place for Jews in Britain. And that's a question which needs an urgent answer because the conversation at Shabbat dinner tables tonight and many Shabbats over the last couple of years has been about the state of things and how bad things are getting and whether there's a place for us here.

27:43Tim: And part of this is very personal for me. When I was a student, I did a year abroad in France and I couldn't get over the level of hatred that the Jewish community was living with there and the fire bombings of synagogues and friends coming around to my to my flat and saying oh it says your name on the doorbell that's really dangerous because you've got a Jewish name and I just couldn't get over it and so when we started campaign against anti-Semitism 11 years ago it was really personal for me because I might one of the things that was in my head was we mustn't let Britain become like France and then here we are 11 years later with Jewish blood crying out from the ground.

28:26Tim: And British Jews talking about whether we've got a future here because we've all told ourselves a story about this country. We've told ourselves that Britain is a place that once stood firm and for a while alone against fascistic Jew hatred. This is a country that doesn't do appeasement. and we've got British justice and a society which is decent and tolerant and sane and kind and we're now just looking at the facts around us and saying I don't know that this is still true because appeasement apparently is something that we do really well here now in 2025 and our decent sane tolerant society most people are still decent sane and tolerant but we've got this this really loud, really dangerous group of extremists who are being allowed to just run rampant.

29:22Tim: And no one's lifting a finger. And I'm reminded of the words of the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. He said, the opposite of love is not hatred, it's indifference. We've got to stand up as a society and demand in the same anguished voice as the Jewish community, that the government finally takes action. Because if not, the conversation we'll be having a year from now may well be about further attacks. It may well be about Jews actually starting to leave. But even more worrying, I think, for a lot of normal British people who are not Jewish and don't think about this issue very often, you'll be in a situation where the country's losing its soul.

30:09Tim: And there's maybe not a place there where you feel you have a future either.

30:14Camilla: Gideon Falter, very eloquently put, thank you very much indeed for joining us on The Daily Tea.

30:20Tim: Thank you both.

30:25Camilla: I do agree with Gideon there. It sounds like dramatic language, but this fight for the soul of Britain. I mean, I did say to my husband last night, Britain is falling. I mean, we're just sort falling into, as far as I can tell, a degree of moral depravity. And I didn't really think I'd see that.

30:41Gideon Falter: I want to say the liberal thing of, look, this is very rare. And it could have been worse, but it wasn't. On the other hand, an important point that Gideon makes is that Jews have to live with this level of threat every day. And that's a sign of a country that has already fallen. When people who are just going about their normal business and leading their normal lives have to live with the constant threat of physical violence. That's not the Britain I grew up in, or the Britain that we want to be.

31:12Camilla: We're going to be back on Monday in Manchester, as we tasted yesterday in the show. Yes, we have got an interview with Paul Burrell, but for obvious reasons, we didn't feel it was appropriate to run it today. That shall come on a future Daily Tea. But for now, Tim, have a good weekend, and I'll see you up north.

31:28Gideon Falter: See you soon.

31:34Thank you.