Last Saturday, 45-year-old Essa Suleiman was charged with attempting to murder two identifiably Jewish men on a rampage in Golders Green, a centre of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox life. Suleiman had been a patient at a London psychiatric clinic and earlier that day, attempted to knife a Muslim friend of 30 years.
It was the latest in a spate of antisemitic incidents during the past couple of months. As someone who lives in the area, I passed by the parked Hatzolah ambulances back in March after shopping locally just a few hours before they were torched. Assailants have thrown petrol bombs through the windows of Finchley Reform and Kenton United synagogues – both places where I have spoken over the years. I have grandchildren at Jewish schools. The synagogue that I attend has a row of bollards in the road in front of it. Burly guards in hi-vis jackets parade the scene.
Do I feel frightened? Am I afraid to go out? The answer is a profound “no”. As a spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews commented: “This is not the 1930s, it is different.” Naïve and superficial comments from Jews abroad are unhelpful and often ignorant of local conditions. They add fuel to the fire and are fatalistic in troubled times.
Even so, you ask yourself: “How did it come to this?” Many non-Jewish friends have written to me, aghast this could happen in a country which courageously defeated the Nazis all those years ago.
Last week Golders Green became the theatre of the absurd, with visiting politicians expressing their profound remorse at what had come to pass – in advance of this week’s local elections where every vote counts. Imported direct-action Jewish groups suddenly took an interest in Golders Green and came to the area with slogans and rehearsed chanting to harass police representatives and the local MP, herself Jewish.
They also held up posters of the former leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, on which he is holding a mask of Keir Starmer – as if Starmer is little more than a frontman for the far Left in the UK. Chants of “Keir Starmer, Jew Harmer!” belied the fact that Starmer’s wife and family are Jewish with relatives in Israel – and he has convincingly suppressed antisemitism in the Labour party. Many British Muslims categorically refused to vote Labour in 2024 because Starmer was considered to be “pro-Israel”.
To be angry is to be human. British Jews are very angry and they look for scapegoats. However, if an individual wishes to kill someone when walking down a high street, no amount of extra funding by government or security precautions for a Jewish institution will matter. While public responses that display emotion and seek to apportion blame are meaningful, they do not deal with the root causes of the problem.
One central aspect of the intensity of feeling against Israel is the throw-away sloganeering of the far Left. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, it was “Hey, hey LBJ (US President Lyndon Baines Johnson), how many kids have you killed today?”
Today it is “Globalise the Intifada” or “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”. Inside this mindset, Israel has become “the Zionist entity” and the “Zios” in Britain are the puppet masters of evil.
These pro-Palestinian comments are like stones that have been thrown into a global sea. The ripples, however, also reached the radicalised and the mentally ill – those who embraced Islamist violence. Those who threw these stones did not even realise that many of the ultra-Orthodox of Golders Green hold Zionism in disdain.
Back in October 2023, it was argued that these slogans were little more than examples of far-Left karaoke, which illustrated free speech in a liberal democracy. Today, in the context of attempted murder on the streets of Golders Green, and the massacre at Bondi Beach, this argument has no validity.
Many on the far Left who pray for an end to the state of Israel see British Jews as substitute Israelis. They do not advocate a two-state solution and have no desire to mediate between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. There has been little contact with those Israelis who vehemently oppose Netanyahu. October 7 was glossed over in silence; the space was filled by rage on October 8 and afterwards.
They have staged no rallies against racism and no demonstrations against antisemitism. “Jews Don’t Count” is the unspoken message. But there is a march next week to commemorate the Nakba, the exodus of Palestinians Arabs in 1948 – where some were indeed expelled – in which thousands will attend. Will British Jews be quietly blamed for this episode as well?
In the weeks after October 7, 2023, the far Left believed it had found another cause célèbre such as the Vietnam War or the invasion of Iraq in 2003. These conflicts served as mobilising possibilities to conscript new recruits to the cause, above and beyond genuine opposition to American insouciance.
The Stop the War Coalition brought out an alleged million people in protest against the attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein. A main component of this coalition was the Muslim Association of Britain, which informed observers considered to be a branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Another component was the Socialist Workers Party, which believed that “the Muslim proletariat” could prove to be a rich vein of recruitment and had begun to cultivate it.
The tragedy of the Gaza war was exploited by the Stop the War Coalition, which utilised the template of the Iraq war with weekly mass marches. It also employed a latent intimidation against those who thought differently. The intensity of this approach manifested itself in many areas of British life – from the classroom to the theatre. Cancellation of invitations to Jews to public events grew amidst an ambient discrimination in the workplace.
Even during the last few weeks of attacks, the far Left has seen no reason to change its stance and does not make any connection with antisemitism. It has become oblivious to racism and selective in its outrage. It is complicit in the attacks on British Jews in Golders Green and elsewhere.
There is, therefore, some veracity in the statement of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, in suggesting that the marches for Palestine should be subject to a “moratorium”.
There are many other areas where action should be taken – not least against those in big business who run social media. Their ostrich-like concern has permitted the spewing out of addictive racism in the name of free speech.
Education about Israel should be paramount – and not superficial advocacy when criticism of Netanyahu’s catastrophic policies is missing.
Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan police, accurately identified the dilemma for British Jews when he said they were caught in the middle of a Venn diagram between the far Right and the far Left. Reactionary Islamist preachers and Tommy Robinson, the standard bearer for white triumphalism, are today gleeful bedfellows.
Sir Keir Starmer should make good on his comment about a possible ban in the UK on the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which has been responsible for the systematic slaughter of its own citizens on the streets of Tehran.
It is a time for clear thinking and for acting rationally. British Jews well understand Jewish history – when to leave and when to stay. Today’s struggle against prejudice and ignorance needs all our hands.
Jewish Independent 7 May 2026