The UK Government has announced new funding to increase policing to protect Jewish communities.
£250 million is reportedly being invested in police forces in areas across the country with significant Jewish populations, over a period of three years.
The funding comes after a series of incidents affecting the Jewish community in recent months, including the fatal Golders Green stabbing attack in April.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “For twelve years, we have been calling for focused policing targeting growing extremism here in Britain. In that time, policing has manifestly failed to meet the threats from Islamist terrorism along with the extremism of the far-left and far-right. We have been warning that the longer police and politicians appease these dangerous radicals, the worse the situation will become.
“Today’s announcement of additional funding for policing to protect the Jewish community will benefit the community in the short term. However, the fact that the cost to keep Jews safe is now a quarter of a billion pounds over three years is evidence of how abjectly successive governments have failed to bring radicalism and Jew hatred under control. The situation is now dire.
“This funding will only help if it is accompanied by a change in government and law enforcement attitudes.
“They need to tackle the extremists proactively at source, not just build ever-higher walls around Jewish communities and put ever-increasing numbers of police outside synagogues. The ‘Britifada’ is disfiguring our country beyond all recognition and Jews have now paid with their lives.
“Existing laws need to be brought to bear on those fomenting the danger on our doorstep and the Government needs to recognise that political grandstanding abroad feeds the danger here at home.
“If police and politicians do not act forcefully now, this funding will have been wasted, the problem will grow to even more unmanageable proportions, and more Jews will lose their safety and even their lives.”
