Ambulance attack shows how low Britain has sunk
We are absolutely heartbroken that this is how low Britain has sunk. This horrific act truly plumbs new depths.
Hatzola is a volunteer-run ambulance service run by the Jewish community but catering to everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike, working with the NHS to save lives as fast as possible. They provide outstanding medical care at lightning speed every hour of every day, and fundraise to buy ambulances and equipment.
They are truly a shining example of the Jewish community coming together to help everyone in the most fundamental of ways by giving the gift of life.
Burning their ambulances in an attempt to put them out of action is a truly repulsive act of antisemitic hatred in a Britain where Jews now have to keep everything from schools to synagogues under constant guard. Our society has become infested with the sickness of antisemitism.
In this case it is not only about catching the perpetrators and restoring the ambulances, but about politicians accepting that by tolerating everything from hate marches to hate preachers, they have created this sickening mess, and time has run out for them to act. The law must change, fast, but so must society.
The people spewing obsessive conspiracy theories about Jews, Zionists and Israelis are not social justice warriors, they are hateful bigots who are feeding this madness and must be stood up to and told as much by ordinary decent people.
There are suggestions that the ambulances, which are parked outside a synagogue, were intended to be the kindling for an even more devastating incident. Indeed last week we wrote of how synagogues are under threat worldwide, with attacks in Canada, the United States, Belgium and the Netherlands.
An Iranian-aligned group has claimed responsibility for this London attack, as it has for other attacks in Europe, but this is not currently confirmed.
What is clear is that there are forces in this country that have been intent on importing a foreign conflict to these shores. They have been doing so for two and a half years, and the authorities have utterly failed to recognise what is happening right before their eyes.
These are not isolated incidents but an ideological attack on Western values driven by domestic extremist advocacy groups and religious charities, supported by foolish unions, fuelled by social media, excused by media outlets, ignored by regulators and pandered to by politicians.
This is not the Middle East. This is right here in Britain.
We are witnessing a profound failure of the British state.
Our spokespeople spoke to the media this morning, from the site of the attack, and throughout the day, including the BBC, ITV, Sky News, GB News, LBC, TalkTV, BBC 5 Live and others.
In addition to speaking to the media, we also asked those who gathered at the site this morning for their feelings about the arson.
The Health Secretary and Al Jazeera also made appearances, eliciting interesting reactions. You can watch what happened here.
In a separate case, two of the four men who were arrested on suspicion of spying on the Jewish community in London on behalf of Iran have been charged. You can read more here.
Whatever emerges about the ambulance incident, the charges in this separate case indicate that the threat from Iran to British Jews and the UK more generally is real.
Protesting The Guardian
You may recall that a recent column in The Guardian managed to portray something as trivial as the opening of a Gail’s in north London as a microcosm of the newspaper’s warped view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The newspaper ‘clarified’ the article and made some minor changes, without apology.
Jewish staff at The Guardian reportedly feel “gaslit” over “progressive antisemitism” in the column about Gail’s, according to The JC, with one observing: “G-d knows how many editors had to read the piece and agree with it, as they have their entire worldview shaped by anti-Zionism.”
As Jay Rayner said of the newspaper, a year and a half ago: “For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating.”
According to our representative polling of the Jewish community, among newspapers The Guardian scores the worst, with nearly seven in ten – 69% – of British Jews describing its coverage of matters of Jewish interest as unfavourable.
British Jews and their allies have had enough. That is why we supported a protest organised by our friends at OurFightUK outside The Guardian last week.
The protest received so much traction that it trended on X.
We joined the protest and asked those in the crowd – including comedian and presenter Josh Howie and Mark Birbeck of OurFightUK – why they felt it was important to take a stand. You can watch the video here.
Good verdicts and bad
Romilly Hudson, implicated in an antisemitic assault in which a woman was punched in Shoreham, West Sussex in January last year, has now been sentenced.
After failing to appear at Brighton Magistrates’s Court in July 2025, where he faced numerous charges including a racially/religiously aggravated assault of a person occasioning actual bodily harm and racially/religiously aggravated harassment in behaviour and in words, in a subsequent hearing at Worthing Magistrates’ Court he pleaded guilty to the charges. You can read more about the case here.
We hope that this sentence brings some solace to the victim, with whom we have been in contact.
In another case, Ibrahim Iqbal, 36, was found guilty of two counts of religiously aggravated criminal damage, and one count of criminal damage, and has been jailed.
Mr Iqbal was accused of writing the words “kill jews [sic]” on the wall of his prison cell whilst detained for a previous arrest regarding an incident in a hospital, when he damaged a framed copy of Islamic scripture in a multi-faith prayer room and multiple Qurans, the pages of which he then reportedly set alight and used to block the hospital washroom facilities.
The court imposed on him a 40-week prison term. He was also ordered to pay £650 in damage costs, and a £187 surcharge.
Elsewhere, in Bournemouth, a suspect has been charged following an incident in which two Jewish men were allegedly verbally abused. You can read more about the incident here.
The suspect has been charged with three counts of religiously aggravated public order offence, along with an offence of criminal damage which was added after the suspect allegedly damaged the police cell while he was held in custody.
In Bristol, an frustrating verdict saw a woman found not guilty of expressing support for a proscribed terrorist organisation after she had complained that she was “sick of being told to condemn Hamas”, and that the terrorist group was “fighting for freedom”.
Kwabena Devonish, 27, was arrested in January 2024 after a video of her appearing at a march in Cardiff in November 2023, shortly after the 7th October attacks, circulated online in which she is reportedly seen addressing a 500-person crowd and making the inflammatory statements.
The defendant was found not guilty by a unanimous jury at Bristol Crown Court. The jury had been warned by the Judge to consider whether Ms Devonish’s comments were “objectively supportive of Hamas”.
Too few arrests, even fewer prosecutions, even fewer guilty verdicts and yet fewer meaningful sentences.
This is not how a criminal justice system is meant to operate and establish deterrence, and certainly not how to combat the worst levels of antisemitism in living memory.
CPS fails British Jews
Recently revealed figures show that prosecutions for antisemitic hate crimes are woeful.
Only one in 26 anti-Jewish crimes are prosecuted.
Our polling has shown that only 7% of British Jews think that the CPS does enough to protect British Jews; 76% do not.
Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, Stephen Silverman, spoke to TalkTV about what the figures mean.
When the CPS fails to prosecute, CAA has to step in.
To do so, we need a top in-house legal team.
We are seeking a paralegal who can support our legal team in a broad range of innovative strategic litigation, as well as provide general in-house legal advice.
For more information and to apply, please visit antisemitism.org/jobs/paralegal.
Application for permission to bring judicial review
CAA has applied for permission to bring a judicial review in respect of a decision by District Judge Michael Snow to stop CAA’s private prosecution of Reginald Hunter over a number of posts on X directed at Heidi Bachram that CAA alleges were grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.
The grounds for the judicial review are that the District Judge’s decision was irrational, procedurally incorrect, and contained other errors of law. If successful, the private prosecution would resume, and Mr Hunter would return to trial.
CAA’s motto is drawn from the biblical command: “Justice, justice you shall pursue”, and so we shall.
CAA is represented by public law specialists Sam Grodzinski KC and Tom Lowenthal of counsel, instructed by Asserson Solicitors.
Unaccountable BBC operates as judge and jury
200.
That’s the number of complaints that the BBC has upheld since 2017.
2,300,000.
That’s the number of complaints that the BBC has received since 2017.
The figures speak for themselves.
The BBC is acting as judge and jury and letting itself off time after time after literally millionth time.
It is not fit to regulate itself.
Our polling has shown that 83% of British Jews believe that complaints regarding BBC coverage should go straight to Ofcom, rather than through the BBC first.
Much of this is because of the BBC’s reporting of matters of Jewish interest, which 92% of British Jews consider to be unfavourable.
We continue to call for a suspension of the licence fee pending an independent investigation into the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish interest. You can sign the petition at suspendthelicencefee.com.
Meanwhile, is there an antisemitic autocrat that BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson didn’t have a soft spot for?
This is what he said following the news of the death of Iran’s National Security Chief, Ali Larijani, by Israeli forces:
“Yes, he was a top figure in a nasty regime. But he always seemed clever and reasonable — the kind of person you might want to negotiate a peace deal with.”
To remind you, Ali Larijani has said, “There could be different perspectives on the Holocaust”, and is “neither for or against the Holocaust”, and has called homosexuality “a sickness and a Western concept that Iran rejects”.
Mr Simpson has described the former President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, as “weak rather than wicked”, “meek and anxious to please – the reverse of the traditional dictator”.
On Saddam Hussein: “I had a sneaking kind of liking for Saddam”
On Colonel Gaddafi: he “could often be quite pleasant.”
This is the BBC World Affairs Editor’s worldview.
Our polling shows 92% of British Jews rate the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish interest as unfavourable.
There is no more suitable outlet for Mr Simpson than the BBC.
Working group to tackle antisemitism in Scotland
The First Minister of Scotland has announced a new working group to tackle the “evil” of antisemitism in the country.
It will be focused on identifying “practical steps” to combat antisemitism through education and improving the security of the community.
The initiative is fuelled by recent surges of antisemitism in Scotland, as elsewhere in the UK.
This is a welcome initiative, but education and security must also be accompanied by enforcement of the law to create real deterrence and a culture that recognises what is acceptable and what is not.
7th October – and its lessons
Lord Roberts has now published the Second Edition of his report, which meticulously documents the 7th October 2023 atrocity, in order to ensure that the reality and details of this horrific crime against humanity is recorded.
It did not take long after the massacre for activists not only to justify it but to downplay its scope, belittle the victims – including those who had been sexually abused – or claim that it was a false flag operation.
Lord Robert’s work challenges the lies and ensures that everyone – from victims to policymakers to historians – have access to the facts. We are continually grateful for his efforts.
One of the testimonies featured in the report was that of Anat Ron-Kendall, the only known UK-based British-Israeli survivor of the 7th October Hamas attacks.
Ms Ron-Kendall has recently spoken of how she “was abandoned by the British Government”, and says that she sees “antisemitism running riot” in this country.
“I cannot feel safe in a country that normalises this kind of behaviour,” she said.
Hers is a powerful example of how British Jews are feeling right now – particularly after the events in Golders Green this morning.
On Friday, Greater Manchester Police responded swiftly and professionally to what thankfully transpired to be a false alarm at a location in Manchester at the heart of the Chareidi community.
We are very grateful to the brave police officers who put their lives on the line to protect our community.
It is regrettable that we live in a society in which terrorist attacks against Jews are all too plausible, and it is right that concerns were reported.
We hoped that that would be the closest that the Jewish community came to a major attack over the past week.
Sadly, that was not to be.
These events are a stark reminder that our work is more important than ever.
