We have no words. The Government has only words.
We have no words to describe our anguish at the terrorist attack on Yom Kippur.
We mourn the deaths of Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, and we pray for the recovery of the injured. We are in touch with some of the families of the victims and are providing any support that we can.
We are also offering support to anyone affected by the atrocity, who should e-mail us.
More details have emerged about the perpetrator, Jihad Al-Shamie, 35.
It is believed that he was the eldest of three sons, and that he was born in Syria and came to the UK as an infant. He appears to have been living in council accommodation and was out of work and, according to reports, possibly on benefits, at the time of the attack. He had reportedly written “full-time father” on his son’s birth certificate, suggesting that he has not been working professionally for some time.
There is apparently no record of him having gone to university or holding full-time employment. Our online investigators also believe that he was holding himself out as an English tutor for children of all ages, which raises serious questions about whether he radicalised impressionable youth.
He had been arrested on a rape charge earlier this year and was out on bail at the time of the attack. He reportedly had minor criminal convictions on his record as well.
There is limited evidence of social media activity, but in 2012, a person using the e-mail address “Jihad Alshamie” sent death threats to a Conservative MP following comments that the MP had made defending Israel. It is believed that, while security arrangements for the MP may have been altered, there was no investigation.
He had not been under active investigation by counterterrorism police or security services at the time of the attack.
His father, Faraj Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born surgeon who arrived in the UK in the 1990s, reportedly described Hamas as “God’s men on earth” on social media in Arabic in the wake of the 7th October attack and celebrated the prospect of the destruction of Israel, amidst other inflammatory rhetoric. He is reportedly involved in the International Red Cross and travels abroad to deliver medical assistance.
The family has issued a statement distancing itself from the terrorist attack in Manchester.
It has been reported that two other individuals have been arrested in connection with the attack.
The biography of the terrorist raises enormous questions about the abysmal failures of the British state in a number of areas, ranging from immigration and integration to sexual offences and criminal justice, to say nothing of the utter failure to address antisemitism.
Join us outside Downing Street to demand action, not empty words
To mark one week since the atrocity in Manchester, we will be demonstrating outside Downing Street.
This is not the time for platitudes, ‘dialogue’ and lip service. Britain can no longer afford excuses while our Jewish community faces terror on our streets.
Join us at 19:00 on Thursday 9th October outside Downing Street to demand action, not empty words.
The blood of British Jews is on the hands of politicians who have appeased extremists, police chiefs who have failed to enforce the law, universities and media who have turned a blind eye, and regulators like the Charity Commission who have done too little for too long.
Downing Street must act — now.
19:00. Thursday 9th October. Outside Downing Street.
Honouring the victims, and remembering the hostages
On 7th October 2023, genocidal, antisemitic Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, where they committed barbaric, twisted acts of terror. They murdered some 1,200 innocent people in cold blood, raping and torturing along the way, and took more than 250 hostage, ranging in age from babies to the elderly.
Two years on, and while their release seems imminent, there are still hostages in captivity being held in unspeakably inhumane conditions. Their families endure unthinkable anguish, and the Jewish world continues to grieve.
The Gregorian anniversary of this horrific event took place on Tuesday, during Sukkot. The community therefore came together yesterday to remember the victims and the hostages.
Following the terrorist atrocity in Manchester last week, these vigils assumed an added poignancy.
Campaign Against Antisemitism staff and volunteers were proud to join the vigil in Manchester – as well as in Trafalgar Square in London – where a sombre, mournful but defiant crowd demanded action and accountability from the Government and the authorities for the abysmal failures over two years and the refusal to heed our warnings.
What must come next
“We knew this day would come, made inevitable by radicalisation, Islamism and far-left extremism that have been allowed to spread by successive governments ignoring every warning and doing practically nothing to tackle them. It was inevitable, but also preventable. Now, the blood of British Jews cries out from the ground.” So wrote Gideon Falter, our Chief Executive, in The Sunday Telegraph.
But what should our Government actually do about it?
The prescription is simple:
- Incitement: Start with the BBC and universities, depriving them of state funding until they reform
- Enforcement: Ban the hate marches, fix the farce of two-tier policing and force the regulators and professional bodies to do their jobs and act against hate preachers in mosques through to extremist doctors and lawyers
- Proscription: Stop being such a miserably soft touch and ban support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran’s IRGC, the Houthis, and Palestinian terrorist groups like the PFLP involved in the atrocity of 7th October 2023
On Sunday, the Home Secretary announced that she may introduce some of these measures. Some is not enough.
If the UK restricts the hate marches but does not address two-tier policing, appeasement amongst regulators, hate preaching in mosques, and Islamist organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood operating freely in the UK, we will have treated one of the symptoms, not the cause.
If all we do is reduce the hate marches, there will be more dead Jews in pools of blood outside synagogues.
Open support for a proscribed terrorist organisation this weekend in London, a capital city that is evidently becoming lawless.
The Home Secretary is reportedly to introduce new restrictions on protests and will give police more powers to consider the ‘cumulative impact’ of repeated demonstrations.
We welcome this announcement and urge its immediate implementation, given that we have been calling for exactly these reforms for two years.
What a tragedy that two Jews had to be murdered for the authorities to heed those calls. Had they done so earlier, things may have been different.
There are many other desperately needed changes across the political, legal and regulatory terrain that we have been calling for and we urge the authorities to enact those changes now – rather than wait for another atrocity to galvanise them into taking action.
None of our policy proposals are new.
We told the previous Government, providing it a document with policy proposals. Not one of the policy proposals were executed by the then-Home Secretary.
The current Government has not engaged with us on our policy proposals either. It is utterly infuriating that action is only now being ‘considered’ now that Jews have been murdered.
Challenging the BBC on air
We have been on every major broadcaster and in print over the past several days, explaining the significance of the Manchester terrorist attack and explaining what needs to happen next. You can watch a sample of those interviews below.
But the interview with the BBC was particularly notable.
“In your statement you singled out the BBC. You said ‘It is the bias and moral collapse of the broadcaster that has essentially turned them into spokespeople for Hamas.’ You can’t seriously think that the BBC is a mouthpiece for Hamas?”
That is the question that the BBC put to Campaign Against Antisemitism Chief Executive Gideon Falter just before Friday night in his last interview of the day.
