Mick Hartley

Labour peer Maurice Glasman in the Times, on Manchester:

This is not a matter of concern to Jews alone. This is a dishonour to our nation. A festering wound is weeping poisoned blood into an already weakened body politic. The response must be profound.
It is a meaningful and significant rupture in our national story because violence is being established between different communities. In Manchester, a Muslim killed a Jew. That is the truth. This has never happened before. Since the readmission of the Jews to England in the 1650s (thank you Oliver Cromwell) until 1960 (when a Jewish student was killed by fascists), not a single Jew was killed in our country for being a Jew. This is unique in all Europe and the Americas.

In a 300-year period of pogroms, mass slaughter, chemical genocide and industrial murder, this is a source of amazing pride to me. It is one of the pillars of my patriotism. While ethnic nationalism, fascism, communism and Nazism ravaged the continent our country remained impervious to scapegoating, violence and revenge. Not only did the Jews of our country live but we could educate our children, pray in our synagogues, eat our kosher food, bury our dead and circumcise our sons according to our ancient religion.…

Fate has decreed that Shabana Mahmood, a Muslim woman of profound faith, is our home secretary at this moment. It is she who must lead this battle against Islamic murder and hate. I know her and I respect her deeply….

For once, amid all the hand-wringing editorials and commentary, someone actually points out that the main issue here concerns Islam in the UK. Not solely, of course – it’s that old Islamism-hard left alliance – but significantly. And perhaps a Muslim home secretary may be the person best-placed to tackle this, given the sensitivity of the situation. But, given the government is currently working hard on a new definition of Islamophobia, I’m not optimistic.

See also, Daniel Finkelstein:

Yet it’s important to add this. We live in a wonderful country. I think, for a Jew, actually probably for anyone, this may be one of the greatest places on Earth, at one of the greatest moments. I wouldn’t swap living as a Jew, right here, right now, even today, for any other place or moment in history. And no two-bit thug with misguided fundamentalist zeal is going to rob me of that feeling, thank you very much.

One of the reasons this is a great country is that we can make political points without violence, using solely arguments and persuasion. For this reason, the crime committed at the Heaton Park synagogue was a crime not just against Jews but against everyone who lives here. It’s as a Briton that I’m most outraged.