Today marks three years since the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. I say since the Holocaust because, throughout history, Jewish people have been subjected to massacres and pogroms. This pernicious and ancient hatred, sometimes described as a light sleeper, feels very much awake and at large today. We know what Hamas did on October 7th, because they filmed it and showed it to the world - proud of their barbarity and depravity. There is no justification - there can be no justification - for such extraordinary acts of evil: setting homes on fire, taking hostages, rape, killing, mutilation of bodies. I am in awe of those survivors who share their testimony with the world to confront those who would look the other way and grieve for those who did not return home. What was so striking here in the UK was that, alongside an outpouring of solidarity for the people of Israel and the Jewish community, there was an immediate and sharp rise in antisemitism. Israel’s war in Gaza does not warrant nor justify hatred towards Jewish people or Israelis, but the fact that this spike in antisemitism took place before the war and in the immediate aftermath of a deadly attack on Jewish people in Israel is chilling. Attacks on the Jewish community - from Golders Green to Heaton Park - have been met with greater investment in security. But our response to antisemitism requires more from each of us. Antisemitism can’t be defeated simply with higher walls and thicker doors. It is a battle of hearts, minds and souls. Consider this: as a Member of Parliament, I go through tougher security to enter one of my local Jewish primary and secondary schools than I do to enter my own constituency office. In Britain, in this decade of the 21st century. This is not the day to debate British foreign policy, or Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. I know there are people affected by antisemitism - among them longstanding friends - in Britain who are very critical of my position and the position of the Government. While we do not support Israel’s occupation in Palestine, we do stand against those who want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and those who do not support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. Zionism is not racism. The Jewish people have the same right to self-determination as others. We have taken action to defend Israel and defeat those who threaten innocent lives in the past and we will do so again as necessary. Finally, I want to send a message to the Union of Jewish Students. More than 20 years ago you taught me about antisemitism and my generation of student leaders thought that the banning of student Jewish societies was a type of antisemitism confined to history. Today’s generation of Jewish student leaders are confronting a far bigger challenge than we faced. Student marches planned for this anniversary are shameful. It is vital that Jewish students do not stand alone. Today, we all face a choice. We can be bystanders to antisemitism or we can be upstanders for the values that represent the best of this country. But be in no doubt: to remain silent is not a neutral act. It is complicity in racism. On this anniversary those of us who are not Jewish have a responsibility to speak up, to stand against antisemitism, and to stand up for this country’s values.

Left-wing rioters waive Palestine flags as Paris is engulfed in total anarchy:

Dozens of protestors here at Lincoln’s Inn Fields covering their faces with masks and no arrests from the police…

Dozens of protestors here at Lincoln’s Inn Fields covering their faces with masks and no arrests from the police…

A Statement of Conscience on October 7 I will not start by saying ‘as a Muslim’ or ‘as an imam’, but as a human being. On October 7, over 1,200 innocent people were killed in a single day. Families were shot in their homes. Young people out dancing were hunted across open fields. Over 250 people, including children and the elderly, were dragged into Gaza as hostages. I think of a mother hiding in a safe room with her baby’s mouth covered. I think of a father listening as the line went quiet. I think of families who waited month after month for someone to come home, only to receive a coffin. I didn’t need my faith to recognize the evil of what happened. My heart told me first. But I’m a Muslim and an imam, and I owe the world one honest sentence: what was done that day was a crime against God. God teaches that whoever kills one innocent soul, it is as if he had killed all humanity. This day has an author: Yahya Sinwar. He planned it, ordered it, and knew what would follow. Every death of that day and war he started rests on him and Hamas leaders who sat in tunnels and foreign hotels and called slaughter a victory. It rests on every Palestinian leader who cheered, excused, handed out sweets, or said nothing. They chose this. They own it. But Sinwar did not invent himself. He was the fruit of a tree planted almost a century ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas named itself in its founding charter as the Brotherhood’s branch in Palestine. The Brotherhood’s poison is slow. It arrives through study circles, youth camps, charity boxes, and kind words to lonely young men. Drop by drop, it teaches him that his religion is a political party, his neighbour is his enemy, the Jew is the cause of his sorrow, and God is pleased by rage. By the time the gun arrives, the soul is already taken. I have seen this poison in mosques where sermons became rallies and young men could recite slogans but not sit still for a verse on mercy. Every people that let the Brotherhood in has paid in blood and ruined generations. It has never built anything it did not first set on fire. Behind Hamas stands another hand: the IRGC. It was the IRGC’s money, weapons, and training that turned a hateful idea into an army. One calls itself Sunni and the other Shia, and they may curse each other’s creeds, but they are united in what they worship. It is not God. It is power. The same IRGC that armed the killers of October 7 shoots Iranian girls for showing their hair, hangs young men for asking to be free, and has left graves from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut. They speak in God’s name. So did Pharaoh speak in the name of heaven. So let me say this clearly. Hamas and the IRGC are not merely enemies of Islam. That would be too small a charge, as if their crime were only against us. They are enemies of God. God is the Giver of life, yet they deal in death. God calls Himself the Most Merciful, yet they have made cruelty a sacrament. God honoured the children of Adam, yet they look at a child and see a target or a shield. To murder what God created and sign His name to it is the oldest blasphemy. And we Muslims have been too quiet. Some of us were afraid. Some told ourselves it was not our business. Some, God forgive them, felt something other than horror that morning and never confessed it. Silence was the soil this poison grew in. I will not add to it. So on this anniversary, let us say plainly what our scripture already says. The Jews are not our enemies. They are our cousins in Abraham, and their dead were created by the same God who created us. Today belongs to them: the murdered, the hostages, and families who still set a place at the table. To them I say: I am sorry for what was done to you by men who used the words of my prayers. You’re not alone in your grief or remembrance. The enemies of God are those who murder in His name. We know their names. It is time we said them from our own pulpits, in our own voices, before they speak for us again. Imam Tawhidi