Since he is now dead, untangling what went through Jihad Al-Shamie’s mind when he decided to attack Jews outside a Manchester synagogue yesterday is no longer possible. As Jewish community leaders reached out to his victims, they voiced anger at officialdom’s failure over many years to deal effectively with those preaching antisemitic hate, especially from the pulpits of mosques. Once described by the Muslim counter-extremist Quilliam Foundation as “the mood music to which suicide bombers dance”, such sermons, they said, were likely a significant factor.

Dave Rich, policy director of the Community Security Trust, the charity that provides physical protection for Jews across Britain, told me the “comfort and support” offered by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other senior political figures was welcome. “But it’s not enough,” he said. “There has to be hard action. When it comes to antisemitic extremism, too many blind eyes have been turned for too long.”

In some cases, mosques that have featured extremist preachers, often posting their sermons on YouTube, have been courted by local and national political leaders. The Abdullah Quilliam Society in Liverpool is one example. In October 2023, two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel, imam Haroon Hanif urged its worshippers to “wage war for Allah”, not to be “weak about jihad”, and to follow Allah’s wish to “wipe out disbelievers”. As for Jews, they should not be seen as victims of the atrocities but instead as perpetrators of genocide. Allah would eventually get rocks to talk in order to betray where they might be hiding.

The counter-extremism expert who posts on X as “Habibi” publicised this at the time, eventually prompting the Charity Commission to issue a formal warning in June 2025. It said the sermon was “inflammatory and divisive”. Yet months after Hanif’s sermon, Attorney General Richard Hermer paid a visit, saying the mosque’s work was “inspiring”. In March, its head imam Adam Kelwick was a guest of Starmer’s in Downing Street.

Undeterred by the formal warning issued in June, two weeks later another preacher, Ajmal Mansoor, attacked the British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis as “godless” and “despicable”, saying “Israel must be dismantled today”, along with the “Israeli lobby” which had sent donations to the UK Government. In July, this prompted the Commission to launch a new statutory inquiry, its strongest available weapon. Yet six weeks after this was announced, Labour MP Sarah Owen, a member of the Women and Equalities Committee in the Commons, also visited the mosque, saying this would help inform the committee’s work on community cohesion and Islamophobia.

There are, Habibi told me, “scores and scores” of documented similar examples across the country. They include an imam in East London who has preached of the need to kill “usurping Jews”, and another in Nottingham who says that since “the white man” commits genocide, the answer is to carry out “pre-emptive strikes” — what he calls “offensive jihad”.

Yet although such talks appear to incite violence and stir up racial hatred, none of their authors have to date been prosecuted. This, says Claudia Mendoza, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, which represents hundreds of synagogues and community organisations, simply “beggars belief”, for they appear to be peddling “unchecked hate”. Most, if not all, mosques are charities, and although it may have launched inquiries, the Charity Commission does not have powers to shut down such places. It is time, Mendoza says, that those who allow hate to flourish be called accountable.

Then again, the frontman of music duo Bob Vylan also escaped prosecution, not only for calling for “death to the IDF” at Glastonbury this summer but also, more recently, telling an audience: “Fuck the Zionists, get out there and fight there, get out there and meet them in the streets, get out there and let them know that you do not fucking stand by them, you understand me?”

If such things were said about Muslims by supporters of Tommy Robinson, says Dave Rich, “the Left would be up in arms. This is not an issue of free speech. It’s a simple failure to enforce the law and acceptable standards of decency.”

It is, he adds, no coincidence that yesterday’s attack took place in the North West of England, where he and his colleagues have been warning for years that extremism is especially prevalent. In 2021, four men from Blackburn were arrested after driving through areas of London with a high Jewish population, shouting antisemitic abuse though a megaphone such as “fuck the Jews, rape their daughters.”

Malik Faisal Akram, who was shot dead by the FBI after taking four Jews hostage at a synagogue in Texas in 2022, also came from Blackburn, and in a final phone call to his brother, ranted about “fucking Jews”. Next week, the trial starts of three men from the region who are accused of plotting to murder Jews with automatic weapons.

Now hate speech has spawned another hateful act. It is unlikely to be the last.

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David Rose is UnHerd‘s Investigations Editor.

DavidRoseUK

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