Manchester horrors seem a world away but likelihood of terror draws nearer as pro-Palestine mobs push the boundaries
Yet there are concerning parallels between the extremist ideology that likely drove the murder of two British Jews and the rhetoric heard at Thursday night’s Sydney protest (among many others), organised by the Palestine Action Group.
While no one should equate street protests with acts of lethal violence, the language of some demonstrators, slogans such as “Intifada”, “death, death to the IDF” and “from the river to the sea”, which we have heard over months, reflect a mindset that has been associated with violence.
Not every protester may fully understand or endorse the implications of these slogans, but the repetition of this rhetoric over time contributes to the broader process of radicalisation.
Ideological indoctrination combined with peer reinforcement and exposure to extreme messaging can be potential precursors to violence. We all fear that this is going to end with deaths in Australia.
Australia’s police and security services are aware of these risks, and so are politicians. There are significant numbers of individuals in our cities whose ideological dispositions resemble those of Jihad al-Shamie, the Manchester attacker.
That does not mean they will act violently, but it does mean vigilance and preventive measures are essential.
UK investigations will undoubtedly tell us much more about al-Shamie in coming days. We will find out about his family and social networks and his social media interests.
The manner of his attack points to a pattern of violence which we have seen in many countries over the years: the use of a car to ram a crowd, the use of knives to stab people and wearing a fake bomb vest.
A haunting picture of al-Shamie shows him standing at the doors of the Manchester synagogue, two faces from inside the synagogue peer at him through small windows.
This is a powerful symbol of the willingness of Jews to protect themselves from a relentless assault against a peaceful group of British citizens.
Al-Shamie may have thought that a bomb vest might scare people away from him so he could get inside the synagogue.
The attack required careful planning. What may look spontaneous actually takes organisation. It is reported that the British police have made several arrests of individuals close to al-Shami. It will take time to find out the extent to which his action represents group planning and preparation.
Al-Shamie’s ethnic background has been widely reported but his radicalisation to the point of committing murder is something that happened to him in Britain. It’s an ugly irony that democracies give people the liberty to radicalise over the most extreme ideologies. Had al-Shamie grown up in his native Syria his views might have led to arrest, torture, detention and death under the Assad government.
Al-Shamie’s ideology may have been accommodated under the new regime of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, himself a former al-Qa’ida commander. In a different world, the Manchester murderer may have been a foot soldier in Syrian forces now slaughtering the Alawite religious group.
The Manchester Police response seems to have been remarkably quick – just a matter of minutes between al-Shamie’s vehicle ramming and stabbing a number of Jews attending the synagogue and the police shooting him dead.
The deeper problem is the gulf between the failure of Western police forces to deal with the so-called pro-Palestinian movement as distinct from well-practised policing techniques to deal with violent terrorist incidents.
The same is true in Australia. The gentlest of policing is applied against the pro-Palestinian movement, while uniformed officers move Jews off the streets to enable protests, including outside synagogues. This cosseting approach allows the development of extremism of some in the protest movement. This cohort is testing the boundaries of how far they can take their actions.
It’s not surprising that since 2023 the protests in Australia have become louder, more aggressive, using more violent language. The groups involved have learned that they can get away with anti-social behaviour on our streets which the police would not tolerate under most other circumstances.
This is not solely on the left of Australian politics. We see in Victoria the rise of a small fascist group, but the biggest problem is that of Islamist extremism connecting with Western Marxism and university-style green-left radicalism. This presents the immediate threat to the security of Jews in Australia and to the stability of our community as a whole.
In a Senate hearing on February 25 this year, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation head Mike Burgess highlighted the concerning rise in anti-Semitic incidents following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
Burgess said synagogue arson, vandalism, and anti-Jewish graffiti had become more prevalent, creating an environment where violence is increasingly normalised. He stressed this surge in anti-Semitism has overtaken other security concerns in its urgency for ASIO.
Groups involved in the Sydney protest on Thursday night include the Palestine Action Group and an entity known as Stand4Palestine, which says on its website that “the two-state solution is one designed by the West and one which strengthens the occupation. As Muslims, we need to think beyond the solutions that are given to us by our enemies.”
In this context, “the occupation” means the state of Israel, referred to by Stand4Palestine as “the Zionist entity”.
Stand4Palestine urges its supporters to “resist any notion that seeks to relinquish a single inch of Palestine”. It explicitly calls for the wiping out of Israel, using the term “from the river to the sea” not as a poetic metaphor but as a precise description of what should happen in the Middle East.
Stand4Palestine directs its supporters to “decolonise your mind” and “challenge ideas such as “secularism, nationalism and liberalism”. It utterly oppose Albanese government policy of a two-state solution.
Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir also appear at rallies run by PAG or under the Stand4Palestine banner. In January 2024, Hizb ut-Tahrir was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in Britain. The group is banned in Germany, Austria and many Middle East countries.
All credit to the NSW Police for seeking to block the proposed march organised by the Palestine Action Group on October 12 culminating at the Sydney Opera House. If that protest march takes place it will be three months from when the anti-Semitism envoy, Jillian Segal, presented her report to Anthony Albanese.
Segal made it clear that big steps must be taken to increase the sense and reality of security for Australian Jews at schools, synagogues, homes and places of work.
What has the Albanese government done? In late September it allowed Immigration Minister Tony Burke to welcome Gazan refugees at Sydney airport. We are left in the dark about the security checks which may or may not have been performed to assist their arrival.
The Albanese government and the premiers are failing Australian Jews and in doing so they are failing all of us by allowing an increasingly aggressive cohort of radicalised individuals to test the limits of public order during these protests.
The Manchester incident shows the continuing risk to Jews in Western democracies. While this happened on the other side of the world, no one in Australia should feel confident that a similar incident could not happen here.
More Coverage
Toxic politics: did premier’s ‘undercooked’ fix contaminate valley?
Just under 17,000km separates the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester and Sydney Town Hall.