Another week, another attack on British Jews; and rather than synagogues being petrol-bombed in the middle of the night, now it is ordinary Jews being stabbed in broad daylight. It’s been described as this country’s biggest national security emergency for almost a decade by the UK’s terrorism watchdog. Finding a solution will mean some hard questions, not just for government and police but for wider society too.

The immediate move is, of course, more policing and more funding for security. The first job of government is to protect its people, and this should be done without question. Prosecutions should be expedited through the courts, as they were with the riots that followed the Southport attack. But physical protection is, in a way, the easy part.

Cutting off the supply of antisemitic attacks is harder, and breaks in two directions. The Heaton Park synagogue attack was carried out by a supporter of Islamic State. Recent attacks in London have been claimed by a new group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), which looks very much like it is an Iranian-backed operation. This includes Wednesday’s Golders Green attack, though it is not yet clear whether HAYI is responsible. The policy solutions to these two sources of violent, Islamist antisemitism are different, but not unconnected.

If a hostile state is........

© The Guardian