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Manchester terror plotters ‘same as Nazis’, says head of CST
It could have been the worst terrorist act in British history, says Mark Gardner
December 23, 2025 16:11
It could have been the worst terrorist act in British history, says Mark Gardner
December 23, 2025 16:11Murderous jihadis like the would-be attackers Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein are the “same as Nazis”, the head of Community Security Trust (CST) has said.
Mark Gardner, chief executive of the Community Security Trust, praised police for scuppering the plans of the “incredibly dangerous individuals” who aimed to commit a mass gun atrocity against the Jewish community in the Manchester area.
He said Jews in Britain were “horrified” at October’s fatal attack at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester, and this month’s lethal gun assault at a Chanukah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi beach.
Gardner said: “To hear now that somebody was trying to obtain weapons and had put together a meticulous attack plan to go and kill as many Jews as possible, to hear that I think will make people very, very fearful.
“It may well have been the worst terrorist act in British history.
“Jews in Britain, and all over the world, have suffered terrorist attacks from the 1960s onwards. The names of the perpetrators change, the nature of the attacks is exactly the same.
“One year they will blame it on Gaza, another year they will blame it on something else. The fact of the matter is Jews need to have security, we understand that and we put the security in place but we can only build walls so high.
“You can only live in fear so much and then eventually you will see people saying ‘I’ve had enough, I’m out of here. I don’t necessarily really want to live in Israel but if it’s the only Jewish state on Earth then that’s where I will just have to go’.
“That’s the reality of where we are right now.”
Asked if he thought a “mass exodus” of Jews from the UK could take place, Gardner said: “France remains the biggest Jewish community in Europe, but 25 per cent of French Jews have left or have fled the country in the last 20-25 years.
“Britain now stands at that juncture. French Jews have left because of the number of terrorist acts they have suffered and also because of the overall amount of antisemitism and hatred for Israel.
“We do not want British Jews to feel that they have to stop being British because they are the only part of society that suffers from this kind of hatred, but that’s the position we are now in.”
He added: “The last terrorist attack in Manchester before Heaton Park synagogue was against teenage girls at a pop concert at the Manchester Arena, a suicide bombing.
“So this is not about Israel. This is about the ideology of murderous jihadis who are very, very happy to die in the process of killing other people. One day they will try to kill Jews, another day they will try to kill teenage girls at a pop concert.
“The ideology of jihad is like the ideology of Nazism. They want to kill Jews. They don’t care who those Jews are. They don’t stop to ask these Jews what their opinion is of Israel, or whether they support Manchester United, or anything. They want to kill Jews, end of story. It’s the same as Nazis.
“We are all in this together and yes the Jews feel it as Jewish people but the rest of British society needs to understand this is not just about Jews, this is about Britain and about the condition of our country today and its future moving forward.”
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