Jewish communities in the UK “put up with a way of life that nobody else has to put up with”, a police chief has said.
Sir Stephen Watson, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, said Jews “have more justification to be fearful than anybody else”, which he said needed to be addressed.
He spoke out following Friday’s sentencing of two men who planned a so-called Islamic State-inspired gun attack on a mass gathering of Jews in the Manchester area.
The plot of Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, was thwarted when they unknowingly laid bare their scheme to an undercover operative.
Their terrorist preparations were unconnected to the October attack at the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester, where two worshippers, Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed.
Sir Stephen said: “We have seen the terrorist atrocity in Manchester at a synagogue on Yom Kippur. We have seen the events on Bondi Beach in Sydney.
“We are seeing the manifestation of hatred moving beyond our shores globally and this is a threat to all of us. It is a threat to our Jewish communities and if our Jewish communities are under threat we are all under threat.
“And we all owe to our Jewish friends and neighbours a steadfast duty to stand with them in all circumstances, and that is certainly what we do as part of Greater Manchester Police, the counter-terrorism network and beyond.”
He went on: “I think it’s a very important point to reflect upon that Jewish children are the only children in our country who day-to-day go to school behind large fences guarded by people with [hi-vis] jackets and where there are routine police patrols in and around those areas.
“Our Jewish communities put up with a way of life in our country today that nobody else has to put up with. I do think there is something very significant in that, something very significant in the realisation of it and we all, I think, need to question ourselves afresh as the dynamic continues to change as to what we are doing continues to be adequate.
“But of course the best course of form of defence in this consequence is to attack those who are intent on doing harm to our Jewish friends and neighbours, because it is still the case that it is a tiny minority of people so radicalised, so full of hatred that they would do these sorts of things.
“And rather than trying to boil the ocean, that has to be the point of attack but I think there are some questions that we all have to ask ourselves as a society, as leaders within society, and we ask ourselves those questions within policing and counter-terrorism policing literally on a weekly basis.
“We have armed officers today protecting our Jewish communities. We have a very sizeable armed contingent. That is why when we had the Yom Kippur attack the response was actually very, very swift and sure, notwithstanding of course the fact there were some very tragic and unforeseen circumstances.
“But to be able to neutralise the terrorist, in that scenario, in seven minutes, demonstrates the fact that we have that level of capability and capacity on the streets.
“We have to recognise that de facto our Jewish communities live in circumstances where they are more fearful and they have more justification to be fearful than anybody else. We have to do something about that in our country.
“And when people, frankly in the pursuance of protest, take to the streets and talk about ‘globalising intifadas’, these sorts of things are actually happening and I think that poses some very significant questions of us all and they are questions that we are determined to find an answer to as rapidly and as professionally as befits a changing and very serious dynamic.”
Sir Stephen praised the “brilliant work” of an undercover operative and counter-terrorism officers in foiling Saadaoui and Hussein.
He said: “This was a genuinely chilling case of people who embodied and, in many respects, were absolutely intent on bringing into the true manifestation of awfulness, a hatred of Jewish people.
“Their intent was to slaughter innocent people for no better reason than their religion. These are committed terrorists.
“It was their intention to commit mass murder. This is not a hyperbolic use of language. This was their intent and it was that they were brought up short because of the brilliant work of some very courageous, very professional and very decent people.
“There was the avoidance of something which I genuinely believe would have been truly awful and would have ranked right up there with the worst of the atrocities that we have seen across the world.”
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