Counter-extremism officials in the UK need to have a better understanding of Islamist antisemitism, a major new report has warned.
The 94-page-document, written for think-tank the Counter Extremism Group, found that “British institutions tasked with countering extremism should develop a far better understanding of Islamist antisemitism and its role in radicalisation to violence, better enabling practitioners and the policy community to tackle this particularly pernicious and powerful component of extremism”.
And many of the experts interviewed as part of the report went further still, saying that the “state and other institutions tasked with counter extremism have failed to recognise and understand Islamist antisemitism”.
Authored by Dr Daniel Allington, a Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London, the report also urged Prevent – the UK's counter-terrorism programme – to “begin to address the anti-Jewish component of both Islamist and Extreme Right-Wing ideology”.
Work on the report began a month before Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, 2023 and was shaped by the domestic fallout from the attacks, which it said had “served to demonstrate the threat which Islamist antisemitism presents to the UK’s national security”.
It also referenced an Islamist terrorist attack carried out in northern England where the perpetrator said he was looking for "revenge" following Israel’s response to October 7 in the form of the Gaza War.
On October 15, 2023, Moroccan asylum seeker Ahmed Alid, 45 stabbed 70-year-old Terence Carney to death in Hartlepool. He was sentenced to life in prison in May 2024.
Justice Cheema-Grubb said during Alid’s sentencing: "The murder of Terence Carney was a terrorist act in which you hoped to influence the British government.
"You intended it as revenge for the actions of a foreign country, Israel, and to intimidate and influence the British government in its international relations.”
Allington’s report similarly cautioned about extremist antisemitic sermons and conspiracy theories going unchallenged in British mosques, saying there was evidence imams had promoted “the idea that Allah is pleased by the killing of Jews, led prayers for the Mujahideen (without directly naming Hamas) and promulgated conspiracy theories about the October 7 atrocities”. “The implication often appears to be that attacks on Israeli civilians amount to self-defence,” it added.
The report found that these sermons could pose a specific threat to British Jews and “typically fail to draw a distinction between Israel and Jewish communities in the UK”. The failure to challenge the sermons by mosque leaders and trustees helps create “a permissive environment for radicalisation,” it went on.
The JC has previously reported that the Metropolitan Police decided to take no further action against one imam who, shortly after October 7, cursed Jews and called for the destruction of their homes.
The preacher at an east London mosque – in a borough with a sizable number of Jewish residents – told his followers: “Oh Allah, curse the Jews and the children of Israel. Oh Allah, curse the infidels and the polytheists.
“Oh Allah, break their words, shake their feet, disperse and tear apart their unity and ruin their houses and destroy their homes.”
The Met said these comments did not meet the criminal threshold under existing legislation, which is set by Parliament and not the police.
Elsewhere, the report argued that the shared “hatred of Jews and opposition to Zionism” which facilitated alliances between the Nazis and Islamists in the 1930s and 1940s have had a lasting impact to this day and “led to cultural exchanges which embedded Nazi-style conspiracy theories in Islamist thought and propaganda”.
In a foreword to the document, Lord Blunkett – who served as home secretary under Tony Blair between 2001-2004 – said Britain still faces an “enormous and ongoing threat to our well-being” as a result of Islamist extremism which “requires both analysis and ongoing vigilance”.
The Labour peer also made reference to “disturbing incidents of hatred against the Jewish people” in the aftermath of October 7 and stressed the importance of authorities being cognisant of the threats to British Jews.
“Yes, it is a small minority, and we should always keep the numerical size of the threat in perspective, whilst avoiding the mistake of believing that this does not constitute a genuine and present evil. In getting the balance right, we protect ourselves from much worse”, he added.
The former Sheffield MP went on to say that no excuses should be given to pro-Palestinian campaigners who stray into antisemitism: “Jewish men and women, both inside as well as beyond the boundaries of Israel, have been able to express their concerns about the conduct of the Israeli state”.
