Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told The Jerusalem Post that she is “disappointed with the British government,” citing the Manchester terror attack as “the clearest proof of that.”
Haskel spoke to the Post from the UK on Monday, having traveled to London and Manchester as part of a solidarity trip with the Jewish community. Two Jews were murdered outside a synagogue in Manchester during Yom Kippur last week.
Haskel told the Post that she met with opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel, and former home secretary Suella Braverman, as well as leaders and members of the Jewish community.
She also spoke with Rabbi Daniel Walker, whose “quick thinking and bravery stopped the attacker from entering the synagogue and prevented a much larger tragedy,” she said.
Speaking about antisemitism in the UK, Haskel said that “anti-Jewish incitement has gone unchecked” and questioned why marches that support Hamas, a proscribed terror organization in the UK, have not been stopped.
“Why are thousands of people allowed to march in the streets calling for the Jewish state to be wiped out? Why can singers chant death to Israeli soldiers without consequences?”
According to Haskel, the main source of antisemitism in the UK is radical Islam, which she said has “been simmering in the UK for decades.”
'Academia, leftists completely anti-Israel'
“Left-wing activists and academics are now completely anti-Israel. They were once devoted to pursuing truth, [but it] has turned into a political arena that indoctrinates students, discourages independent thinking, and fosters self-hatred of the West and Israel under the banner of ‘woke’ ideology,” she added.
She told the Post that the future of British Jews depends on “whether the government wakes up” and “whether the Jewish community stands up courageously to the hatred it faces.”
Nevertheless, she reassured global Jewry that “they always have a second home in Israel.”
“We stand with them in every way, strengthening and supporting their struggle. Part of Israel’s role is also to confront governments that create environments which endanger Jewish communities,” she concluded.