How the UK Media and Establishment Fueled Attacks on Jews, Like the Yom Kippur Murders
Error: Contact form not found.
by Rachel O'Donoghue
People react near the scene, after an attack in which a car was driven at pedestrians and stabbings were reported at a synagogue in north Manchester, Britain, on Yom Kippur, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Phil Noble
On the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Britain’s Jewish community was once again terrorized at what should have been the safest of spaces: a synagogue.
The Yom Kippur terror attack targeting worshippers at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester was met with the usual chorus of hollow condemnation from politicians across the spectrum, accompanied by the same weary assurances that “the Jewish community will be protected.”
But this did not happen in a vacuum.
Just hours after the attack, British police confirmed that they were treating the incident as terrorism. The suspect was identified as Jihad al-Shamie, a Syrian asylum seeker who had been granted British citizenship. Yet even as the facts became clear, parts of the media and political establishment responded with familiar hand-wringing over how such an atrocity could have occurred — as though the answer wasn’t staring them in the face.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews put it bluntly, describing the attack as “sadly something we feared was coming.”
And indeed, it was.
For more than two years, the UK’s media and political class have helped fuel a hostile atmosphere, in which antisemitism has surged to levels unseen in decades. Since Hamas’ October 7 massacre, much of the British press has amplified narratives that demonize Israel while excusing or downplaying Palestinian terrorism — creating a climate where violence against Jews does feel almost inevitable.
A Rare Moment of Accountability
That climate was laid bare on live television.
During a Sky News segment following the Manchester attack, Lord John Woodcock — the government’s former independent adviser on political violence — directly confronted the network for its role in shaping public hostility toward Jews.
Woodcock, whose title in the UK’s House of Lords is Baron Walney, described the terror attack as “a product of the way in which Israel’s actions are seen and portrayed — I’m afraid to say it, by Sky News as well as other media outlets — as uniquely evil and worthy of a level of focus simply not afforded to other dire situations across the world.”
It was an extraordinary on-air moment of accountability — one that exposed a truth the media refuses to acknowledge.
MUST WATCH: @SkyNews won’t post this on their own social media because former UK govt advisor on political violence, @LordWalney, calls them & UK media out for portraying Israeli actions as “almost uniquely evil & worthy of a level of focus which is simply not afforded to other… pic.twitter.com/WrPgTat6Lk
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 2, 2025
Even as Woodcock pointed to the double standards and moral obsession that define coverage of Israel, the Sky News presenter attempted to push back, defending the network’s record. It was a revealing exchange: faced with criticism that was both factual and unanswerable, Sky News’s instinct was to deny, deflect, and preserve its self-image as neutral.
That, right there, is the problem.
When even undeniable evidence of bias is raised — when a former government adviser points out the disproportionate scrutiny applied to Israel — the British media refuses to reflect. It cannot see that its relentless framing of Israel as a moral pariah has consequences.
The Media’s Habit of “Both-Sidesing”
Almost as predictable as the politicians’ “shock” was the media’s reflexive attempt to “both sides” the story.
Reporting live from outside the synagogue, Sky News anchor Sarah-Jane Mee invited Akeela Ahmed, CEO of the British Muslim Trust, to comment on the attack. Incredibly, Mee suggested that the day’s events had “highlighted the vulnerabilities of different faith groups.”
“While Jews were targeted today,” she added, “we know Muslims could be targeted in these kinds of incidents.”
The remark was jaw-dropping. Muslims, she implied, might become victims in antisemitic Islamist terror attacks.
This is what moral relativism looks like.
“My heart goes out to everybody who was impacted”
Chief executive at British Muslim Trust Akeela Ahmed tells @skysarahjane she believes the increase in religiously motivated hate crimes comes from “misunderstanding and prejudice of people of faith”
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 2, 2025
Instead of confronting the uncomfortable fact that Jews were targeted outside their own house of worship by a man radicalized by antisemitic ideology, the media rushed to dilute the specificity of the crime.
Reuters reported that the incident had “raised fears of more violence and division across faiths.” The BBC insisted for nearly 24 hours after the attack that the “motive” was unclear. Each time, the framing softened the reality: this was not an attack on “faith communities.” It was an attack on Jews.
Not on Muslims. Not on “believers.” On Jews.
Back to the Media
The press will condemn antisemitism in the abstract but refuses to recognize how its own reporting perpetuates it in practice. For years, journalists have blurred the line between criticism of Israel and vilification of Jews, normalizing the idea that Jewish collectivity — whether expressed through nationhood or worship — is suspect.
When headlines equate terrorists with their victims, when outlets question Israel’s right to defend itself but ignore Hamas’ atrocities, when Jewish suffering is minimized or reframed as a “clash of communities,” the result is not moral balance, but complicity.
The Manchester attack was not inevitable, actually, but it was predictable. And until Britain’s media acknowledges the role it has played in feeding the flames, the words “never again” will remain just that: words.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
