Britain is Failing its Jewish Community

 By Henry Srebrnik, Fredericton Daily Gleaner

On April 29, two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, a Jewish neighbourhood in northwest London, England. The worst part: no one was particularly shocked. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer could only mouth the usual platitudes. He called it “deeply concerning.” He says that every time an antisemitic incident occurs. But things keep getting worse.

In fact, it was the latest in a surge of antisemitic attacks in London. An Orthodox Jewish man was harassed in the street and called a baby killer not long before. There was an attempted attack on the Finchley Reform Synagogue in northwest London April 15.  On March 23, ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on fire in Golders Green. Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the country’s chief rabbi, said it “proves that if you are visibly Jewish, you’re not safe.”

Yet Starmer speaks in the vocabulary of bland press releases. He heads a Labour government whose tepid response results in virtual inaction. The Labour Party, once political home to a majority of British Jews, has taken the path of abandoning Jews in favour of seeking votes among an antizionist left that grows more powerful by the day. In fact, Labour’s main rivals are the Greens farther to their left.

The party had been led by Jeremy Corbyn, a leader who mourned terrorists and described Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends.” When Starmer became leader, he took it upon himself to declare to the Jewish community that antisemitism had been ripped out of the party “by its roots.” But is Starmer really all that better?

The prime minister has not summoned the heads of the universities where Jewish students have been spat at and chased. He has not used his office to name the radical Islamist ideology that has driven a series of recent terror plots. He has not demanded the banning of organizations whose leaders openly celebrated the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. He has not designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror group in the country. He doesn’t stop his own MPs from joining the large pro-Hamas rallies.

Most political parties have condemned the hate. Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch described the assault in Golders Green as a “vile antisemitic terrorist attack.” There is one exception: the Green Party. Its leader, Zack Polanski, has signalled in recent interviews that he struggles to take antisemitism seriously. Polanski told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on April 22 that “there’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s a perception of unsafety or whether it’s actual unsafety, but neither are acceptable.” Polanski also criticized the chief rabbi for “claiming to speak for the Jewish community.” While Polanski is certain there was a “genocide” in Gaza, he is unsure that firebombing synagogues is a real form of unsafety.

He made the comments as he launched the party’s municipal election campaign in London. But details emerged of Green candidates who have likened Jews to the Nazis, praised Hamas, and claimed that antisemitic attacks are “false flag” operations designed to win sympathy for the Jewish community. Two Green Party candidates were arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred. One wrote that “ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge,” claiming Israel was worse than Nazi Germany. Another called Jews “cockroaches.”

Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake suggested that “one look beneath the surface of Zack Polanski’s Green Party shows a poison party, toxic to its core.” Even the prime minister agreed that Polanski was “not fit to lead any political party.” But Polanski’s views play well with the young voters he is attracting from the Labour Party.

On May 7, more than 5,000 local council seats in England were up for grabs across 136 councils. Labour suffered heavy losses, so did the Conservatives, while the right-wing Reform UK made massive gains. The Greens also did well. Polanski’s party gained 441 seats for a total of 587, winning majorities in four councils, including inner London boroughs like Hackney and Lewisham They also made big gains in Manchester, going from four to 21 seats.

British Jews’ fear of antisemitic violence is not the result of an optical illusion, observed Andrew Apostolou, a Labour Party member and historian of the Holocaust. “It is a rational judgement that we are unsafe in our own country. Polanski may think that all those Community Security Trust people on patrol outside synagogues and Jewish events are just enjoying the great outdoors of North London. We know they are protecting us. We know the Green Party won’t.”

Josh Kaplan, a former journalist with the London Jewish Chronicle, has seen repeated examples of how Jewish life is being squeezed, both in the violent targeting of Jews, “but also in the creeping, insidious erasure of Jewish voices from every part of our very polite society. For the first time in my life, I experienced direct antisemitism.”

For three years, London in particular has been the scene of marches which have given a platform for virulent anti-Jewish racism that threatens the peace and safety of the Jewish community. The hate marches will continue. The arson attacks will continue. So, as Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism, has stated, following the recent arson and stabbings, “This tolerant society that we knew, has pretty much disappeared for Jews.”

Iraq is Now an Iranian Satrapy

By Henry Srebrnik, Saint John Telegraph-Journal

George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime to bring “democracy” to that country not only failed, but threw it into the hands of Iran. It is now basically a puppet state run by Tehran’s allies.

Since then, Iraq has undergone a long period of instability, with armed groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the disbandment of the military and the ban on the Baath party. In 2014, the Islamic State advanced into Iraq from Syria and took over parts of Anbar province. Regional forces, including as many as thirty thousand Iranian troops, along with the Iraqi army, local tribes, and the Kurdish Peshmerga engaged in operations to retake territory from the Islamic State, finally emerging victorious in 2017.

But in a situation that captures the tragedy of Iraq’s modern political life, ballot boxes still don’t reflect the will of the people. They have instead become a legal facade for an Iran-backed project designed to perpetuate Iraq’s fragmentation by channeling political, economic, and security resources toward Iran-aligned militias and political actors, consolidating their power at the expense of the Iraqi state.

As the leading force of the Shia Muslim world, Tehran has long sought influence in majority-Shia Iraq, home to both Shia Islam’s most sacred sites and the seminaries that honed the Islamic Republic’s religious leaders.

A coalition of parties led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr won a surprise victory in Iraq’s May 2018 parliamentary election. His Shiite bloc has historically remained at odds with Iranian-backed groups in Iraq. Following the 2021 election, however, his coalition disintegrated, and pro-Iranian militias gained power. The premiership was handed to Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, a long-time ally of Iran.

On Nov. 11, 2025, Iraq held its sixth parliamentary elections since the 2003 regime change. They unfolded against a backdrop of persistent sectarian divisions, economic challenges, and competing regional influences.

With around 7,744 candidates and 75 lists on the ballot, most parties ran with ideologically incoherent electoral lists centered on prominent-- though not necessarily popular-- figures and assorted hanger-on candidates. These lists were not designed to articulate a shared program but to gather as many votes as possible from disparate constituencies.

The elections produced a fragmented parliament reflecting Iraq’s ethno-sectarian composition. Prime Minister al-Sudani and his newly established party, Reconstruction and Development, secured the largest bloc with 46 seats out of 329. Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law party obtained 28 seats, while former Speaker of Parliament Muhammad al-Halbusi’s Progress party won 27 seats. The League of the Righteous militia, headed by Qais al-Khazali, also secured 27 seats, underscoring the continued political influence of armed groups. Al-Sudani won in eight of ten Shia-majority provinces, including a decisive victory in Baghdad.

The so-called Shia House, despite its collective 197-seat majority, is deeply fragmented into competing factions. Four major groupings can be identified within the bloc: first, the explicitly pro-Iranian militia parties, controlling 51 seats and representing groups with direct organizational and ideological ties to Tehran; second, al-Sudani and aligned minor parties, commanding approximately 70 seats and representing a more nationalist, development-oriented orientation; third, al-Maliki’s faction with 28 seats, occupying a position closer to the Iranian pole than al-Sudani but less subordinate than the militia parties; and fourth, the so-called “Tishreenis,” which refers to the month of October 2019, in which popular protests against the government erupted. This last grouping has now been eliminated from parliamentary representation.

The government is now in the hands of the Shia Coordination Framework, a coalition of Shia parties; it is the political umbrella that brings together the parliamentary arms of Iran-aligned militia, and underscores the breadth of their influence inside parliament. Ali Al-Zaidi was named prime minister April 27 by the Coordination Framework, after former two-time Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had emerged as the coalition’s initial candidate.

These Shia warlords hold formal roles in parliament, but they also control militia forces and security institutions, enabling them to translate their battlefield power into political leverage. This reflects how deeply armed groups have embedded themselves at the core of the legislative process. With dozens of militia affiliates entering parliament, the prospects for a civilian state diminish.

Over the course of the Israel-Hamas War, Iran-backed militia groups have targeted American troops in the region over 165 times. The remaining 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq have been subject to consistent attacks on their bases. This has become more pronounced since Washington’s attacks on Iran began in late February.

Unfortunately for the U.S., these Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), as they are known, are larger and better financed than Iraq’s actual army. Iran’s regime has provided them with advanced weaponry, and they have mounted sophisticated attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure inside America’s closest allies in the war, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s Iraqi allies are valuable, not just with military assistance, but also by providing billions of dollars in cash to Iran from Iraq’s oil revenues.

The United States identified seven leaders of the PMF on April 17 as terrorists, asserting that they operate with near impunity, attacking U.S. personnel and innocent civilians across Iraq. Washington also demanded that its nominal ally, Iraq, sever ties with Tehran. This of course won’t happen.