ON May 22, 2017 a suicide bomber walked into the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert.
He detonated the bomb he was carrying and killed 22 people, mainly young women.
On October 7, 2023, hundreds of terrorists descended on another concert —
Both attacks were inspired by the same jihadist ideology.
The Arena bomber was inspired by IS. The attackers in were mainly from Hamas.
But they all shared the same death wish and the same desire to bring terror to innocent people who they regard as “infidels”;.
In the aftermath of — a day on which 1,200 Israelis were killed and another 250 were kidnapped — I travelled to report on the horrors.
Among many of the dead and wounded I met with survivors of the Nova party. It was an event where hundreds of young people dancing in the early morning were suddenly attacked — raped, tortured and murdered.
At one gathering of survivors, a man who had seen friends lynched before his eyes said to me: “What would you do if this happened in your own country.”; I thought (but didn’t say to him): “But it has.”;
Not on the same scale. But on that terrible night in Manchester, Britain got a glimpse of this terror.
As we did on London Bridge (twice), Westminster Bridge, and in July 2005 and many other times.
It was the same terror that radical Islamists brought to in November 2015 when their targets included people . That night in Paris 131 people were slaughtered.
In recent years almost every Western society has suffered at the hands of people fuelled by the same radical ideology. Yet none has yet suffered to the extent that Israel did on October 7.
In a country of just nine million people, the attacks were the equivalent of 12 9/11s in one day. Or a mass attack in the UK in which 8,400 British people were killed and another 1,750 taken hostage.
Whatever state our country may be in, no one can tell me that if that happened here we would not respond to such an attack.
Nobody can tell me that we would not want to tear up the earth to kill the people who carried out such an atrocity, and do everything in our power to return our hostages.
For over a year Israel has been fighting its war against Hamas. And as I saw up close, in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, within a year of the war’s start Israel had a massive set of successes.
The country has got most of its hostages back.
Whatever state our country may be in, no one can tell me that if that happened here we would not respond to such an attack.
It is the result of intensive work by Israel’s soldiers, air force and negotiators. Israel has also destroyed Hamas’s leadership.
And in a stunning set of strikes in September last year it has also destroyed the terrorist of Hezbollah, which joined in the attacks on Israel a day after Hamas began them. By any standards the Israeli response that I saw up close has been a massive military and intelligence success.
It was much-needed after the intelligence and military failures that led to Hamas’s murderous rampage on October 7.
But what stunned me more was that much of the world did not stand on the side of the victims but on the side of the terrorists.
From the day of the attack — as the murders and burnings of civilians in their homes was going on — pro-terrorist groups in the UK started organising their response.
From the night that the massacre was going on — and from the next day in even larger numbers — major British cities were brought to a standstill.
In London, Birmingham, Manchester and across the UK we saw hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets not to support peace in the Middle East.
But to attack the people who had just been attacked.
Some months after the attack two survivors of the Nova party flew to Manchester to try to raise awareness of the that many survivors of such atrocities suffer.
They were detained at Manchester airport by officials who treated the victims of the attack as though they were terrorists.
Imagine if survivors of the Manchester Arena bomb were treated that way. Ever.
Despite having spent many years writing about Islamic extremism even I was shocked that in the aftermath of October 7 this country saw such an outpouring of hate.
For more than a year, on the streets of London and other British cities we have seen extremists chanting openly for “Muslim armies”; to rise up.
Protesters in British cities have called openly for “Jihad”; and “Intifada”;, for “Allah’s curses”; to come down on the “infidels”; and for the destruction of the Jewish race.
Despite having spent many years writing about Islamic extremism even I was shocked that in the aftermath of October 7 this country saw such an outpouring of hate.
An outpouring of hate directed at the Jewish state and the Jewish people first — but against all non-Muslim people, and Muslims who the extremists disagree with next.
It has been equally shocking to see the breakdown of authority in the UK.
The British , who are so keen to turn up on the doorsteps of ordinary people and threaten them because of innocent posts, have stood by as people have incited terror.
Breakdown of authority
The same authorities who log “non-crime hate-incidents”; apparently have no desire to stop the vast wave of incitement that has run across this country.
As a writer and journalist I have seen plenty of wars up close. For the past year and a half I have been in the middle of the conflict in the Middle East.
Yet it is this country — and other Western democracies — that I am most concerned about.
Israel — and the brave young soldiers of the Israeli army in particular — know how to look after themselves. But do we?
As I show in my new book on war and peace, hatred and love, On Democracies And Death Cults: Israel, Hamas And The Future Of The West, we should pray that we never have to find out.
