Jews are caught at the center of a “ghastly Venn diagram of hate,” Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan Police, said on Friday. He requested an additional 300 officers to defend the community.

In an interview with The Times on May 1, Rowley warned that British Jews are facing their greatest threat ever. He blamed social media for driving an “epidemic” of antisemitism.

Jews are targeted by extremists, terrorists from both the political left and right, and state-backed violent actors, he said.

“If you overlay three things now—hate crime, terrorism and hostile state activity—you add all that together, that combined effect with that building of ideology online, that is really dangerous and troubling,” he said. “And Jewish communities feel that and you can see that in how they talk, how it’s making them change their lives. That’s an appalling state of affairs.”

Rowley requested that the government provide funding to recruit 300 officers to protect the Jewish community. He said it was “essential” for a dedicated group of neighborhood officers and armed officers to be permanently stationed in heavily Jewish northwest London at which the Golders Green neighborhood is the center.

He hailed the two officers who arrested the Golders Green knife attack suspect as “heroes.”

British police charged a 45-year-old man in connection with the stabbing of two Jewish men after they left Hagers Shul Synagogue in north London, authorities confirmed on May 1.

The suspect, identified as Essa Suleiman, a 45-year-old Somali-born British man, faces two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article in a public place, according to the Metropolitan Police, following an investigation by counter-terrorism officers.

When asked whether the threat to the Jewish community had reached an unprecedented level, Rowley said polling on antisemitic attitudes suggested “that has to be true.” He pointed to one survey indicating that one in six young adults in Britain reject the official account of the Holocaust.

While police can respond to the “symptoms,” successive governments have not done enough to address the underlying “disease,” he said. He urged a nationwide conversation about the “appalling” level of hostility facing Jewish communities.

He said social media was “mainstreaming” antisemitism among youth, a reflection of how digital platforms are the source of young people’s news and information. As a result, he warned, such views are becoming more widespread and normalized.

“What troubles me is that this isn’t just about a few racist idiots, this is standing on something that is more embedded in society that isn’t being challenged. There’s too much licensing of it in public debate,” he said.

Rowley criticized politicians for shying away from the issue, as they find it “too difficult” to confront antisemitism.

“You can go back to lots of reports over time saying to successive governments over 10, 20 years there are some issues that need paying attention to,” he said. “They haven’t really had that attention.”

   | Read More JNS.org – Jewish News Syndicate