Golders Green, grief, and the politics of selective outrage

The stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green was an ugly and frightening act. There should be no hesitation in saying so. No political cause, no war abroad, no grievance against a government can excuse violence against civilians on a London street.

But the question is not whether the attack was wrong. It plainly was. The question is what happened next: how quickly a violent incident became a national morality play; how swiftly political leaders, lobby groups and much of the media moved from condemnation to narrative; and how readily one attack was folded into a broader story about Britain, antisemitism, security and Israel.

Police have named the suspect as Essa Suleiman, a Somali-born British citizen, and the attack is being investigated under terrorism legislation. Reports also say he had a history of serious violence and mental health problems, and had previously been referred to Prevent.

Those facts matter. They complicate the story. They do not erase the possibility of antisemitic motive, but they should make serious journalists cautious before presenting motive, ideology and social meaning as settled fact.

Instead, the political response came with remarkable speed. Keir Starmer condemned the attack as antisemitic, chaired emergency discussions and pledged additional funding for Jewish community security. That may be defensible as reassurance to a frightened community. But it also raises an uncomfortable question: why is the state capable of such urgency in some cases, while attacks on Muslims, refugees or other minorities so often receive slower, thinner, less theatrical concern?

A wider context too often ignored

London is not short of knife crime. Thousands of offences involving blades are recorded each year. Most do not receive wall-to-wall coverage, ministerial choreography, or instant elevation into evidence of a national moral emergency.

That disparity does not mean Jewish fear is imaginary. It is not. British Jews have every right to safety, dignity and public solidarity. But solidarity becomes politically corrupted when it is applied selectively — when one group’s trauma is amplified while another’s is normalised, minimised or treated as the cost of geopolitics.

This is where the coverage becomes dangerous. A violent attack in Golders Green is being made to carry more weight than the known facts can yet bear. Eyewitness accounts may suggest the victims were targeted because they were Jewish. Police may ultimately prove that. But journalism should distinguish between allegation, inference and evidence. To say “the attacker appeared to target Jewish men” is one thing. To present the interior motive of a suspect as established fact before trial is another.

The original draft also raises concerns about how footage of the arrest circulated and was presented publicly — including questions about attribution and timing. Those questions deserve transparency. When imagery moves quickly between advocacy groups, police and media outlets, clarity matters — not just for accuracy, but for public trust.

The danger of a single story

The wider issue is not whether antisemitism exists in Britain. It does. The issue is whether every act of violence against a Jewish person is now being politically recruited into a larger argument that serves state interests and entrenched narratives.

To conflate Judaism with Israeli state policy is not only intellectually dishonest; it is itself a gift to antisemites. Jewish people are not responsible for the actions of any government. Nor should British Jews be made symbolic proxies for wars taking place thousands of miles away.

But the reverse is also true. Jewish suffering must not be used to silence criticism of those same conflicts, nor to obscure the suffering of others. A government that claims to oppose racism while narrowing dissent risks appearing less concerned with justice than with control.

If there is a principle worth defending, it is a simple one: moral consistency.

The Golders Green attack deserves condemnation. The victims deserve care. The Jewish community deserves protection.

But a society that responds to some violence with national grief and other violence with diplomatic silence is not morally serious. It is selective. And selectivity, dressed up as principle, has always been one of power’s most reliable habits.

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