The arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organization in north London, set ablaze outside a synagogue on Monday, ignited a frenzy of antisemitic spite from far-right cheerleaders and trolls in the U.K. and internationally.
It also further highlighted the growing split between far-right figures who want to nurture a cosy relationship with Israel’s hard-right, and antisemitic purists.
Far-right ghouls
Quickly, in the aftermath of the attack on emergency vehicles run by Hatzola Northwest, a Jewish charity run by volunteers providing free medical transportation and emergency response to Jewish and non-Jewish people, far-right ghouls were dusting off classic antisemitic tropes and distortions.
Jayda Fransen, the crazed Islamophobe who was formerly deputy leader of Britain First, and recently reborn as the founder of the Christian Nationalist Party, spent the hours after the arson attack insinuating it was a cunning Jewish trick and a “disgraceful attempt at dragging us into another one of Israel’s illegal wars”.
Sneered
Steve Laws, the influential Dover-based race agitator who split from the Homeland Party last year, and is now a member of Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, sneered: “Hundreds of thousands of English girls raped and abused and nothing but SILENCE from the establishment.
“A Jewish ambulance gets set on fire and the entire establishment comes out in defence of the Jewish community. It’s all so tiresome”.
Patriotic Alternative, Homeland Party and Alek Yerbury’s National Rebirth Party have been unable to summon up a single word of condemnation for the attack.
Even Nick Griffin, who can usually be relied upon to mouth off about pretty much anything, has kept his gob shut this time.
But in other sections of X’s far-right echo chamber, low-rent antisemitic drivel was rampant.
Vile responses
The Britain First feed was silent on the event, but when Paul Golding tried to link the attack to panic about hordes of Islamic extremists coming into the country, he couldn’t resist giving just a little nod to his more antisemitic followers, asking: “But why do Jews have special ambulances?”.
This provoked some predictably vile responses, including this little gem:
Pat McGinnis, a London‑based ex‑organiser for the British National Party, now fronting the obscure National Housing Party U.K, harvested 2,600 likes with a vitriolic Nazi-like post that said the “real reason” the Hatzola ambulance service was created was so, “Jewish patients do not have to be seen by goyim (animals)…Jewish supremacy is alive and kicking”.
Samantha Thompson @SamLovesEngland exemplified the Jew-baiting. In response to the video showing three suspects setting the ambulances ablaze, she wrote: “Unless they release audio of them screaming Allahu Akbar I have no reason to believe this isn’t three Jews setting their own ambulances on fire.”
Jews and Muslims
Lurid fantasies about money-grabbing Jews were wheeled out by an Australian poster, Lozzy B., who denounces multiculturalism as “a Jewish political ideology”.
The torched ambulances in north London were just a Jewish scam, she tweeted. “That means that they will get all the insurance money now.”
The same ‘enemy within’ narratives that fuel the far-right’s rampant Islamophobia were re-purposed to rubbish British Jews.
Hugh Anthony, the pompous “poundshop poodle,” and a self-styled ‘Christian nationalist influencer,’ manically tweeted about the ambulance arson, smearing the Jewish community for daring to live in “their own neighbourhoods,” concluding, “if they were truly integrated, why do they live apart? We criticise the Muslim community for doing this, why not Jews too?”
Likewise, the pro-Restore Britain X account named ‘Wolf’ (Strapline: “England for the English”) wrote: “Jews are often held up as a community that’s seamlessly integrated into British society. But is that true?
“No. Two thirds live in or around London. They have their own courts, police force, security service, ambulances, schools, and are infamous for their in-group preferences”.
Anonymous handles
Other social media accounts, hiding behind anonymous handles that claimed to support Restore Britain, were often at the forefront of the anti-Semitic feeding frenzy.
Meanwhile, the official Restore Britain X account was silent about the events in north London.
The ambulance burning also highlighted the growing division between far-right influencers who align with Israel and are nominally pro-Jewish, as a means of bolstering their anti-Muslim credentials, and the Aryan-first fascists.
Torrent of abuse
Tommy Robinson, who has been cultivating his followers on the Iaraeli far right, and who tweeted that the ambulance arson was an “Antisemitic Attack!!!”, was dubbed a sellout and a “zionist bitch” in a torrent of abuse, from erstwhile fellow travellers on the far-right. Robinson countered that they were “retards” and “idiots with hardons for Jew hate” with their “wild low resolution conspiracytard” thinking.
David Clews, the Unity News Network host who sympathises with the neo-nazi Patriotic Alternative, tweeted throughout the day ever more convoluted Jewish plot scenarios.
Stung by Robinson’s broadside, he was left spluttering playground-level insults, calling Robinson a “midget, coke-filled, zionist shabbos goy”.
Ant Middleton, the former special forces soldier and TV personality who has been repeatedly touted by sections of the far right as a would-be candidate for the London mayoral election, got a similar blast after he defended Jews as being part of London’s culture.
A disgusted Clews moaned: “ We told people this guy was a total zio shill and not to be trusted.
“Do you need any more evidence now?”
