BREAKING
Two Green Party council candidates have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred after allegedly posting antisemitic content online.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed the news on Thursday morning.
The arrests came just hours after a knife attack in Golders Green, north London, was formally declared a terrorist incident.
One of the candidates is understood to have shared a video captioned “Ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism. It’s revenge” on social media, while the other posted a picture of a masked fighter holding a rifle and a string of bullets, wearing what appears to be a Hamas headband, alongside the words “Long live the Resistance.”
Both were detained by the Met on Thursday morning.
A day after two members of the Jewish community stabbed in London
The arrests arrive against a backdrop of sustained antisemitic violence in north London.
Two men were stabbed on Wednesday morning in Highfield Avenue in Barnet, near Golders Green Road. The victims were named as Moshe Shine, 76, and Shlome Rand, 34.
A 45-year-old man, a British national born in Somalia, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. He was initially taken to hospital before being discharged into police custody.
Counter Terrorism Policing Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor confirmed the attack had formally been declared a terrorist incident, with officers investigating whether it was deliberately targeting the Jewish community.
It is the second declared terrorist attack on Britain’s Jewish community in seven months, following an attack at Heaton Park Synagogue in October in which two men were killed
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who visited the scene, said the suspect “has a history of serious violence and mental health issues” and was stunned with a Taser after refusing to show his hands to officers who feared he may be carrying an explosive device.
A continuing trend of attacks against Jewish targets
Wednesday’s stabbing is the latest in a sustained series of attacks on Jewish targets in London.
In late March, four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green were set ablaze in an attack police are treating as an antisemitic hate crime.
Subsequent incidents included an attack on the Kenton United Synagogue in Harrow, premises belonging to a Jewish charity, and the Finchley Reform Synagogue.
The Green Party, meanwhile, is facing an escalating reckoning over the conduct of its candidates.
Polanski, who is himself Jewish, has also faced criticism over his response to the Golders Green attack.
He was condemned after reposting content criticising the police officers who subdued the alleged attacker.
The Green leader had retweeted a post describing officers as “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by a Taser”.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer chaired a Cobra meeting following the attack and described it as deeply concerning, vowing to deal with “the roots of antisemitism and extremism.”
Why has there been an increase in attacks?
With the increase in attacks, it has become evident that community divides are becoming more and more apparent.
The rabbi described the attack as cowardly.
The increase in attacks and antisemitism can be attributed largely to continued tensions in the Middle-East as well as actions of political groups having repercussions for larger communities.
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