Exploiting tragedy: From grief to antisemitic conspiracy

Within hours of the brutal and senseless murder of three young girls during a dance class in Southport in northwest England on July 29, this abhorrent act was shamefully misattributed to a fictional Muslim migrant. That baseless, yet calculated, misinformation has since led to open rioting by far-right thugs who have targeted mosques and Muslim communities across the UK.

As if this horrifying act of violence and subsequent rampaging was not enough, Britain’s grief and unrest have been seized upon by extremists to concoct a new antisemitic conspiracy theory. What, you may ask, could this tragedy possibly have to do with Israel or Jews? Absolutely nothing. Indeed, the far-right elements involved in the riots have their own history of antisemitism, including Holocaust denial and praise for Hitler.

But that has not stopped a variety of figures in the UK and US from blaming the unrest on an elaborate Zionist conspiracy. This baseless narrative isn’t just misleading — it’s pouring fuel on an already raging fire.

Spreading rapidly across social media, this lie, and its dangerous implications are deepening the anxiety of British Jews, who are already reeling from a surge in antisemitic attacks in recent months, following Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Just yesterday, the Community Security Trust recorded a staggering 105 percent increase in reported antisemitic incidents in the UK, compared to the same period in 2023. That is 43% higher than the previous half-year record. Earlier this year, an ADL survey found the highest level of antisemitic attitudes in the UK since ADL started polling the country a decade ago.

One of these baseless conspiratorial narratives is that the riots are punishment for the British government’s suspension of arms export licenses to Israel. Thus, some online opportunists are pointing fingers and claiming that the UK riots were a “flexing of Zionist muscle.” and alleging that Zionists threatened, “You block arms sales, we’ll burn your country down.”

Meanwhile, a presenter for PressTV, a global propaganda network controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran, stated that the riots were “Israel […] sending a message, 1. To the British people […] not to protest its genocide” and “2. To the British government for withdrawing its legal challenge to ICC jurisdiction.”

From both within and beyond the United Kingdom, antisemitic attacks, conspiracies, and beliefs are running rampant among extremist factions on both the right and the left. The number of incidents is so high that neither extreme can be ignored.

As the United Kingdom’s Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis poignantly stated, “Many in the British Jewish community are feeling trapped between the anvil of the hateful far right and the hammer of the conspiratorial extreme left.”

Disturbingly, even some individuals in reputable academic institutions are also promoting the conspiracy theory that Israel is behind the unrest in the UK.

When a professor at King’s College London refers to the rioters as “useful idiots” and accuses Israel of inventing the “Islamist” scarecrow to smear Muslims, it highlights a deeper, troubling issue within higher education. This pattern is not unique to the UK; we’ve seen similar troubling narratives on American, European, and global university campuses.

Let’s be clear: When anti-Zionists and violent extremists demonize and dehumanize Zionists and the Jewish state, it leads to the dehumanization of Jews worldwide. This is precisely what we are witnessing in the United Kingdom right now.

The anti-Israel lies that emerged after the Southport knife attacks starkly reveal how deeply rooted anti-Jewish prejudice fuels dangerous disinformation and conspiracies. This isn’t merely misinformation — it’s a blatant attack on the truth, amplifying the menace of antisemitism in our society.

Instead of perpetuating hateful falsehoods that only fuel further violence, let’s honor the memory of the three innocent children whose lives were tragically cut short by committing to combatting hate, extremism and disinformation. We owe them that much.