Israeli politicians aligned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have blamed the UK government for the deadly synagogue attack in Manchester, tying it to Britain’s recognition of Palestine.
A Thursday car ramming and stabbing attack, and police shooting that ensued, left two people killed and three wounded outside the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in the Manchester suburb of Crumpsall.
The crime, being investigated as a terrorist attack, happened as Jews gathered to observe Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The attacker was identified by police as Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent. It remains unclear what his motives were.
Several ministers and Knesset members from Netanyahu’s Likud party have attributed the attack to rising antisemitism, which they claim has been fuelled by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recognition of a Palestinian state in September.
Several other Western countries, including Canada, Australia, and France, recognised a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution – something Netanyahu’s government has outright rejected.
"As I warned at the UN: weakness in the face of terrorism only brings more terrorism," Netanyahu wrote in a post on X following the synagogue attack. "Only strength and unity can defeat it."
Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where the two-year war has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
The war is widely recognised to be a genocide.
Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi from Likud claimed that the UK synagogue attack came as a direct result of "Britain's antisemitic measures, choosing to recognise a Palestinian terror state and abandoning its identity in favour of radical Islam."
"Britain is showing terrorists that murdering Jews pays off," he continued.
Extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Britain’s recognition of a Palestinian state is a "display of weakness and moral collapse."
By standing against Israel's right to self-defence and siding with its antisemitic enemies, it encourages terrorism and emboldens it, he claimed.
Smotrich is one of many far-right Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank.
He has called for the annexation of all Palestinian territories and supported ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said he was not surprised by the attack.
"The feebleness of the British government under Keir Starmer, pouring fuel on the flames with hollow proclamations for a Palestinian terror state, directly enabled this atrocity, on the holiest day for the Jewish people," he wrote on X.
Condemnations and attacks against the UK government poured in from many other Israeli officials.
Critical analysts have noted that there is not a single shred of evidence that links recognising a Palestinian state, or peacefully supporting the legal right of Palestinians to sovereignty and self-determination, to acts of violence against Jews.