Nobody knows what was going through the mind of the man who slit the throats of two Jews in Manchester and injured others.
If he were anything like the other terrorists who have wreaked havoc on our streets over the years, however, he likely carried out his crimes in the belief that he was one of the good guys.
From the Spanish Inquisition to the Holocaust, from the pogroms of Eastern Europe to the antisemitic murders and expulsions of the Middle East, the perpetrators are always convinced that they are doing God’s work, either literally or figuratively.
In this grim fact lies a lesson for us all. After two years of the most orchestrated and extensive pro-jihad propaganda operation the world has ever seen, huge numbers of people now see Israel as the bad guys and Hamas as the victims.
Who do I blame? The United Nations. The BBC and other insidious media outlets. The NGOs and international charities. The arts world. The celebrities. The social media bot farms. The universities and schools.
Everywhere, in fact, where the progressive ideology dominates. For decades, these elites have held the levers of power in our culture, cascading their fringe views on the heads of the rest of us.
In my new book, Never Again? How the West Betrayed the Jews and Itself, I describe these people as “centrist fundamentalists”. They are centrists because they view themselves as the grown-ups. And they are fundamentalists because anybody who disagrees with them is silenced with mockery and derision.
These people believe in doing down our patriotism, our history, our flag (though Labour has desperately changed its position on that recently), our traditions and our borders. Their attitude is one of “down with us and up with everyone else”.
If you have pushed the jihadist lie since Oct 7, spare me your crocodile tears today - Jake Wallis Simons
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