Friday is the 30th anniversary of the London Israeli Embassy bombing – which was just eight days after the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires
July 24, 2024 13:43
This coming Friday marks thirty years since the London Israeli Embassy bombing, which left twenty civilians injured after two car bombs exploded outside the embassy building and Balfour House in London. This horrific attack took place just eight days after the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people and injured over 300 others in what is still the deadliest attack on diaspora Jews since the Holocaust and sent shockwaves through Jewish communities.
I am thinking of those killed and injured in these bombings, as well as of the countless victims of terrorist attacks, not least those of October 7. As we continue to face rising levels of antisemitism in the UK, this day acts as a moment of pause to ask ourselves: what, if anything, has changed?
For many in the Jewish community, these bombings shifted the mindset towards a greater need for security. Suddenly, our community was shown to be vulnerable and the need to enhance our ability to protect ourselves from external threats was clear. This led to the Jewish community security we have today, which despite the obvious need, does still shock people from outside the community. How is it that Jews require security to attend a place of worship or to send their kids to school?
Outside every Jewish school, synagogue and community centre, the security guards whom we have all come to accept as normal are something which for others is a shocking discovery.
In the wake of Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, the Jewish community faces even graver security threats. In 2023 alone, 266 cases of antisemitic assault were reported to CST. Thirty years since Hezbollah, acting under orders from the Iranian regime, murdered dozens of Argentinian Jews, Jewish communities around the world still face a mortal threat from Iran and its proxies.
While Israel faces terror on its borders from Iranian-supplied drones, missiles, and rockets, our own community experiences this same threat, manifesting in a different manner. Just a few months ago, three individuals were arrested for a plot to attack Jewish communities with a machine gun in Manchester. Thanks to the work of the police, security services and CST, a serious attack like that of the bombings thirty years ago has not materialised.
Security services have warned that in 2022 alone there were at least ten Iranian threats to kill or kidnap British or UK-based people – including a senior Jewish communal leader. Meanwhile, generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have called for British students to join an “apocalyptic war” against Jews, accusing them of “creating homosexuality”.
The Jewish Community Protective Security Grant, administered by CST, goes a long way towards ensuring the security of the Jewish community. We are grateful to the new government for committing to the continuation of this grant and of course to CST for scrupulously administering it.
Before the election, Labour pledged to proscribe the IRGC, thwarting the Iranian regime’s power to attack our British Jewish community. Now, in government, this pledge must be delivered. The safety of our community should not be up for negotiation or delay. The best way to mark these horrific anniversaries would be to ensure that such brutal attacks can never be perpetrated again.
Claudia Mendoza is CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council
