Shocked but not surprised. That was the resigned reaction of Britain’s Jewish community to the appalling terrorist attack at the Manchester synagogue.

It’s a sentiment I share. This was an atrocity waiting to happen. The police must have known something like this was in the offing, too, which is why they were able to react so swiftly.

Security had been stepped up at synagogues across the country, not just in Manchester, as the community came together to celebrate Yom Kippur.

Globalise the intifada, the anti-Israel hate marchers chant every weekend. Well, this is where it leads. To bloodshed on British soil.

That it happened not just on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar but less than a week before the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre is surely no coincidence.

Ever since the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, there has been an inexplicable rising tide of anti-Semitism in this country, which reached a ghastly crescendo at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue. It took place against a backdrop of rampant Jew-hatred promoted by so-called ‘anti-Zionist’ campaigners.

The deranged pro-Palestinian activists and their useful idiots in politics and the media have, if not legitimised, then certainly embolded the fanatics who want to kill Jews wherever they can be found.

That it happened not just on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar but less than a week before the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre is surely no coincidence

The attacker was caught on camera armed with a knife trying to get into the synagogue moments before he was shot by police 

Even before Israel’s military response to October 7 began, Jewish institutions and businesses were coming under attack. As the Chief Rabbi observed sagely and from bitter historical experience, anti-Semitism is a light sleeper.

Week in, week out, British streets have been flooded with performative ‘peace’ marchers clad in Yasser Arafat headscarfs chanting inane, incendiary slogans and carrying placards intended to intimidate Jews.

I don’t doubt that many of them are sincerely concerned about the human tragedy which has unfolded in Gaza. But scratch the surface and you will soon discover legions of dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites.

The reaction to Israel’s war of self-defence has been unhinged. It takes a unique strain of psychosis to justify the slaughter and capture of hundreds of innocent men, women and children on Israeli soil as ‘resistance’.

What has always baffled me is the way in which British Jews are routinely blamed for the actions of the Israeli government. Yes, our Jewish community has deep ties with Israel. Yet the idea that all British Jews are uncritical backers of the Israeli administration is fiction.

There are as many vocal opponents of Benjamin Netanyahu and his hardliners as there are supporters.

So why should they be blamed en masse for policies decided in Tel Aviv? And why must it spill over into violence and vandalism? Indelibly ingrained anti-Semitism can be the only credible explanation.

Some of language at the protests has been ludicrous, comparing Jews to Nazis and falsely accusing Israel of ‘genocide’, yet it has now passed into the mainstream. The BBC still refers to Hamas not as terrorists but as ‘militants’, as if there’s no difference between genuinely genocidal maniacs and striking train drivers. Words have consequences.

From the outset my main concern has not been the State of Israel, which can look after itself, but the safety of our Jewish friends and neighbours in this country.

What happened in Manchester has been on the cards, not just for the past two years, but for the past two decades

Since October 7, anti-Semitic incidents have gone through the roof. Jewish schools, synagogues, community centres and businesses have all come under attack.

Jewish men, women and children have been understandably reluctant to wear symbols of their religion, such as skull caps and Star of David necklaces.

What happened in Manchester has been on the cards, not just for the past two years, but for the past two decades.

Watching the aftermath of the attack on the rolling news channels, I experienced a strange sense of deja vu. Those streets looked familiar.

I remember walking them with the then Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, the late Mike Todd, and a local rabbi. I was making a Channel 4 documentary, The War On Britain’s Jews, exploring the new strain of anti-Semitism springing from an unholy alliance of the far-Left and Islamist extremists.

On the surface, this was just another sleepy provincial English suburb. But look closer and there were some incongruous features. The neighbourhood synagogue, for instance, seemed to be heavily fortified behind brick walls and tall metal fences.

Todd then took me on patrol with his officers and members of the Jewish security organisation, the CST. These patrols were mounted every Friday night following a series of unprovoked attacks on Jews on their way to worship. And presumably still are. We passed a care home surrounded by barbed wire.

At the King David School, there were high fences, floodlights, CCTV cameras and full-time guards. It was the kind of security you associate with a prison. They were even installing bomb-proof windows in many prominent Jewish institutions, and running evacuation drills.

There had been a one-fifth increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the previous two years. I visited a Jewish cemetery which had been desecrated and daubed with swastikas. And this was 20-odd years ago.

Nor was this confined to Manchester. I’d had a taste of the threat levels against Jewish targets when I addressed a ladies’ charity lunch at a synagogue in Finchley, North London, and was astonished to find bouncers in bomber jackets with walkie-talkies on the door.

Today, uniquely among religious groups, there isn’t a single Jewish school, synagogue or community centre anywhere in Britain without round-the-clock security. Is it any wonder the community is scared?

Anti-Semitic sentiment has been escalating and indeed been tolerated for some time. The police responded magnificently in Manchester yesterday, but otherwise across the country they have been content to stand by while pro-Palestine protesters peddle Jew-hatred on our streets.

In 2021, an Islamic State-style convoy swept through North London waving Palestinian flags and Hamas scarves, and screeching anti-Semitic abuse through a megaphone. No one was arrested.

As I wrote at the time, how long before drive-by shouting becomes drive-by shooting? After Manchester, we know the answer.

The Prime Minister expressed horror yesterday but he, too, has given succour to the anti-Semites, rewarding Hamas’s mass murder with a promise to recognise a Palestinian state, purely for internal party expediency.

Yes, he eventually kicked out that ‘friend of Hamas ‘ Jeremy Corbyn, but in 2019 he campaigned for Magic Grandpa to become PM and would have cheerfully served in his Cabinet had Labour won.

Let’s hope after this latest atrocity, we don’t see a repeat of the reaction to the Manchester Arena bombing – a quick blast of Don’t Look Back In Anger then move on as if nothing happened.

We should look back in anger. At the politicians, protesters, police chiefs and broadcasters who have indulged the anti-Semites for far too long.

The Manchester murderer may or may not have been a lone wolf, but the list of his enablers is legion. They have blood on their consciences. Or, at least, they should.

This is where it leads.