At last, the words we have been waiting for?

For the first time, our Prime Minister, the elected leader of Britain, stood up and said it plainly.

Keir Starmer condemned Jew hate in Britain, unequivocally. He called it what it is, a threat to our way of life. He laid out, with clarity and precision, the forces driving it.
He spoke not in platitudes, but in specifics and he promised to act.

For many Jews across the UK, this was the moment they have been waiting for.

At last, leadership, recognition, someone saying publicly what they have been warning privately, publicly, desperately, for nearly three years.

“Thank you, Prime Minister."

But they are missing the most important message in what he said today.

Because in finally articulating what the Jewish community has been screaming, not whispering, since October 7th, he has done something else entirely.

He has admitted that he knew. He knew what was driving this hatred, knew where it was coming from, knew how it was manifesting on our streets, knew what it would lead to. If he knew, then the question is no longer whether this could have been prevented, it is why he chose not to act.

That is not a failure of awareness, it is a failure of leadership and it is a disgrace.

He named Iran, so why didn’t he act against it?

The Prime Minister explicitly referenced Iran as a threat to British Jews. That matters, because it is demonstrably true.

The regime in Tehran funds, arms and ideologically drives much of the antisemitism now spilling into Western societies. It is not a distant problem, it is an active one. But if he understands that and today he made clear that he does, then his own record becomes impossible to defend.

Why has his government still not proscribed the IRGC? Why, when allies have taken decisive positions, has Britain hesitated? Why did his government refuse to support the United States and Israel in confronting Iranian aggression?

You cannot name the source of the threat while refusing to confront it. That is not caution, that is complicity through inaction.

When a state sponsor of extremism is not challenged, its ideology travels and we are now living with the consequences of that failure.

He acknowledged the marches, so why did he allow them to become what they became?

The Prime Minister spoke about hatred on Britain’s streets. Again, he is right, but that only sharpens the question.

From the very first major demonstrations on 13th October 2023, the warning signs were not subtle. People marched through London wearing paragliders, a direct visual reference to the method used by terrorists on October 7th. This was not abstract, it was not ambiguous, this was glorification and it happened at the very beginning.

The Jewish community saw it immediately, they said so immediately, they warned what it would lead to.

So if the Prime Minister now recognises that these marches have been a vector for hate, why did he not act when he came into power?

Why were clearer legal lines not drawn? Why were chants calling for destruction tolerated under the banner of protest? Why were organisers not held accountable as the tone escalated week after week?

Not everyone who attends those marches is an antisemite, but every antisemite found a home there, went unchallenged there.

When you allow that environment to persist, you do not just permit protest. You create a space in which hate is normalised, emboldened and ultimately acted upon.

He says antisemitism will not be tolerated, but it already has been.

“Antisemitism will not be tolerated." It is a powerful line, it is also one that collides directly with reality. Because antisemitism has been tolerated, not in rhetoric, but in practice.

It has been tolerated when intimidation was reframed as activism, when escalation was dismissed as exaggeration, when those raising concerns were told they were overreacting.

Tolerance is not just what you endorse, it is what you allow to continue and for nearly three years, too much has been allowed to continue.

He understands the ideology, so why leave its infrastructure intact?

If today’s speech shows anything, it is that the Prime Minister understands that this problem is not random. It is ideological, organised and sustained.

So why has so little been done to dismantle the infrastructure that sustains it?

Why is the Muslim Brotherhood still not banned? Why does Al Jazeera continue to operate freely despite repeated concerns about the narratives it amplifies? Why do hate preachers, many of them well known, continue to find platforms with limited consequence?

You cannot say you are tackling the outcome while refusing to confront the ecosystem that produces it. That is not a strategy, it is avoidance.

He speaks of extremism, so why reward it with recognition?

The government’s approach to recognising "Palestine" reveals the same contradiction. If extremist ideology is, as he now acknowledges, a driver of antisemitism, then why extend recognition without conditions?

Why was there no insistence on the return of hostages, the removal of Hamas from power, a clear rejection of terror?

To act without those conditions is not neutrality, it is a signal and signals shape behaviour, particularly among those who test the limits of what they believe they can get away with.

This was never about not knowing. What today’s speech makes unmistakably clear is that this was never a failure of understanding. He knows where the threat comes from.
He knows how it manifests. He knows what it looks like on Britain’s streets.

Which leaves only one conclusion, he chose not to act. Because every single factor he identified today was visible long before today. Every one was raised, repeatedly, by the Jewish community. Every one presented an opportunity to intervene and every one was, in practice, allowed to continue.

So when Keir Starmer stands at a podium and explains the forces driving antisemitism in Britain, he is not offering new insight. He is confirming prior knowledge and once that is clear, the judgment becomes unavoidable.

History will remember him not for the words he finally found, but for the years he did nothing while his country’s Jews were warning, pleading, and suffering.

In the end, it will not be his critics who condemn him, it will be his own words and those words were finally spoken today.

Leo Pearlman is a London based producer and a loud and proud Zionist. His most recent film about the Oct 7 Nova Music Festival massacre, ‘We Will Dance Again’ has won the 2025 Emmy of the 46th Annual News & Documentary Awards for most ‘Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary’.