Here's an extract from my @Telegraph column, 'The Palestine Action acquittals are telling British Jews they have no future here' telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02… It’s not been a great couple of years to be Jewish in Britain. Ever since twelve hundred Jews were massacred by Hamas in Israel in 2023, the response here in Britain has been an unprecedented wave of Jew hate, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets week after week to join hate marches chanting “globalise the intifada” – roughly translating as, “kill the Jews”. That demand bore fruit last October at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester. In reality, the writing has been on the wall since 2015, when the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism which, at the time, seemed like a ceiling but has turned out to be a floor. Throughout this past decade – through the assaults, the murders at Heaton Park, the verbal attacks and everything else – I’ve never really believed that it might be time to leave. I’ve always thought that there was a bedrock of decency among ordinary Britons. The antisemites might be vocal and growing, but they aren’t the full picture. But the acquittal today of six members of Palestine Action over charges of aggravated burglary in connection with a break-in at the Elbit Systems factory in 2024, in which a police officer’s spine was shattered, is something altogether different. The Jewish community and our allies have complained about the police’s lack of action in protecting us, and about the CPS’s refusal to prosecute in too many cases, sending a clear message to the antisemites that they are cleared to go about their business. This case is different. The police acted. The CPS prosecuted. And what happened? A jury of ordinary Britons – the supposed bedrock of decency – decided to acquit the defendants. That decision, I believe, may come to be seen as the single most significant case in the history of Anglo-Jewry since 1945. It shows that the game is up. We can no longer rely on the criminal justice system. And when the law is no longer there to protect us, who or what will? The case involved a break-in at the Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems’s factory near Bristol. It is open season on Israeli businesses at the moment – and by “Israeli” I mean any business in which an Israeli is thought by the so-called Free Palestine mob to be involved. That includes restaurants, cafes, comedy venues and anywhere else where there is the scent of a Jew. Video evidence in the Elbit Systems case showed all six defendants entering the factory without permission and then damaging equipment. They told the jury that the sledgehammers they used were intended solely to destroy property and were not “in any circumstances intended to injure security staff”. But as security guards tried to stop them, sledgehammers were swung at the guards. As Avon and Somerset Police Federation put it after the verdicts: “Like people across the country, we have viewed very distressing scenes during this trial, including footage of a police officer trying to maintain law and order only to be severely injured. We remind the public that a brave police officer’s spine was fractured during this incident.” The jury could not reach a verdict on the charges of criminal damage against all six defendants, on the charges of violent disorder against three of them, or on the charge that one of them inflicted grievous bodily harm on Sgt Kate Evans. To cut a long story short, the message of the case is this: you can smash the spine of a police officer and so long as you are doing it because of “Palestine”, you can walk home free. How do I tell my children that they are safe when they walk the streets? If a Free Palestine protester decides to assault them because they look Jewish and so must be complicit in genocide – to use the blood libel de nos jours – will a jury decide the protestors were, indeed, protesting? So it seems. This is a vital, real question, not just because it goes to the heart of whether there is a future for Jews in the UK, but because similar incidents are happening now. Recent cases include a knifeman running into a kosher shop and attacking Jews. He walked home after court. And last month a huge mob terrified people inside a restaurant in West London with Israeli connections. The police stood and watched (and have subsequently apologised for their refusal to act). A convoy of cars drove through Jewish areas in north west London screaming “F--- the Jews, rape their daughters”. No one was prosecuted. And that’s not even to mention the hate spread in mosques, when no action is taken. After any incident politicians mouth the ludicrous mantra, there is no place for antisemitism on the streets of Britain, when the evidence shows there is a very welcome place for it here. It may be that it’s now over for Jews in Britain.

This deliberate distortion says all you really need to know about Powell