Antisemitism Isn’t Random

By Jacki Karsh

Thursday, April 30, 2026

 

On Wednesday morning, a terror stabbing attack in the heart of London’s most heavily Jewish neighborhood, Golders Green, shook the city. It was the latest in a series of attacks in April, including two attempted firebombings at synagogues in north London. The recent attacks targeting Jewish institutions in the city are now being investigated by authorities as part of a sustained campaign of intimidation rather than a series of isolated incidents. British counterterrorism police are investigating potential links to Iranian-backed networks, with officials warning that some attackers may be acting as “proxies” or “thugs for hire.”

 

The recent surge in antisemitism worldwide is often described as a spontaneous social eruption. It is framed as ugly and alarming, yet diffuse in origin and difficult to trace with precision. That description is not simply incomplete; it actually obscures more than it reveals. It allows institutions and policymakers to treat the problem as ambient rather than organized, reactive rather than cultivated. The reality is more structured and far less comfortable: Antisemitism today operates through systems as much as sentiment. One of its principal architects is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas massacre, antisemitic incidents around the world rose sharply, increasing by hundreds of percentage points in a single year. In addition to the evils of actual violence perpetrated against Jews, a synchronized effort emerged to reinterpret that violence: to blur moral lines, to cast doubt on victims, and to normalize suspicion not only of Israel, but of Jews more broadly. The speed and consistency of that shift carry their own meaning. Movements that are truly organic rarely produce aligned narratives across continents in real time. Coordination leaves a signature.

 

Iran has spent decades building precisely such a system. In the Islamic Republic, hostility toward Jews is embedded within the structure of the state, woven into official ideology, reinforced by clerical authority, and translated into policy through a network of proxies and aligned organizations. Antisemitism, in this context, serves a clear function. It mobilizes support, sharpens ideological boundaries, and provides a durable language for delegitimizing perceived enemies at home and abroad. It is not an aberration within the regime. It is part of how the regime governs.

 

That architecture has been under construction since the 1979 revolution, when the Islamic Republic moved quickly to consolidate power in part by targeting its own Jewish community and elevating anti-Jewish hostility into a defining feature of its identity. Over time, what began as internal repression evolved into an exportable model. Iran does not simply generate ideology; it operationalizes it. It crafts narratives, amplifies grievances, and cultivates proxy actors who can turn those ideas into actions, often far from Tehran but rarely disconnected from it. The exports extend beyond violence itself. It reshapes the moral language through which that violence is interpreted.

 

The results are now visible across Europe. Since early 2026, a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia has carried out a string of attacks on Jewish targets — synagogues, schools, community centers — following a strikingly consistent pattern. The attacks occur in the middle of the night and are immediately followed by coordinated propaganda designed to maximize visibility. The objective appears cumulative rather than singular: to erode the sense of permanence that underpins communal life and to introduce hesitation where there was once routine.

 

Investigators are increasingly probing the group’s connections to Iran, and the pattern is familiar enough to warrant sustained attention. Tehran has long relied on proxy networks to project power while maintaining plausible deniability. Front groups obscure attribution, local actors provide operational flexibility, and digital amplification ensures that each incident reverberates far beyond its immediate target. What might otherwise register as isolated acts of vandalism or intimidation instead becomes part of a broader psychological campaign. The effect is less about any single act than about the accumulation of pressure over time.

 

At a certain point, continued insistence on treating these incidents as disconnected ceases to reflect caution and begins to resemble avoidance. This is a system — one that integrates ideology, organization, and action into a coherent strategy designed to pressure Jewish communities while reshaping public perception. The damage is not measured only in broken windows or burned vehicles. It unfolds in the normalization of fear and the gradual erosion of the assumption that Jewish life can exist openly and securely. When patterns are visible but unnamed, their consequences compound quietly.

 

If this is our operating reality, policy responses must evolve accordingly. Governments that are serious about combating antisemitism cannot rely on statements of solidarity or domestic hate-crime enforcement alone. They must treat state-sponsored antisemitism as a national-security concern. That requires tightening sanctions not only on Iran’s nuclear and military programs, but also on the institutions and individuals responsible for exporting its ideological infrastructure. It requires disrupting the financial and organizational networks that sustain proxy groups, increasing intelligence coordination with European partners, and holding platforms accountable for the rapid amplification of propaganda tied to these campaigns. Addressing the downstream effects without confronting the upstream drivers will ensure that the cycle continues.

 

The question is no longer whether antisemitism is rising. The evidence is clear and widely documented. The question is whether we are prepared to examine how it operates and who is driving it. Naming that reality does not constitute escalation; it establishes the baseline for any serious response.

 

We are not facing a mystery. We are facing an adversary. The longer there is hesitation to describe that adversary with precision, the longer its methods remain effective. What is at stake is not only physical security, but the conditions that make open Jewish life possible.