Holocaust Memorial Day exists to remember the six million Jewish men, women and children who were systematically murdered for no reason other than that they were born Jewish. It is not a political gesture. It is not a commentary on today’s conflicts. It is an act of human memory, and a moral one at that. When you begin to treat Holocaust remembrance as something that must be justified, balanced or quietly avoided, you reveal how fragile your commitment to it has become. And when people try to drag Holocaust remembrance into the arguments of the present - asking “why talk about this and not Gaza?” - they fundamentally miss the point. There are many terrible conflicts and humanitarian crises in the world, all deserving attention in their own right. But Holocaust Memorial Day is not about ranking suffering or attaching the Shoah to whatever war dominates headlines. It exists to remember what was unique about the Holocaust: the industrial, ideological attempt to annihilate an entire people, every man, woman and child, simply for being Jewish. To constantly contextualise the Holocaust through the lens of a contemporary war involving the world’s only Jewish state is not moral seriousness. It is historical confusion at best, and moral evasion at worst. The purpose of remembrance is not comparison. It is clarity. And that clarity matters because the Holocaust did not emerge from nowhere. It sits on a long continuum of antisemitism, its most organised, most systematic and most barbaric expression, but not its beginning and, tragically, not its end. Remembering the Holocaust properly means understanding both what made it historically unprecedented and what made it possible: an ancient hatred that adapts, reappears and survives when societies fail to confront it.

I feel sick writing this. The intifada has been globalised. Jews were shot for celebrating the festival of Chanukah. At least 9 are confirmed dead and dozens more injured. Jews across the world will now be wondering whether they are safe at public Jewish events this Chanukah. Whether it’s safe to gather. Whether it’s safe to be visibly Jewish in public. For over two years, large parts of the mainstream media turned themselves into propaganda outlets for Hamas. Not by accident. By choice. They repeated talking points, stripped away context, sanitised terror, and framed Israel, and Jews, as the ultimate evil. That rhetoric didn’t stay on screens. It spilled onto the streets. Into hate marches. Into chants calling for violence and death. Jewish communities warned governments, again and again, about the horrendous levels of incitement taking place. We begged them to clamp down on it. They did next to nothing. Then the terror attack happens. Here in the UK, it was Manchester. In Australia, it’s Bondi. Condemnations are issued. And the cycle repeats. Messages are still coming in from people I know, British friends, Australian friends, who were at Bondi Beach. One person I know was shot. People don’t realise how close-knit the Jewish community is. How an attack like this sends shockwaves across the world. Not just fear for friends and family who may have been killed or injured, but the sickening question of whether your own community might be next. October 7 didn’t just kill Israelis. It inspired millions across the West. It emboldened a hate movement that now hunts Jews far beyond Israel’s borders. Blame the mainstream media that fuelled it. Blame governments that refused to act. Blame those who marched, chanted, justified and excused. And blame those who stayed silent. To be Jewish and safe in the West today is to be lucky. That’s where we are. Jews are being hunted around the world. The furthest flung Jewish community on earth. Even there they try to kill us. Mainstream media, governments, hate marchers and all those who excused that hate and stayed silent in the face of it have blood on their hands.

My full speech tonight outside the Australian Embassy in London. We will not be silent. We will not hide. And we will never let the darkness and hatred win.

When the world gets dark, we can only turn up the light.