Allyship Against Hate Cannot Be Selective

Britain is becoming increasingly comfortable with hatred, and we should all be deeply concerned.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia is rising rapidly, normalised and mainstreamed. Public discourse is becoming harsher, more polarised, more performative, and less human. What once would have been recognised as unacceptable is now too often excused, rationalised, or absorbed into mainstream political culture. We are no longer just witnessing disagreement in society; we are witnessing the normalisation of dehumanisation itself.

Communities are increasingly pushed into defensive corners, encouraged to compete over suffering rather than confront the deeper crisis unfolding before us. Muslim and Jewish pain is instrumentalised in some spaces. Empathy and solidarity becomes conditional and transactional. In that process, we lose the ability to recognise one another as human beings. This is not simply a Jewish problem or a Muslim problem. It is a British problem requiring British solutions rooted in equality, fairness, and a renewed commitment to shared humanity.

Jewish and Muslim communities do not need a hierarchy of hate. We do not need to debate whose fear is more legitimate, whose trauma is more significant, or whose vulnerability deserves greater recognition. Antisemitism and Islamophobia are both real. Both are dangerous. Both corrode the social fabric of this country. And both thrive when societies are taught to see entire communities not as neighbours and citizens, but as problems to be managed.

The parallels are difficult to ignore.

Jewish communities are targeted through conspiracies about power, loyalty, and hidden influence. Muslims are framed as threats to national identity, security, or social cohesion. Jewish people are often made collectively responsible for the actions of a state. Muslims are collectively blamed for the actions of extremists. In both cases, complexity is stripped away. Human beings are reduced into symbols of suspicion and fear.

That is how hatred operates. It does not begin with violence. It begins with language, repetition, caricature, and the steady normalisation of contempt. And once hatred becomes socially acceptable against one group, no community remains truly safe.

I write as a Muslim who has spent much of my life building bridges with Jewish communities and standing alongside colleagues, friends, and partners in confronting antisemitism. I do so not because it is easy or convenient, but because it is necessary. Antisemitism is real, persistent, and dangerous. It mutates across political, ideological, and social spaces, and it must be challenged wherever it arises.

It is also important to be honest that antisemitism can and does exist within Muslim communities. That reality should not be denied. But neither should it be distorted. Too often, Muslim antisemitism is framed as defining of Muslims as a whole, or amplified in ways that flatten a diverse global community into a singular narrative of suspicion. That does not help the fight against antisemitism. It weakens it. It turns a moral struggle into a tool of division.

At the same time, Islamophobia too often goes unacknowledged, minimised, or reframed as perception rather than recognised as a structural reality embedded across politics, media, and public life. Muslims are not consistently afforded the same legitimacy in naming the hatred they experience. That imbalance matters. It shapes trust. It shapes credibility. And it shapes whether interfaith engagement feels authentic or conditional.

We must also be willing to say clearly that Islamophobia exists within Jewish spaces, just as antisemitism exists within Muslim ones. This is not about assigning collective blame. It is about collective responsibility. No community committed to justice can demand that its own experiences of hatred be taken seriously while refusing to confront prejudice within its own environments.

Yet too often, allyship becomes selective.

There are those who speak passionately about antisemitism while tolerating or excusing anti-Muslim hostility. Others rightly challenge Islamophobia while remaining silent, or less consistent, on antisemitism. Both positions undermine moral credibility. Both reinforce the dangerous idea that some communities are more deserving of protection than others.

Hosting those who fuel anti-Muslim hostility should never be acceptable under the banner of fighting antisemitism. Equally, antisemitism should never be tolerated in spaces that claim to stand for justice and human rights. If we are serious about equality, we must be serious about consistency. Allyship cannot be selective. It must be principled.

The contradictions become even sharper around freedom of speech. Appeals to free expression are frequently used to justify language that harms Muslims, while Muslim voices, particularly those critical of power, policy, or dominant political narratives  are framed as excessive or threatening. In these moments, freedom of speech is not being applied evenly. It is being weaponised selectively, not to protect open debate, but to silence those already marginalised.

Proportionality is also essential. To label every criticism of Israel, every protest, or every expression of Palestinian solidarity as antisemitic is not serious analysis. It risks hollowing out the meaning of antisemitism itself. That does not protect Jewish communities. It weakens trust, undermines clarity, and ultimately makes it harder to confront genuine antisemitism when it occurs.

Real solidarity requires discipline, not exaggeration.

This is why interfaith work cannot remain at the level of symbolism.

Too often, it is reduced to polite conversations, staged photographs, and carefully managed performances of harmony. But authentic Jewish-Muslim engagement requires something far more demanding: the courage to confront the elephants in the room and sometimes the elephant behind the elephant. History, trauma, identity, theology, media narratives, power, political conflict, and the emotional weight of Israel-Palestine all shape these encounters whether acknowledged or not.

Avoiding difficult conversations does not build trust. It delays fracture.

For years, much of my work has focused on curating safe spaces for courageous dialogue, particularly among young people. Not spaces built on superficial agreement, but spaces that develop the resilience to hold discomfort without collapsing into dehumanisation. Spaces where disagreement can exist without contempt, and where complexity is not feared but engaged.

Perhaps the time has now come to move beyond isolated initiatives and build something more intentional: a stronger network of Jewish and Muslim leaders, educators, facilitators, artists, and community organisers committed to standing together against both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Not dialogue for optics.
Not coexistence without honesty.
Not normalisation without ethics.

Humanisation, not normalisation.

That distinction is critical. Humanisation does not require agreement. It does not erase difference or avoid difficult truths. But it insists that disagreement must never come at the expense of dignity. It requires us to see one another as human beings before we see one another as political positions.

Only through better interfaith can we become better allies.

And better allyship requires more than statements issued in moments of crisis. It requires sustained relationships, literacy, courage, trust, and the willingness to stand against hatred even when it is uncomfortable within our own communities.

Because the alternative is already visible: fragmented communities, rising suspicion, performative outrage, and a society increasingly unable to distinguish solidarity from tribalism.

Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain now face a choice. We can allow ourselves to be divided by those who benefit from our mutual suspicion, or we can recognise that antisemitism and Islamophobia, while not identical, are deeply interconnected.

And perhaps that is where real allyship begins: not in competing over victimhood, but in recognising that our collective future depends on whether we can still find the courage to know one another beyond fear.

Mohammed Ali Amla is the Public Affairs Director at SNS, leading on countering antisemitism and Islamophobia and empowering young leaders. He is also a trustee at the Faith and Belief Forum and a steering committee member of ENCATE (European Network for Countering Antisemitism through Education).