Jihad-Proof Our Immigration Systems
One Holy War Doesn't Deserve Another
When I learned that the terrorist who attacked a British synagogue on Yom Kippur was named Jihad, I thought of the Japanese concept of poka-yoke. The term means “mistake-proofing,” with the idea being to design systems so that errors can’t occur. For example, if you don’t want jihadists in your country, you should—at the very least—ban people named Jihad from immigrating. This particular Syrian-born Jihad was on bail for alleged rape, had a long criminal record, and is suspected of sending a death threat to a member of parliament. On October 7, his father described the massacre of Israelis as a “miracle by all standards” that was perpetrated by “men of God on Earth.” Needless to say, a mistake-proof immigration system would also bar parents who name their child “Jihad.”
What’s in a name? In 2024, “Yahya” entered the UK’s top 100 baby boys’ name list for the first time. Presumably, its newfound popularity is linked to Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas leader last seen throwing a stick at an Israeli drone. Of course, the UK’s most popular baby boy name was Muhammad, with heretical variants Mohammed and Mohammad coming in at 21st and 53rd place, respectively.1 Certainly not all Muslims hate Jews. But it’s reasonable to surmise that when you accept large numbers of migrants from the Greater Middle East—statistically the most antisemitic region of the world—you’ll also import a large number of antisemites. Perhaps a well-designed immigration system could filter them out, but something tells me that the system that accepted Jihad (plus the hundreds of British citizens who fought for the Islamic State) doesn’t fit the description.
Britain’s latest Jihad shouted, “This is what you get for killing our children,” as he tried to enter the synagogue. So is Israel’s war in Gaza to blame? Would Jihad have remained just a petty criminal if images of dead Palestinian children hadn’t driven him into a frenzy? Recall that Jihad’s father praised the October 7 attacks that very day, before Israel invaded Gaza. The senior Jihad also wrote that “History will apologize to Hitler” back in 2012. Consider, too, the 2010 Pew poll that found 95% or more of Egyptians, Lebanese, and Palestinians held unfavorable opinions of Jews. That’s over a decade before the current war. Syria wasn’t surveyed, but it’s reasonable to project similar numbers throughout the Arab Levant. Anecdotally, the Syrian asylum seeker who stabbed a tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial is one indicator of popular attitudes—though, to be fair, Syrian refugees have stabbed people in all kinds of places, including a French playground, a German bar, and an Austrian city center.
Now, it’s also reasonable to conjecture that Jihad would have been a casual antisemite, not a murderous one, but for current events. Yet we don’t see Ukrainians attacking Russian Orthodox churches in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Diaspora Armenians didn’t murder diaspora Azeris when 100,000 Armenians were displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023. On October 7 itself, Jews didn’t start stabbing random Muslims in response to images of dead Jewish children. You might counter that they didn’t need to, since they could count on the state of Israel to exact retribution for them. But before their state existed, Jews didn’t kill random Russians in response to pogroms or Germans in response to the Holocaust.2 Instead, they directed their energies to more productive matters, like founding a state where they wouldn’t be prone to massacre. A homicidal reaction to the news, catalyzed by underlying hatred, seems to be the specialty of just one group in particular.
But to ask an age-old question: If you’re not Jewish, why should you care? Perhaps it’s worth driving out your country’s Jews and replacing them with Jihads. If diversity is our strength, then surely exchanging a long-established, well-integrated community for fresh-off-the-boat exotica is a trade-up. But as their 2016 Normandy church attack and 2015 mass shooting at a rock concert demonstrated, Islamists tend to be hostile to Christians and heathens as well. And even if this particular Jihad wasn’t a jihadist, the fact that he was out on bail for rape doesn’t exactly suggest Syria’s been sending its best. Then there’s his statement that the Jews are killing “our” children. Though Jihad was a naturalized British citizen, we all know that he’d never use the possessive “our” to refer to the British people. His loyalty was to Palestine, a state that doesn’t exist, not to the actual nation that took in his family.3 Diaspora Jews can at least make aliyah, but as French author Michel Houellebecq once wrote, “There’s no Israel for me.” Ultimately, then, it’s for Westerners to decide just how much Jihad their countries really need.
Over 40% of babies born in England last year have at least one foreign-born parent. The “Yookay” admitted 4.5 million immigrants between 2021 and 2024, or around 7% of its current population.
Or, for that matter, Syrians in response to the Damascus Affair of 1840, during which Jews were tortured and attacked following a blood libel. The Damascus Affair preceded Israel’s establishment by over a century, though surely it can be pinned on Zionism somehow.
To be precise, his loyalty was to the ummah (“community of believers”), for which Palestine is a proxy.
So I skimmed the linked article about Michel Houellebecq, and I kind of don't want to rip on him. But "There is no Israel for me"? Uh, your Israel is France. Or at least its supposed to be.