“We can’t see the next 9/11”

“England is in greater danger today than it was on 11 September 2001.” This was stated yesterday by Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, the British security agency. Intelligence services must not dwell on past threats, but accept the idea that a “new strategic shock”, along the lines of the 11 September attacks, may already be in the pipeline in areas beyond their scrutiny. “We know that the next strategic shock, by definition, will not resemble the previous one,” McCallum wrote in The Independent. “The uncomfortable truth is that the next strategic shock may already be taking shape somewhere we are not yet looking.”

McCallum cited the example of a terrorist plot foiled in recent months, which aimed to kill hundreds of people through armed attacks against the Jewish community in Manchester (where there was a deadly attack on a synagogue during Yom Kippur).

After the Burnham government approved a series of sanctions against Israeli settlements, the former British Minister for Security, Tom Tugendhat, revealed: “Israel is one of our most important intelligence partners and has been for many, many years. I can tell you, as Security Minister, that many attacks have been foiled thanks to our cooperation with Israel, which has helped us to protect British citizens from terrorist attacks”.

And yet, it seems that we Europeans have learnt very little since 11 September. We persist in the illusion that we can trade collective security for an unblemished conscience. Israel teaches us the opposite: the survival of democracies demands realism, not moral self-indulgence. And those who abandon their most effective allies in the name of ostentatious virtue do not achieve innocence; they merely become more vulnerable.