Another week, another attack on British Jews; and rather than synagogues being petrol-bombed in the middle of the night, now it is ordinary Jews being stabbed in broad daylight. It’s been described as this country’s biggest national security emergency for almost a decade by the UK’s terrorism watchdog. Finding a solution will mean some hard questions, not just for government and police but for wider society too.

The immediate move is, of course, more policing and more funding for security. The first job of government is to protect its people, and this should be done without question. Prosecutions should be expedited through the courts, as they were with the riots that followed the Southport attack. But physical protection is, in a way, the easy part.

Cutting off the supply of antisemitic attacks is harder, and breaks in two directions. The Heaton Park synagogue attack was carried out by a supporter of Islamic State. Recent attacks in London have been claimed by a new group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), which looks very much like it is an Iranian-backed operation. This includes Wednesday’s Golders Green attack, though it is not yet clear whether HAYI is responsible. The policy solutions to these two sources of violent, Islamist antisemitism are different, but not unconnected.

If a hostile state is orchestrating violent attacks on British soil then there must be a forceful diplomatic response. If that state is Iran, then it is impossible to see how the Iranian ambassador can remain in this country. The government has promised to legislate so that it can proscribe state-linked entities.

The other source of threat is the sheer weight of violent incitement and hatred swirling in the air above Jewish communities right now. And this is where it gets more challenging.

For two and a half years, since the 7 October attacks, Jews in this country have experienced a growing wave of violent, hateful language that lands, one way or another, at our door. Much of this is linked to anger over Gaza and, on the surface at least, directed at Israel. You might be thinking that hating Israel is not the same as hating Jews, and in theory, you are right. In practice, it often does not divide that neatly. When incitement against “Zionists” reaches a certain point, attacks on Jews follow.

Anyway, anger on its own cannot explain this. Plenty of people are angry about what Russia has done in Ukraine, but Russian Orthodox churches do not need round-the-clock guarding. Marches in support of Ukraine are not marked by people chanting for violent resistance to Russia to be globalised. But when it comes to Israel, incitement seems to be present on every protest, even if it is not in the mind of every protester, and it rarely seems to be challenged either by protest organisers or by fellow marchers.

This kind of language is also being normalised in cultural spaces. Last summer Bob Vylan became famous for chanting “Death to the IDF”. At a gig in Amsterdam last year, they went further, shouting “Fuck the Zionists! Get out there and fight them! Get out there and meet them in the street.” At a gig in Spain, they said “We do support the right to an armed resistance. ’Cause we ain’t no fucking pacifists. We ain’t the nonviolent type.” In the US the band had their US visas revoked and their tour dates cancelled, but on this side of the Atlantic they were invited on to Louis Theroux’s podcast, and invited to the Irish parliament. They are due to headline two festivals in the UK this summer. (Bob Vylan have said they are “not for the death of Jews, Arabs, or any other race”, but “for the dismantling of a violent military machine”, and that their speech does not constitute hatred towards Jewish people.)

The government has an important role to play in this. Kanye West was prevented from performing at Wireless festival because the government denied him a visa. Venues that host antisemitic artists should lose Arts Council funding. A whole-society approach to tackling antisemitism means exactly this: pulling every lever available to set a standard that violent incitement and antisemitic extremism are no longer tolerated. It’s a low bar, but that’s where we are.

Extremist violence does not emerge from a vacuum. It is produced by ideas and language that demonises a target group and then – intentionally or not – ends up justifying and excusing violence against them. And it flourishes when people do nothing against it.

When it comes to violent attacks on Jews, this analysis is missing: progressive voices refuse to make the connection between violent language and violent acts. Instead, we get thoughts and prayers, and little else.

It’s as if antisemitism is a natural disaster, like a flood: offer sympathy to the victims, build the flood barriers a bit higher, but do nothing about the climate crisis that makes floods more likely and more deadly. We are at risk of doing the same with antisemitism, unless we address the extremist ideas that are driving it.

• Dave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security Trust and the author of Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into Our World – and How You Can Change it

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