Police officers stood guard outside a synagogue in north-west London this week as rain slicked the pavement and the blue lights of patrol cars flashed against the brickwork. According to the Metropolitan Police, 25 arrests have now been made in connection with a series of arson attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli sites. The latest arrests, involving a 19-year-old and a 26-year-old man in Watford, highlight a disturbing resurgence of the old hatreds that once tore at the fabric of European civilization. These are not mere acts of property damage but assaults on the peace of the neighborhood and the sanctity of the faith community.

"Our investigations continue at pace," Senior National Coordinator of Counter Terrorism Policing Vicki Evans said in a statement. Per the BBC, the spree of violence began in March and has included the arson of four Hatzola ambulances and an attempted firebombing of the Finchley Reform Synagogue. In that instance, attackers threw a brick through a window and placed bottles of accelerant against the walls. This is the physical evidence of a world where the sacred is no longer respected, and the neighbor is viewed as an enemy.

This darkness is not confined to the capital. In Belfast, Northern Irish police have made an arrest after the nationalist group New IRA claimed responsibility for a car bomb targeting a police station, according to Al Jazeera. The group stated its intention was to kill officers as they exited the building. Read together, these events in London and Belfast describe a deepening fracture in the civil order. While the specific grievances differ, the shared entity of Counter Terrorism Policing moving between these scenes confirms that the threat of sectarian violence is no longer a ghost of the past but a present reality. The peace of the family table cannot survive if the street and the sanctuary are surrendered to the firebrand and the fuse.