Another night in London and another modestly-attended protest in support of Britain’s beleaguered Jews and of Israel. Wednesday night’s event was organised outside New Scotland Yard by Campaign Against Antisemitism. The object? To protest at the Metropolitan Police’s submission to the genocidal chanting and exhortations to “jihad” of a large proportion of those marching in support of Palestinians. These events have taken place at successive weekends and another is expected in London on Saturday October 28th.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, following a meeting with ministers, explained to Sky News on Monday this week that his force was “absolutely ruthless” in enforcing the law. His officers, however, could do nothing if the law was inadequate. If someone steps over the line, they are quick to arrest. “But,” Sir Mark went on to reflect, “maybe some of the lines aren’t quite in the right place.” He went on to blame U.K. legislation for its laxity in allowing “extremist groups to steer round those laws.”
Rowley has a valid point when he says that Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Germany but most British Jews watching him will have been sickened at his disavowal of the Met’s responsibility. The fact is, extremist groups have not had to worry about steering around the law at all – the Met has simply retreated abjectly to save them the trouble. It has redefined what constitutes a crime in order to excuse itself from the difficulty of having to confront a large mob.
Consider the Metropolitan’s social media announcement on Friday October 20th, ahead of Saturday’s March.
Of the plainly genocidal ‘river to the sea’ chant, the Met said:
While we can envisage scenarios where chanting these words could be unlawful, such as outside a synagogue or Jewish school, or directly at a Jewish person or group intended to intimidate, it is likely that its use in a wider protest setting, such as we anticipate this weekend, would not be an offence and would not result in arrests.
Following the weekend’s protests, after “jihad” was widely chanted, the Met said that “the word jihad has a number of meanings”.
While arguably beyond parody, this was neatly sent up by the Daily Telegraph sketch writer Tim Stanley:
And what are we to make of those activists shouting for jihad whom the Met declined to arrest because, according to its finest theologians, jihad has “a number of meanings”? For me it suggests the name of a balmy port in Oman, of nights of perfume and satin, caressed by Arabian breezes. For others it means “kill all Jews” – and the inability to infer the bleeding obvious exposes a moral blindness in British society.
Rather than enforcing an inadequate set of laws as Rowley suggests, the Met is falling over itself to deny that any laws, such as Section 12 of the Public Order Act, are being broken. You can see the cognitive dissonance in Rowley’s face as he describes his force as ruthless. In reality, the Met has had to acknowledge that it is powerless in the face of marches on the scale of those taking place in London on successive weekends. Rather than say this aloud, it has had to rationalise non-arrests for chants exhorting genocide and armed aggression.
As the protest outside New Scotland Yard heard, the Met has also closed down protests in support of Jews and Israel – such as Campaign for Antisemitism’s Israeli hostage poster vans and marches organised by Christian Action Against Antisemitism – under the pretext of protecting Jewish protestors from antagonists.
British Jews are not facing anything on the scale of what Israelis have experienced since October 7th. Nevertheless, the craven failure of the Metropolitan Police has normalised behaviour that should unequivocally result in arrests. The boundaries have been redrawn in favour of intimidation and naked antisemitism. Some potential jihadists will be heartened by the lack of consequences for their behaviour to date. There has already been one terrorist attack attributed to events in Gaza – swiftly hushed up and unreported. One can only imagine where this is heading if we do not see a reversal of the Met’s approach. Given the level of self-deception on display from Sir Mark Rowley, is he the man to do it?
Ian Price is a Business Psychologist. Find him on X (Twitter).
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Pretty sure if this lady had stood in the city shouting ”Jihad!” or ”Gas the Jews!” the police would have left her well alone. I mean, she wasn’t even in possession of an ISIS flag or anything..
”Isabel Vaughan-Spruce has been given a fixed penalty notice by the Thought Police.
Clearly not protesting.
Clearly not harassing anyone.
Clearly causing no harm.
Arrested for silently praying in her head, again!”
https://twitter.com/calvinrobinson/status/1717493319062700209
If she’s not promoting conflict then she’s not useful. There’s nothing contradictory or unusual in this situation if Christianity needs to be removed.
Well I’m just wondering if I’ve misjudged the Scots, going by these Celtic fans, and many are onboard with Yousaf in wishing to take in Palestinian refugees. Only a tiny snapshot mind, as I don’t know what the rest of the stadium looked like. Wonder how many Israeli flags there were present… But how many went out of their way to buy these then smuggle them in? Just odd behaviour really. You’re there to watch a footie match for crying out loud!
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1717279440315593158
My understanding is they have a history of showing their support for Palestinians.
There’s more than one football team with supporters in Scotland so on that basis alone, a selection of Celtic fans do not equate to “the Scots”.
A lot of Celtic fans identify with their ‘Northern Irish roots’, and are very pro Irish Republican…
This article might explain the situation a bit better….
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/10/23/news/ireland_s_support_for_palestine_an_explainer-3720414/
Historic relationship between Palestine and Northern Ireland
I know where you’re coming from! I’m staggered and beggering an answer!
Is there an equivalent opposite to gas the Jews? …roast the Palistinians maybe?
If there is, I’ve not heard a jew/Israeli chant such a thing?
Come on ebygum,! Call me out on this you yorkshire tyke! Strong int arm!
You know the rest!
Double standards yes. However exhorting police to go after free speech acts with more prosecutions is foolish and hypocritical.
Especially given the founder of this publication is head of the FSU, I’m surprised there’s so much of these types of posts.
I agree. I would like to see some more clarity on where DS and the FSU think free speech ends. Can they draw up a set of words that is clear enough for it not to be abused to restrict any speech the regime doesn’t like?
Just as with Nigel Farage vs NatWest, free speech is about what people are willing to do and not about what they’re willing to suffer. Him promoting the idea of declaring all Europeans hiterhto legally living in Britain illegal aliens, and thus, liable to be deported within a fortnight (No deal is better than a bad deal) — absolutely fine. Bank employees joking about him suffering a similar fate at their hands — Bring in the cavalary, they’re evil and try to oppress me!
Listen to the DS podcast, which is particularly good this week and gives you more idea of where DS and the FSU are on this….
Thanks
I started listening. So far it sounds like they want the pro-Palestine demonstrations stopped, or at least toned down, and are happy for the law to be used to do so. Is there a part where they discuss whether that same law could be “abused”? It just sounds like they believe in freedom of speech only when the speech is something they agree with or if it’s something they disagree with then it mustn’t be “beyond the pale”.
I’m afraid, on this one I am with the Met.
If there are literally thousands of people breaking the law at the same time and the same place, then there is a bigger problem that doesn’t get solved with policing.
I for one do not want to live in a country that has a police force scaled for mass arrests.of thousands.
If successive governments have been lax in letting in people into the country that have customs, opinions and beliefs we find distasteful, it isn’t on to expect the police to mop up the consequences. And I certainly don’t want rhe country turned into a police state.
Perhaps this is an opportunity our so called leaders and our institutions like the BBC to reflect on what they’ve promoted and whether it’s time to reconsider.
It won’t happen, but that’s what should happen.
But there is so much hypocrisy at play — The Police warned people with an English flag (in England) fair enough if they said it was to contain the crowd with stretched resources but they stated we can’t allow “racism” implying the flag is racist.
There is indeed hypocrisy at play but I believe we must stick to our guns and be very careful what speech we decide is OK to restrict to the bare minimum that is beneficial. As I said earlier I’d like DS/FSU to be clearer where they stand on this. I’ve seen a lot of references to hypocrisy, to condemning the actions of the Hamas attackers, to expressing solidarity with British Jews – all well and good but what do they want to see done about “pro Palestinian” speech, protests etc? I am personally not keen on some of the more excessive stuff and think there are a lot of people in this country that we’d be better off not having let in, but my personal views should not dictate what people are allowed to say and whether those people should be here is another matter entirely.
..agreed….when I was on the anti-lockdown March in London, I had a sign saying our Government were killers!! …. There were banners and signs saying all sorts of things..that’s the nature of protest….I didn’t go home and then kill someone!!
I believe this is because we now live in a world where you cannot criticise Israel….. at all….….and if you can someone will have to point out how..because every bit of conversation I see is getting shut down….…..
Israel have refused to issue visa’s to the UN now, because they are unhappy with Guterres’s speech….they’ve taken Greta Thunberg’s name out of all the school books…for goodness sake….it’s a dire situation as far as any speech goes never mind free speech…
I think it’s untrue to say you cannot criticise Israel. I think it depends what circles you move in. It’s true to say that criticism of Israel gets conflated with anti-Jewish racism – surely it’s sometimes racism and sometimes not, as with so many things in this world.
Yes, a non Jewish person who expresses an anti Zionist viewpoint will almost always be labelled as being anti-Jewish. This is a ridiculous accusation as there are many Jewish anti-Zionists. The ADL appears to have been very successful in using their incredibly powerful influence in ensuring that all criticism of Israel is anti-Jewish.
The waters are muddied I think because some will doubtless use “anti zionism” as a cover for their racist views, in the same way that “anti colonialism” is often a cover for directing hate towards white people for being white.
It’s a tricky one – obviously one should try to be as objective as possible, and blanket hatred is dangerous and stupid, but equally I think races, countries, cultures and civilisations do tend to somewhat look down on ones that they think are less “successful” than they are, and to be envious of those that are more “successful” and that envy turns to hatred. I think that’s natural. Also just because you’re a bit racist too doesn’t mean you don’t have a point.
Yes, it does often seem that you cannot criticise Israel without being called out as anti-Jewish. ‘You are with us or against us’ appears to be the default position. Rather like ‘THE science’ or ‘THE science is settled’ in relation to those who dare to challenge the official narrative on Covid and climate change
During the huge anti lockdown marches no one was breaking the law. The police still arrested at least 10 people were arrested for nothing so the media could have their headline: “10 people arrested at anti vaxxer protest.”
Soft voice, reasonable tones, smiling but a man who failed to do his primary duty of protecting from harm.
Jihad means one thing and he’s hiding his wokist Met behind a dictionary. Muslims know what it means, so do Jews.
The modern ‘police service’ never fails to fail.
It never failed on Lockdown protesters, even when the protesters are in their 90s.
“the Met has had to acknowledge that it is powerless in the face of marches on the scale of those taking place in London on successive weekends”
The Met were far from powerless when much bigger Lockdown protests were taking place 2- 3 years ago which they ‘dismantled’ with heavily tooled up thugs imported from God knows where.
There were rows and rows, battalions of ‘tooled up thugs’ and they seemed very motivated to stamp on lockdown protestors free speech and rights to peaceful protest.
Let’s remember the police kneel to ‘build large mansions’, of whom were shown to be present in the marchers; last weekend . Visible was their parachute symbolism link to BLM in the crowd.
Perhaps these same police officers are not going to police what they support ? rather than a legal basis of policing.
I do hope they are not worried about being called racist so don’t act, which does not bode well as results show in recent times.
but lethal silent praying needs an immediate charge!
weak men …
They should bring in the blond Nana with the “boyish” haircut from West Yorkshire Police. With her pepper spray. She would soon sort out any over enthusiastic demonstrators. Or at least temporarily blind them.
Yes, but only if they are young autistic girls
She ran amok the other day while policing some kind of street disturbance. She was clearly out of control, what the snowflakes would call ‘triggered’
My mother – a JP for 25 years – used to say “You can tell a good copper: they fill a doorway well – no matter what size they are.” I can’t see Sir Mark passing this excellent test.
There is no such thing as a genocidal chant. And would-be Jihadis are marching in Britain because they’re lacking the power to do anything more substantial. Hordes of toddlers having a psychologically liberating tantrum.
Police probably can’t cope ( except when the indigenous are freedom marching ) but Cressida Dicksplash was a piss take now there’s “PC” Rowley when what we need is a uninformed testosterone charged Sean Connery type , in his pomp to tidy things up !!..
Uniformed ffs
Just questioning if this would be acceptable as free speech, if it was the other way around…..or if it would bring Police to the door….and this is on Prime Time TV?
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-jesse-watters-i-dont-how-people-try-differentiate-between-palestinians-and-hamas
I certainly heard the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” at the non-Islamic, pro-Palestine demonstration in Leeds on 14 September. But is it “plainly genocidal”? I think it could fairly be interpreted as a call for a single, Palestinian-dominated state west of the Jordan. For those who don’t know, a single, Jewish-dominated state in the same area was in the platform of the Likud party when last formulated and is explicitly the policy of their recent coalition partners Otzma Yehudit.
Since the current crisis began, the Daily Sceptic has published or extensively quoted with approval a good deal which I find exceedingly tendentious. In particular there has been a persistent tendency to represent Palestinian sympathies as support for Hamas and to conflate small protests organised by groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir with much larger ones organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Net Zelensky puzzled me. Net Zionism puzzles me more. Is it about Israel-Palestine at all? Or is it about Anglo-Jewish views on the internal politics of the Labour party, so entertainingly voiced by Maureen Lipman, reviving the now widowed Beattie, in a video which circulated a few years ago?
Can we get the real British police force back again? The ones that clipped me round the tab and sent me on my way home with the threat of “I’ll tell your dad!” (PC Petford) Jesus’s! Instilled the fear of god!
Not such a bad thing?
Do any civil servants stand by their beliefs anymore?
!
Or do they just regurgitate what their told to say?
Give us a leader