He wasn't "simply crossing the road", he is an activist who was obviously looking to provoke exactly this situation.
As anyone who has been to these rallies knows there are huge numbers of jews marching each time because they don't want to be associated with the atrocities being carried out in their name.
I actually think I saw this guy once walking against the flow of the march, in the middle of the road, with some kind of pro-israeli placard. At the time I felt respect for him but it's pretty clear now he'll have had someone going along filming, and was trawling for some kind of reaction.
The fact his first bite was from a police officer, not a protester, should tell you all you need about how jews are treated on these marches.
Wait, so not only was he "openly Jewish", in your opinion he was "obviously looking to provoke exactly this situation"! Banged to rights then, he should have been arrested. Your Guardian source claims that he is an "anti-Semitism campaigner" and I believe that is correct. The Guardian also says: "Falter said he had been walking in the capital after attending synagogue and was not there to counter-protest." He may be lying, but this is beside the point. The point, as Falter says, in that same Guardian article is:
Falter said afterwards: “Despite being told repeatedly that London is safe for Jews when these marches are taking place, my interactions with police officers last Saturday show that the Met believes that being openly Jewish will antagonise the anti-Israel marchers and that Jews need protection, which the police cannot guarantee.
“Instead of addressing that threat of antisemitic violence, the Met’s policy instead seems to be that law-abiding Jewish Londoners should not be in the parts of London where these marches are taking place. In other words, that they are no-go zones for Jews.”
Every week, these pro Hamas terrorist demonstrators march through London, openly chanting racist, violent, anti-Semitic views. They are not just demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. They are not peaceful. Yet the police allow the marches to continue. So who is provoking who? The marches are an affront to public order and should be stopped now; then the police will not have to interfere with the rights of 'openly Jewish' Londoners - whether they are simply going about their day or 'being openly provocative in a public space by deliberately crossing the road during a pro-Palestine march' - in order to prevent them from being attacked by a violent mob who the police admit they cannot control.
Well I've been to those marches and your characterisation of them is completely wrong. They have been uniformly peaceful and non-sectarian.
As I say - but you don't address - there are significant numbers of openly jewish people among the marchers. And I saw someone - I strongly suspect it was the same guy - literally walking against the flow with a pro-Israel placard. Even in this situation, far from "being attacked by a violent mob" he was treated with full respect.
It is simply untrue to say these marches are in any way unsafe for jews. Have you been to any of them?
In an interview with Sky News, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, called the behaviour “odious”.
“What we’ve seen in the last few weeks is tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of Britain chanting jihad, calling for the erasure of Israel and behaving in many instances in a flagrantly anti-Semitic manner. To me, those are incredibly offensive and it’s utterly odious behaviour,” Mrs Braverman said.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said on Saturday night: “London has been brought to a standstill for a fourth week by a lawless mob blocking key junctions, closing down train station, calling for an intifada, celebrating Hamas terrorism, and surrounding police when they tried to intervene.”
The spokesman added: “We were promised tougher policing this weekend but the police were much less visible this week, as the crowd shouted genocidal chants and terrorist-supporting literature was distributed. When police did make an arrest, the crowd surrounded their van demanding that their comrade be released.”
The group raised serious concerns about bigger protests planned for Armistice Day next Saturday, adding: “We cannot tolerate yet another weekend of London becoming a no-go zone for Jews.”
‘Utterly disgusting’
Lord Austin, an independent peer who quit the Labour Party over antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said: “It is utterly disgusting to see people on the streets of London glorifying the worst terror attacks - the brutal massacre of innocent civilians - just a few weeks ago. The public must help the police identify these people so they can be arrested and prosecuted.”
I don't attend street protests. Not my thing. Those that you have attended may well have been 'mostly peaceful' but you are just one person, attending just some marches, at specific locations, so your personal experience is just a snapshot of reality. If the police themselves did not feel that there was the threat of the protestors reacting violently to the presence of an 'openly Jewish' man then they would obviously have not felt the need to threaten him with arrest to prevent a breach of the peace.
You are completely discounting what I am telling you I have witnessed at these marches, and instead basing your opinion entirely on reports from the mainstream media. Seriously, have we learned nothing from the last few years?
I say again, these marches have large numbers of openly jewish people. It is complete nonsense to say that they are in any way threatening to jewish people.
I obviously was not "completely discounting" what you were telling me. I was pointing out that your personal experience of the marches may not necessarily be representative. Neither of course are media reports necessarily representative, but if the testimony of numerous people, including the former Home Secretary, plus actual photos and video are to be believed, some marchers' actions were very threatening to Jewish people. I also reiterate my point: if the Metropolitan Police themselves did not believe that there was a real threat to the safety of Jews in the vicinity of the marches, then they would hardly be stopping innocent (or deliberately provocative) Jews from crossing the road would they?
Oh, please. These Zionists are shooting babies, starving millions, bombing hospitals and you are painting them as victims? What a sick mentality. There is no equivalency here.
People who naively take lies for truth are no less a problem than the sleezebags who spread the falsehoods. Lenin invented the perfect term to describe the poor fools who are so easily deceived: "useful idiots." They are the sheep who demonstrate against the barriers that restrict free movement for wolves. Today's Queers for Hamas, people who would be thrown off a rooftop ten minutes after they arrived in Gaza.
The Israelis have not shot babies or starved millions or bombed hospitals. If you believe any of that and protest against it, you are living proof that Lenin was onto something...
Your comment makes no sense at all. I'm pointing out the failure of British policing on our streets. I am not painting anyone or any group as victims, and certainly not "Zionists" who are "shooting babies, starving millions, bombing hospitals". I am patently NOT drawing an equivalence between a Jewish man being threatened with arrest for crossing the road and the mass killing of men, women and children in Gaza, though I note you neglect to mention another group of victims in this drama - the Jews who were butchered, murdered and raped in Israel by Hamas terrorists.
Israel has always supported Hamas, precisely because it needed them to provide this kind of pretext to justify their continued clearance of non-jews from palestine.
Don't believe me? Here's Benjamin Netanyahu:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,”
The whole project of palestine as a jewish homeland clearly cannot work unless it is substantially cleared of non-jews. That process is ongoing since 1948 and it could be completed in the next decade or so I guess. It is genuinely mystifying to me that this simple logic should be considered controversial.
Netanyahu's comment has to be taken in context. It's a standard tactic that antisemites use to discredit the Jewish state and create animosity towards Jews. There's no need to cherry-pick quotes from the Arab media: it's filled to overflowing with incitements to Jewish genocide and unvarnished hatred. Spend an hour or two on Memri or PalWatch which provide translations from the Arabic and see if you stand it without puking.
Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East where equal rights for all minority groups are guaranteed by law. The Arab population in Israel has grown continuously since 1948. As have the populations of Ba'Hai, Druze, Christians and other minorities who have found sanctuary in Israel. The Jewish population in the surrounding Arab countries and in the Palestinian Territories is generally under 1%. Why? Because Jews there are murdered as a matter of course.
Try to expand your knowledge base beyond the scope of websites that exist mainly to vilify the Jews and facilitate the destruction of the world's only Jewish majority state.
"Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East where equal rights for all minority groups are guaranteed by law"
By my understanding if you are born palestinian in the occupied territory you are effectively under martial law, with the IDF as judge jury and executioner.
You yourself refer to it as "a jewish state". It's explicitly based on racial superiority and purity. It is a source of constant tragic amusement to me that such an arrangement is remotely countenanced in the modern age. If the arabs outnumbered jews and voted for islamic policies do you think that would be just fine?
The whole project only works if you can clear out the natives. The arab population may have grown but they have been herded into effective concentration camps like Gaza, while settlers illegally bulldoze their villages and build their own.
"If the arabs outnumbered jews and voted for islamic policies do you think that would be just fine?" There are more than 20 Arab states where precisely such a situation exists. Jews who lived there were forcibly expelled. Islamic law is enforced and Jews are unwelcome.. Why doesn't this disturb your tranquility? Why don't you spend your time denouncing the unfairness of the ethnic cleansing that was carried out? The answer is quite simple: you only care about pointing out the breadcrumb sins of the Jews and you give the Arabs a pass because you are an antisemite. Case closed.
This is of course another argument. I do not support the Israeli government at all after their betrayal and murder of Jewish citizens during the Covid 'pandemic'. I remain very deeply suspicious of how Israeli intelligence services and border control failed to prevent this blatant incursion of Hamas terrorists into Israel. But the massacre, mass rape and butchery of 1300 Israeli citizens happened and the atrocity was carried out by Hamas terrorists. The pro Palestinian marchers in London either openly support that massacre or they deny that it happened, or was anywhere near as bad as reported. I also do not support our government sending arms to Israel in order to pursue this war. But none of this exonerates the Metropolitan Police for their conduct, or the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for his failure to ensure the safety of Londoners.
Well I am a pro palestinian marcher and I do not deny what you are referring to - though I am fairly confident israel's PR dept will be absolutely exploiting it to the max, and stuff like "babies in ovens" is obviously pure fabrication and propaganda, I hope we can agree on that.
But also, how many palestinian deaths does this justify? Israel effectively says 'all of them' because they have to kill every last hamas 'terrorist' and they are distributed throughout the population.
I agree that it is 'suspicious' that israel didn't know about this. And it fits the pattern of their tactics since 1948: allow or provoke some attack, spin it to the max, and use that to justify the next land seizures and clearances / exterminations.
Since you raise the T word I must point out that any armed resistance to state level military action will always be called terrorism by that state. Eg any actions by the ANC in SA, native americans vs USA, french resistance vs Nazis etc would all reasonably be labelled as terrorism by the state side - but these groups are also equally reasonably called freedom fighters by anyone who thinks the state is acting immorally.
Israel is obviously committing ethnic cleansing and clearance of palestine. Massacre after massacre, with the clear objective of total elimination of the native population of palestine. I honestly don't know how anyone can pretend to themselves otherwise - and I haven't heard you make any arguments to the contrary. In that context Hamas are clearly freedom fighters.
Are not Gideon and the “protestors" not one and the same, there to incite violence on the part of the other? The police caught in the middle but tending to tyranny, natural for them, in response it is easier for them to put a stop to the potential of violence by arresting one guy rather than trying to stop a much larger crowd? Gideon also a hypocrite for his getting Tommy Robinson arrested previously when he was just as provocative (this word is relevant to the crowd and both Tommy and Gideon knew that they were being provocative)
And I don’t see much to get offended by with the original Met statement.
Robinson's presence at the anti-Semitism march was not provocative though; he publicly supported Jews against Islamic prejudice and aggression. Falter decided simply that having such an ally as Tommy Robinson commenting and recording on the march was 'undesirable', given his unearned reputation for being a 'far right' nationalist bully boy. Norman Fenton, himself a Jew, publicly came out in support of Tommy Robinson at the time and criticised some members of the Jewish community for getting Robinson arrested.
Clearly pressure has been applied and they’ve then had to follow through with a “sorry sir” statement which puts at question their ability to police properly. So on the one hand we have brownshirts on the street and on the other hand we have the powerful essentially stopping the police from being able to act independently and having to think through every possible “micro aggression” or “offense".
Next: "You are obviously white and your presence here is likely to cause a breach of the peace"; "You are obviously heterosexual and male and your presence here is likely to cause a breach of the peace"; "You are obviously Christian . . . . . " etc. etc.
He wasn't "simply crossing the road", he is an activist who was obviously looking to provoke exactly this situation.
As anyone who has been to these rallies knows there are huge numbers of jews marching each time because they don't want to be associated with the atrocities being carried out in their name.
I actually think I saw this guy once walking against the flow of the march, in the middle of the road, with some kind of pro-israeli placard. At the time I felt respect for him but it's pretty clear now he'll have had someone going along filming, and was trawling for some kind of reaction.
The fact his first bite was from a police officer, not a protester, should tell you all you need about how jews are treated on these marches.
Source for him being an activist: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/apr/19/met-apologises-for-calling-antisemitism-campaigner-openly-jewish
Wait, so not only was he "openly Jewish", in your opinion he was "obviously looking to provoke exactly this situation"! Banged to rights then, he should have been arrested. Your Guardian source claims that he is an "anti-Semitism campaigner" and I believe that is correct. The Guardian also says: "Falter said he had been walking in the capital after attending synagogue and was not there to counter-protest." He may be lying, but this is beside the point. The point, as Falter says, in that same Guardian article is:
Falter said afterwards: “Despite being told repeatedly that London is safe for Jews when these marches are taking place, my interactions with police officers last Saturday show that the Met believes that being openly Jewish will antagonise the anti-Israel marchers and that Jews need protection, which the police cannot guarantee.
“Instead of addressing that threat of antisemitic violence, the Met’s policy instead seems to be that law-abiding Jewish Londoners should not be in the parts of London where these marches are taking place. In other words, that they are no-go zones for Jews.”
Every week, these pro Hamas terrorist demonstrators march through London, openly chanting racist, violent, anti-Semitic views. They are not just demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. They are not peaceful. Yet the police allow the marches to continue. So who is provoking who? The marches are an affront to public order and should be stopped now; then the police will not have to interfere with the rights of 'openly Jewish' Londoners - whether they are simply going about their day or 'being openly provocative in a public space by deliberately crossing the road during a pro-Palestine march' - in order to prevent them from being attacked by a violent mob who the police admit they cannot control.
Well I've been to those marches and your characterisation of them is completely wrong. They have been uniformly peaceful and non-sectarian.
As I say - but you don't address - there are significant numbers of openly jewish people among the marchers. And I saw someone - I strongly suspect it was the same guy - literally walking against the flow with a pro-Israel placard. Even in this situation, far from "being attacked by a violent mob" he was treated with full respect.
It is simply untrue to say these marches are in any way unsafe for jews. Have you been to any of them?
I see, 'mostly peaceful' marches except for chants of "from the river to the sea" and the wearing of paraglider images:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/16/suella-braverman-rows-anti-israel-chant/
'Mostly peaceful':
In an interview with Sky News, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, called the behaviour “odious”.
“What we’ve seen in the last few weeks is tens of thousands of people taking to the streets of Britain chanting jihad, calling for the erasure of Israel and behaving in many instances in a flagrantly anti-Semitic manner. To me, those are incredibly offensive and it’s utterly odious behaviour,” Mrs Braverman said.
A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said on Saturday night: “London has been brought to a standstill for a fourth week by a lawless mob blocking key junctions, closing down train station, calling for an intifada, celebrating Hamas terrorism, and surrounding police when they tried to intervene.”
The spokesman added: “We were promised tougher policing this weekend but the police were much less visible this week, as the crowd shouted genocidal chants and terrorist-supporting literature was distributed. When police did make an arrest, the crowd surrounded their van demanding that their comrade be released.”
The group raised serious concerns about bigger protests planned for Armistice Day next Saturday, adding: “We cannot tolerate yet another weekend of London becoming a no-go zone for Jews.”
‘Utterly disgusting’
Lord Austin, an independent peer who quit the Labour Party over antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said: “It is utterly disgusting to see people on the streets of London glorifying the worst terror attacks - the brutal massacre of innocent civilians - just a few weeks ago. The public must help the police identify these people so they can be arrested and prosecuted.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/04/israel-palestine-protest-london-march-today-live/
I don't attend street protests. Not my thing. Those that you have attended may well have been 'mostly peaceful' but you are just one person, attending just some marches, at specific locations, so your personal experience is just a snapshot of reality. If the police themselves did not feel that there was the threat of the protestors reacting violently to the presence of an 'openly Jewish' man then they would obviously have not felt the need to threaten him with arrest to prevent a breach of the peace.
You are completely discounting what I am telling you I have witnessed at these marches, and instead basing your opinion entirely on reports from the mainstream media. Seriously, have we learned nothing from the last few years?
I say again, these marches have large numbers of openly jewish people. It is complete nonsense to say that they are in any way threatening to jewish people.
I obviously was not "completely discounting" what you were telling me. I was pointing out that your personal experience of the marches may not necessarily be representative. Neither of course are media reports necessarily representative, but if the testimony of numerous people, including the former Home Secretary, plus actual photos and video are to be believed, some marchers' actions were very threatening to Jewish people. I also reiterate my point: if the Metropolitan Police themselves did not believe that there was a real threat to the safety of Jews in the vicinity of the marches, then they would hardly be stopping innocent (or deliberately provocative) Jews from crossing the road would they?
Oh, please. These Zionists are shooting babies, starving millions, bombing hospitals and you are painting them as victims? What a sick mentality. There is no equivalency here.
People who naively take lies for truth are no less a problem than the sleezebags who spread the falsehoods. Lenin invented the perfect term to describe the poor fools who are so easily deceived: "useful idiots." They are the sheep who demonstrate against the barriers that restrict free movement for wolves. Today's Queers for Hamas, people who would be thrown off a rooftop ten minutes after they arrived in Gaza.
The Israelis have not shot babies or starved millions or bombed hospitals. If you believe any of that and protest against it, you are living proof that Lenin was onto something...
Your comment makes no sense at all. I'm pointing out the failure of British policing on our streets. I am not painting anyone or any group as victims, and certainly not "Zionists" who are "shooting babies, starving millions, bombing hospitals". I am patently NOT drawing an equivalence between a Jewish man being threatened with arrest for crossing the road and the mass killing of men, women and children in Gaza, though I note you neglect to mention another group of victims in this drama - the Jews who were butchered, murdered and raped in Israel by Hamas terrorists.
Israel has always supported Hamas, precisely because it needed them to provide this kind of pretext to justify their continued clearance of non-jews from palestine.
Don't believe me? Here's Benjamin Netanyahu:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,”
source: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-fostered-rise-hamas-preclude-two-state-solution
The whole project of palestine as a jewish homeland clearly cannot work unless it is substantially cleared of non-jews. That process is ongoing since 1948 and it could be completed in the next decade or so I guess. It is genuinely mystifying to me that this simple logic should be considered controversial.
Netanyahu's comment has to be taken in context. It's a standard tactic that antisemites use to discredit the Jewish state and create animosity towards Jews. There's no need to cherry-pick quotes from the Arab media: it's filled to overflowing with incitements to Jewish genocide and unvarnished hatred. Spend an hour or two on Memri or PalWatch which provide translations from the Arabic and see if you stand it without puking.
Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East where equal rights for all minority groups are guaranteed by law. The Arab population in Israel has grown continuously since 1948. As have the populations of Ba'Hai, Druze, Christians and other minorities who have found sanctuary in Israel. The Jewish population in the surrounding Arab countries and in the Palestinian Territories is generally under 1%. Why? Because Jews there are murdered as a matter of course.
Try to expand your knowledge base beyond the scope of websites that exist mainly to vilify the Jews and facilitate the destruction of the world's only Jewish majority state.
"Israel is the ONLY country in the Middle East where equal rights for all minority groups are guaranteed by law"
By my understanding if you are born palestinian in the occupied territory you are effectively under martial law, with the IDF as judge jury and executioner.
eg https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/12/17/born-without-civil-rights/israels-use-draconian-military-orders-repress
You yourself refer to it as "a jewish state". It's explicitly based on racial superiority and purity. It is a source of constant tragic amusement to me that such an arrangement is remotely countenanced in the modern age. If the arabs outnumbered jews and voted for islamic policies do you think that would be just fine?
The whole project only works if you can clear out the natives. The arab population may have grown but they have been herded into effective concentration camps like Gaza, while settlers illegally bulldoze their villages and build their own.
"If the arabs outnumbered jews and voted for islamic policies do you think that would be just fine?" There are more than 20 Arab states where precisely such a situation exists. Jews who lived there were forcibly expelled. Islamic law is enforced and Jews are unwelcome.. Why doesn't this disturb your tranquility? Why don't you spend your time denouncing the unfairness of the ethnic cleansing that was carried out? The answer is quite simple: you only care about pointing out the breadcrumb sins of the Jews and you give the Arabs a pass because you are an antisemite. Case closed.
This is of course another argument. I do not support the Israeli government at all after their betrayal and murder of Jewish citizens during the Covid 'pandemic'. I remain very deeply suspicious of how Israeli intelligence services and border control failed to prevent this blatant incursion of Hamas terrorists into Israel. But the massacre, mass rape and butchery of 1300 Israeli citizens happened and the atrocity was carried out by Hamas terrorists. The pro Palestinian marchers in London either openly support that massacre or they deny that it happened, or was anywhere near as bad as reported. I also do not support our government sending arms to Israel in order to pursue this war. But none of this exonerates the Metropolitan Police for their conduct, or the Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for his failure to ensure the safety of Londoners.
Well I am a pro palestinian marcher and I do not deny what you are referring to - though I am fairly confident israel's PR dept will be absolutely exploiting it to the max, and stuff like "babies in ovens" is obviously pure fabrication and propaganda, I hope we can agree on that.
But also, how many palestinian deaths does this justify? Israel effectively says 'all of them' because they have to kill every last hamas 'terrorist' and they are distributed throughout the population.
I agree that it is 'suspicious' that israel didn't know about this. And it fits the pattern of their tactics since 1948: allow or provoke some attack, spin it to the max, and use that to justify the next land seizures and clearances / exterminations.
Since you raise the T word I must point out that any armed resistance to state level military action will always be called terrorism by that state. Eg any actions by the ANC in SA, native americans vs USA, french resistance vs Nazis etc would all reasonably be labelled as terrorism by the state side - but these groups are also equally reasonably called freedom fighters by anyone who thinks the state is acting immorally.
Israel is obviously committing ethnic cleansing and clearance of palestine. Massacre after massacre, with the clear objective of total elimination of the native population of palestine. I honestly don't know how anyone can pretend to themselves otherwise - and I haven't heard you make any arguments to the contrary. In that context Hamas are clearly freedom fighters.
This too has been going on for a long time and allowed to continue. N
Are not Gideon and the “protestors" not one and the same, there to incite violence on the part of the other? The police caught in the middle but tending to tyranny, natural for them, in response it is easier for them to put a stop to the potential of violence by arresting one guy rather than trying to stop a much larger crowd? Gideon also a hypocrite for his getting Tommy Robinson arrested previously when he was just as provocative (this word is relevant to the crowd and both Tommy and Gideon knew that they were being provocative)
And I don’t see much to get offended by with the original Met statement.
Robinson's presence at the anti-Semitism march was not provocative though; he publicly supported Jews against Islamic prejudice and aggression. Falter decided simply that having such an ally as Tommy Robinson commenting and recording on the march was 'undesirable', given his unearned reputation for being a 'far right' nationalist bully boy. Norman Fenton, himself a Jew, publicly came out in support of Tommy Robinson at the time and criticised some members of the Jewish community for getting Robinson arrested.
Ah right, thanks.
Clearly pressure has been applied and they’ve then had to follow through with a “sorry sir” statement which puts at question their ability to police properly. So on the one hand we have brownshirts on the street and on the other hand we have the powerful essentially stopping the police from being able to act independently and having to think through every possible “micro aggression” or “offense".
I wonder if this has happened before….
Seems Lee Anderson was absolutely correct, doesn't it?
This is the modern Nazi warm up act.
Whenever you think that the Police couldn’t be any worse they take up the challenge and come up with something as grotesque as this.
One wonders what it will be next. You would have thought this was the apex of their pusillanimity but you never know.
Next: "You are obviously white and your presence here is likely to cause a breach of the peace"; "You are obviously heterosexual and male and your presence here is likely to cause a breach of the peace"; "You are obviously Christian . . . . . " etc. etc.
Reminded me of Not The Nine O'Clock News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo6hdKsa6ls
LOL. "Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing"; "Walking in a loud shirt in a built up area". Classic.