Police in London on Sunday moved an anti-Israel protest rally away from the central synagogue where the demonstrators had gathered.
Dozens of protesters outside St. John’s Wood Synagogue were resituated while “their ‘protest’ continued around the corner. Once again, a red line has been crossed in Britain,” wrote the Campaign Against Antisemitism group in a statement about the incident, which reportedly involved Jewish and non-Jewish anti-Israel protesters.
Earlier on Sunday, the police issued a statement that “there is no legal mechanism to ban the protest from taking place; however, we have used Public Order Act conditions to prevent disorder and disruption. Anyone participating in the protest must not enter” an area directly outside the synagogue.
A counterprotest by another protest—Stop the Hate—was also banned from approaching the synagogue, police said.
The police’s intervention followed calls by the Campaign Against Antisemitism and other Jewish community groups to impose restrictions on the anti-Israel protesters after their mobilization was revealed on Sunday.
“It is profoundly alarming that ‘Free Palestine’ groups have called on their followers to make sure that they look ‘visibly Jewish’ and protest at a synagogue filled with families and children attending various events, including an early evening choral concert,” the Campaign Against Antisemitism wrote in a statement. “Were it not for the actions of the police, the synagogue would have been the scene of a confrontational protest at its gates.”
Protesting at a synagogue, and encouraging protesters to look “visibly Jewish,” must “be a red line,” the statement read. “This performative intimidation has no impact on events thousands of miles away but has an immense impact on British Jews at a time when we are still reeling from the murder of Jews at Heaton Park Synagogue just a few weeks ago on Yom Kippur.”
Reports of an anti-Israel rally surfaced on social networks, including Instagram. The Pal_Pulse account included instructions to the protesters, including instructions to appear Jewish.
“We have been direct in saying that this is absolutely unacceptable,” the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote in a separate statement on Sunday about the planned protest.
“After the disgraceful scenes outside a synagogue in New York last week, and outside the JW3 [Jewish community center in London] last year, it is clear that the ugly, extremist and antisemitic face of parts of the global pro-Palestine movement, determined to wreck cohesion and spread hate and chaos on our streets, has gone unchecked for too long,” the Board’s statement also said.
On Nov. 19, dozens of demonstrators chanted about intimidating “Zionists” during an anti-Israel rally outside the Park East Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, with the intention of “making Jews scared.”
They did so while the Nefesh B’nefesh group, which helps Jews make aliyah, or immigrate to Israel, was holding an information session inside the synagogue. “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” one masked chanter said.
