UK: Anti-Israel protests go ahead despite pleas not to ‘stoke tension’

The Metropolitan Police arrested 488 people in London’s Trafalgar Square on Saturday for expressing support for the proscribed Palestine Action organization.

The Met urged organizers to call off the rally, held two days after two Jewish men were killed and three additional people were seriously wounded during a terrorist attack at a synagogue in Manchester.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that the demonstration “in support of a terrorist organization” comes at a time when communities across Britain, including in London, are dealing with “significant fear and concern.

“We want to be deploying every available officer to ensure the safety of those communities, [but] are instead having to plan for a gathering of more than 1,000 people in Trafalgar Square,” Rowley said.

The commissioner said the protest cannot be banned under the law. “Nor is there even the possibility for us to apply to the Home Secretary to ban static assemblies in the way there is—in very limited circumstances—for protest marches.”

Defend Our Juries, one of the groups behind the anti-Israel protests in Trafalgar Square, dismissed the Met’s request, writing in a reply letter, “We urge you to choose to prioritise protecting the community rather than arresting those peacefully holding signs in opposition to the absurd and draconian ban of a domestic direct action group,” The Guardian reported.

This is the third pro-Palestine Action protest in London in recent months.

A total of 1,422 people were arrested in the previous two demonstrations, according to the Met.

Photos posted by the Met on X showed several hundred people gathered in the square.

It tweeted: “The square is busy, but quite a few people in the crowd appear to be observing/supporting but not carrying placards themselves.”

The Terrorism Act 2000 makes it a criminal offense to belong to a proscribed group, with a penalty of up to 14 years in prison or a fine. Wearing clothing or displaying items supporting such a group could result in six months in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000 (~$6,700).

The designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was passed in July by a significant majority in the House of Commons (385 to 26), making it a crime to belong to or support Palestine Action—placing it on the same legal footing as groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on Saturday not to protest this weekend, asking in a tweet “to recognise and respect the grief of British Jews. This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain. It is a time to stand together.

“We are a country that welcomes all people, no matter their faith, to stand under the same flag as neighbours and friends. That is who we are and who we will always be. Hatred and violence will never win.”

On Thursday night, hours after the terrorist attack in Manchester, violent clashes between pro-Palestinian protesters and police took place outside the gates of No. 10 Downing Street in London.

The protest was aimed to express support for the activists on the protest vessels sailing for Gaza, which were stopped by the Israel Defense Forces the previous day.

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC on Friday she was “disappointed” that pro-Palestinian protests went ahead in the wake of the synagogue attack on Yom Kippur.

“I do think that carrying on in this way does feel un-British, it feels wrong,” she said about the protests planned for London and the Greater Manchester area over the weekend.

On Friday evening, the Met imposed conditions on protests expected to take place later that day outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, London.

The police outlined the designated area where protesters were allowed to assemble, as officers were to be deployed “to prevent serious disruption.”