As many as 32,000 people marched through central London on Dec. 8, demanding government action against antisemitism in the United Kingdom that has been rising since the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Participation numbers come according to the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which said the March Against Antisemitism was held despite “the stormy weather to make it clear that the fight for the future of British Jewry is essential for us all.”
“Over the past year, antisemitic hate crimes have quadrupled; Jews are now the most targeted faith minority in the country, despite our minuscule numbers,” a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism told JNS. “With extremism changing our country before our eyes, we know that the safety of our Jewish community is not something that we can take for granted.”
According to the Community Security Trust, 1,978 instances of Jew-hatred were recorded across the United Kingdom in the first six months of 2024. This is the highest January-to-June total ever reported to the organization, surpassing the previous record of 1,371 incidents in 2021.
For more than a year now, the two governments under the former and current prime ministers Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, respectively, have “dragged their feet, but we demand action,” the spokesperson said. “They must finally act against hate before it’s too late.”
Gideon Falter, CEO of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, told the crowd that they had invited government representatives “to march up front with us. We invited them to speak. We received no replies to our invitations.”
“The fight against antisemitism puts Jews on the frontlines of the battle for the future of the West,” he said. “It is a long frontline with many flashpoints, but should any part of it fail, the entire defense fails.”
Mark Birbeck, founder of Our Fight UK, a primarily non-Jewish organization committed to the fight for Israel and against antisemitism, told attendees that while anti-Israel protesters talk about the need to globalize the intifada, the British public needs to understand that the intifada is “already here.”
He noted in his remarks several terror attacks by Islamic radicals that have occurred in Great Britain in recent years, including a car-ramming incident on Westminster Bridge in 2017 and the 2021 murder of Parliament Minister David Amess.
“This fight is our fight, the fight against antisemitism, the fight against extremism, is our fight,” Birbeck said. “We need to stop the hate. We need to fight against extremism before it’s too late.”
