Since the Labour Party’s defeat in the 2019 General Election under the leadership of the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn, some of his most ardent supporters have sought to find a scapegoat. An idea has developed – similar to the historic “stab-in-the-back” myth – that it was the Jewish community and its supposedly false allegations of antisemitism that fatally undermined the Labour Party’s electoral ambitions. This idea has become known as “#ItWasAScam”.
The theory behind this idea is that allegations of antisemitism in Labour were a fraud, and represented an effort to smear Mr Corbyn, his supporters and the Labour Party under his leadership.
The notion that claims of antisemitism are disingenuous is the foundation of the “Livingstone Formulation”. Named after the controversial former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, the Livingstone Formulation is used to describe how allegations of antisemitism are dismissed as insincere and malevolent. Often, such allegations are portrayed as baseless attempts to silence criticism of Israel. In its report on antisemitism in the Labour Party, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found that suggestions of this nature were part of the unlawful victimisation of Jewish people in the Party.
Although #ItWasAScam has not been the only attempt to undermine the finding that the Labour Party had become institutionally racist against Jewish people, it has proved the most popular and enduring. It has trended repeatedly on X/Twitter in the years since 2019, and has often been referred to whenever the Labour Party has attempted to address antisemitism on the far-left of the Party.
As with most political myths, #ItWasAScam thrives on vagueness, capturing a feeling of injustice on the part of Mr Corbyn’s most blindly loyal supporters but rarely being elucidated with actual facts and argumentation. The principal exception to this trend is a document authored by the writer and activist Simon Maginn, who is believed to have coined and popularised the #ItWasAScam hashtag.
Given the popularity of this myth, and the distress that it has caused Jewish victims of Labour antisemitism, users of social media and the wider Jewish community, Mr Maginn’s (since deleted) document – originally posted on 11th April 2021 and later, in 2023, accompanied by a graphic tweet and series of videos – merits authoritative refutation. The document is titled “Top Ten Labour Antisemitism Smears”.
Before examining the ten items, it must be borne in mind that these are only ten instances in the scandal of Labour antisemitism, which was an unprecedented development in British politics that proceeded for several years in the national spotlight and which is still in the process of remediation. Some of these ten instances, selected by Mr Maginn, received considerable media attention when they arose; others did not. Why these ten have been chosen, as opposed to the countless other allegations of antisemitism in the Party, interviews with leading Labour officials or other instances that might have been included in the document, is not known. The failure even to address the fact that these are only a sample of such instances itself exposes the document to charges of strawmanning, in which Mr Maginn has addressed only those instances that were convenient for his purposes, rather than those that were not. Even so, his analysis of each of the ten chosen instances is deficient or inaccurate and invariably misleading.
Let’s see how.
10: Chris Williamson.
Claim: Mr Williamson, then an MP, said Labour had been ‘too apologetic for antisemitism’.
BBC’s Nick Robinson tweeted it. It’s still up today.
In fact, what Mr Williamson said was this:
“The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion…we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic…We’ve done more to address the scourge of antisemitism than any other party.”
Oddly, the last part of Mr Williamson’s statement, where he talks about ‘addressing the scourge of antisemitism’, doesn’t get quoted. This is called ‘clipping’ — extracting words from a longer speech in order to misrepresent it.
Transcript here: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/in-defence-of-chris-williamson/
Verdict: False
Analysis
Chris Williamson is a disgraced one-term Labour MP who was suspended from the Party before eventually resigning his membership and running as an Independent in the 2019 General Election. He received so few votes that, extraordinarily for an incumbent MP, he lost his deposit. Research by Campaign Against Antisemitism shows that Mr Williamson has been involved in numerous antisemitic incidents, and since his ejection from frontline politics, Mr Williamson can be found presenting a programme on the Iranian state propaganda channel, Press TV. He has also become the Deputy Leader of George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain.
Mr Williamson’s comments quoted here were made at an event in Sheffield organised by the pro-Corbyn pressure group, Momentum, in February 2019.
With regard to the substance of the comments, Labour’s history as an avowedly anti-racist party was no defence of its descent into institutional racism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Indeed, that very history made this development so distressing for those Jews and opponents of racism who had made the Labour Party their political home. Mr Williamson nevertheless contended that, in response to this scandal of antisemitism, the Party had been too defensive. In twisted logic, he argued that Labour had done more to address the scourge of antisemitism, seemingly without acknowledging that it was also by far the most antisemitic party, an assessment confirmed by both the Home Affairs Committee in 2016 and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2020. Both the Home Affairs Committee and the EHRC found that the Labour Party had in fact not been too apologetic for antisemitism but, on the contrary, had failed to identify and deal with antisemitism within the Party appropriately, despite numerous recommendations to improve its procedures.
In any event, this is all background to Mr Maginn’s obscure focus on a tweet by the BBC presenter Nick Robinson. Whether or not one tweet by one journalist half a year after they were made accurately represented the thrust of Mr Williamson’s remarks is immaterial. Mr Williamson’s remarks are available to watch, they were reported across the national media at the time that they were made, and they rapidly led to his suspension from the Labour Party.
Verdict: Not “false”.
9: Jackie Walker.
Claim: Ms Walker said ‘Jews controlled the slave trade’. Again, the BBC’s old reliable Nick Robinson said exactly this in a now-deleted tweet.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/tweet-by-nick-robinson-26-february-2019
In fact, what Ms Walker said was this: “Oh yes — and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both — on all sides as I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews… and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator”.
BBC finally retracted Mr Robinson’s accusation, describing it as ‘insufficiently accurate’, and Mr Robinson was required to delete his tweet, though in so doing, regrettably, made the further smear against Mr Williamson above.
He’s prolific.
Verdict: False
Analysis
Jackie Walker is a former Vice-Chair of Momentum whose case exemplified the institutionalisation of antisemitism in the Labour Party. She was initially suspended by Labour for repeating the Louis Farrakhan-inspired hoax that Jews were the “chief financiers of the slave trade”. That suspension was lifted in secrecy and without public explanation, with that mysterious exoneration being swiftly celebrated with a public embrace from the Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn. She went on to be suspended a second time for comments misrepresenting the inclusivity of Holocaust Memorial Day and for challenging the need for security at Jewish schools. After being suspended for over two and a half years, she was finally expelled in early 2019.
She has persistently claimed that complaints of antisemitism are part of a plot to destabilise Mr Corbyn’s leadership and has rejected the International Definition of Antisemitism. While contentiously claiming to be Jewish herself, she nevertheless alleged that Jews claim privileges at the expense of black people, at one point reportedly referring to Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge as “someone from the white millionaire elite” whom she accused of “black Jew baiting”.
She created a bizarre “Lynching” show, in which she claimed to be the victim of a “witch-hunt”, and toured it around the country – to applause, incidentally, from Chris Williamson. Meanwhile, leaders of the Party such as John McDonnell MP, then the Shadow Chancellor, have defended her. She was Chair of the antisemitism-denial group, Labour Against the Witchhunt, which was eventually proscribed by the Party.
Mr Maginn has again chosen to focus on a tweet by Nick Robinson, perhaps because the BBC’s admission that the tweet lacked sufficient context might mislead a reader of his document into thinking that portrayals of Ms Walker as an antisemite are without foundation. But the BBC’s assessment of Mr Robinson’s tweet does not in any way detract from Ms Walker’s record.
Ms Walker’s leading position in grassroots Labour groups, the Party’s reversal of her suspension and failure to expel her for several years, and her enduring popularity and influence among the far-left grassroots of the Party and even among some MPs on the far-left wing of the Party, all underscore her exemplification of Labour’s antisemitism scandal.
Verdict: Not “false”.
8: Irony.
Claim: Jeremy Corbyn said ‘Jews [or sometimes Zionists] don’t understand English irony.’
In fact what he said was this.
‘…the other evening we had a meeting in Parliament in which Manuel [the Palestinian Ambassador Manuel Hassassian] made an incredibly powerful and passionate and effective speech about the history of Palestine, the rights of the Palestinian people. This was dutifully recorded by the, thankfully silent, Zionists who were in the audience on that occasion [my emphasis]; and then came up and berated him afterwards for what he had said.
They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either. Manuel does understand English irony and uses it very very effectively. So I think they needed two lessons which we can perhaps help them with.’
You will note the (habitually) careful language: ‘the Zionists who were in the audience on that occasion.’ Unless you were one of the named self-identifying Zionist protesters who had disrupted the meeting in question, Mr Corbyn’s remarks about irony obviously do not apply to you. Indeed, one of the protesters, Richard Millett, is currently suing Mr Corbyn for libel — his entire case is that he is identifiable as one of the people Corbyn called ‘disruptive’ at the meeting. So unless you’re him, this isn’t about you. Or ‘Jews’. Or ‘Zionists’.
Transcript here: https://labourbriefing.org/blog/2018/8/29/full-texxt-of-that-speech-by-jeremy-on-zionists-and-a-sense-of-irony
Verdict: False.
Analysis
As research by Campaign Against Antisemitism has shown,Jeremy Corbyn has a long record of antisemitic incidents and associations with those who promote antisemitic conspiracy theories or intend harm to Jewish people. This background was increasingly known to the wider public when the historic comments quoted by Mr Maginn surfaced in the summer of 2018, which was also a time when the Labour Party was resisting adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism.
Mr Corbyn originally made the quoted remarks in a speech to a conference at the House of Commons in 2013, while he was still a backbench MP. Mr Maginn’s claim is that Mr Corbyn’s reference to “Zionists” was specific to certain individuals in the audience and was not a wider reference to British Jews more generally. The reason that it may plausibly be construed as having this wider meaning is because the term “Zionists” is often used as a dog whistle by antisemites to refer to Jews. Indeed, even Mr Corbyn recognises this, saying in his defence when these remarks came to light in 2018 that “I am now more careful with how I might use the term ‘Zionist’ because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by antisemites as code for Jews.”
Mr Maginn claims that it is clear that Mr Corbyn was referring to specific audience members because one of them went on to sue Mr Corbyn for libel, which would indicate that that claimant must have been identifiable as the person to whom Mr Corbyn was referring. Mr Maginn is incorrect; that claimant was suing Mr Corbyn for libel in relation to comments that Mr Corbyn made on The Andrew Marr Show in September 2018, not based on Mr Corbyn’s remarks in 2013.
Mr Corbyn’s remarks were widely viewed in the Jewish community as referring to British Jews in general, accusing them of not being fully British because they did not understand English language and humour. The remarks were therefore reasonably interpreted as being scandalously racist and antisemitic. But this is equally true if the remarks were directed simply at people who identify as Zionists, and even if the comments were directed solely at the specific audience members. This is because the comments are “othering” and represent a xenophobic manner of addressing people. The comments imply that, despite living in the UK all of their lives, the people in question (be they Jews, “Zionists” or the specific audience members) were still somehow not fully English. The implication was that this foreignness was connected to their Zionist views or identity, which also happens to be an identity shared by the overwhelming majority of Jewish people. Given that centuries of antisemitic persecution have been built on the premise that Jewish people are different from the rest of the population and have different or dual loyalties, with their principal allegiance being to the Jewish people – or the Jewish state – rather than their countries of citizenship, it is understandable that Jewish people are very sensitive to any suggestion that they are not fully English.
If there was any ambiguity in the remarks, as Mr Maginn suggests, in view of Mr Corbyn’s long history of antisemitic incidents and associations the presumption was against him. Indeed, after making the remarks quoted here, Mr Corbyn was immediately followed onstage by the disgraced Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer, whom Mr Corbyn has defended despite Rev. Dr Sizer’s infamy for having promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Rev. Dr Sizer was eventually handed a twelve-year ban by the Church of England after having been found to have “engaged in antisemitic activity” by a tribunal of the Church of England.
Mr Corbyn’s failure even to apologise for the possibility of an interpretation contrary to whatever it was that he claimed to have meant in these 2013 remarks was further evidence that he had little sympathy for those who maintained that they had been victimised by his statement.
Following this incident, the former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks made his first intervention on Labour’s antisemitism crisis. Lord Sacks said that the comments were “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” He described Mr Corbyn as “an antisemite”.
Verdict: Not “false”.
7: The Wreath.
Claim: Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath at the cemetery in Tunisia where the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorists were buried.
In fact, the wreath was laid at the Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia, which has a memorial to the victims of the universally condemned 1985 Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters, many of whom were civilians.
The Munich terrorists are buried in another country, Libya.
Corbyn was in the wrong country.
Operation Wooden Leg – Wikipedia
Operation “Wooden Leg” ( Hebrew: מבצע רגל עץ, Mivtza Regel Etz) was an attack by Israel on the Palestine Liberation…
en.wikipedia.org
Verdict: False.
Analysis
On 10th August 2018, the Daily Mail published photographs taken from the Facebook page of the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic mission to Tunisia, which showed Jeremy Corbyn laying a wreath at the Hamman Chott Cemetery in Tunis in 2014.
The Daily Mail alleged that one of the pictures showed Mr Corbyn with a memorial wreath in his hand standing feet “from the graves of terror leaders linked to the Munich Massacre”. The article went on to say: “The picture was among a number taken during a service to honour Palestinian ‘martyrs’. Buried in the cemetery in Tunisia are members of Black September, the terror group which massacred eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.”
The article proceeded to report that “sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted he was at the service in 2014 to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) base in 1985. But on a visit to the cemetery this week, the Daily Mail discovered that the monument to the air strike victims is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the complex. Instead he was in front of a plaque that lies beside the graves of Black September members.
“The plaque honours three dead men: Salah Khalaf, who founded Black September; his key aide Fakhri al-Omari; and Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO Chief of Security. Adjacent to their graves is that of [Atef] Bseiso [PLO Head of Intelligence]. All were assassinated either by the Israeli secret service Mossad or rival Palestinian factions.”
In an article for the Morning Star newspaper a few days after his visit to Tunis, Mr Corbyn wrote about his trip, recounting how “wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died [in the 1985 Israeli airstrike] and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991.”
When the Daily Mail story broke, Mr Corbyn reiterated what he had written in the Morning Star several years prior: “A wreath was indeed laid by some of those who attended the conference to those that were killed in Paris in 1992. I was present when it was laid. I don’t think I was actually involved in it. I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere because we have to end it.”
A few hours later, Mr Corbyn’s office unequivocally denied that Mr Corbyn had laid a wreath at the graves of those linked to the Munich Massacre.
However, the reference to Paris indicated that Mr Corbyn was indeed involved in a commemoration at the cemetery for Atef Bseiso, who was killed outside a Paris hotel in 1992, either by a rival faction or by Israeli security services.
Mr Maginn is correct to insist that Mr Corbyn was not present at the graves of the Munich terrorists, but that was not the Daily Mail’s claim; the newspaper reported that he was at a commemoration for “terror leaders linked to the Munich Massacre”. Given that Atef Bseiso was PLO Head of Intelligence and generally believed to have been behind the Munich terror attack, the newspaper’s contention appears reasonable, as did the conclusions drawn by its readership and the Jewish community.
In the days following the Daily Mail’s report, the Labour Party made a formal complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) against the Daily Mail, The Times, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and the Metro, apparently for misrepresenting the event that Mr Corbyn had attended. But the Labour Party eventually withdrew its complaint, blaming leaked communications that it claimed had compromised IPSO’s investigation.
Mr Corbyn was also referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over a potential failure to declare the trip to Tunisia, especially given that guests were alleged to have stayed at a five-star hotel. E-mails from the time were leaked, suggesting that Mr Corbyn had sought to keep the costs below the reporting threshold so that he would not have to refer to the trip in Parliamentary debates. Mr Corbyn’s office eventually estimated that the trip had cost £4 less than the £660 threshold, and hence did not need to be reported.
Verdict: Not “false”.
6: Baddiel’s Leaflet
Claim: There was a leaflet at a Labour Party Conference about the Holocaust that didn’t mention Jews.
TV celebrity David Baddiel claimed in a TV promo for his book ‘Jews Don’t Count’ that he had been informed by ‘someone on the NEC’ [Labour National Executive Committee] that there had been a leaflet circulated at a Labour Conference about the Holocaust that didn’t mention Jews.
What he seems to be referring to in garbled form here is a petition by the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) in 2008 at a far-right rally in Derbyshire, which, by some unaccountable error, lists the other victims of the Holocaust but omits ‘six million Jews’. It has never been repeated, and SWP have never denied or minimised the Holocaust in any way. Ironically, the petition was specifically about remembering the victims of the Holocaust, in the face of far-right Holocaust denial.
Nothing to do with the Labour Party. Nothing to do with a Labour Conference. Nothing whatsoever to do with Jeremy Corbyn.
Mr Baddiel has never, to my knowledge, been challenged on his claim, nor has he been required to show any evidence that what he claims happened ever happened at all.
Has the SWP Discovered a “Jew-Free” Holocaust?
He makes the claim here, at 55.00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_3g4UGVcNQ&t=1s
Verdict: False.*
* A previous version of this said Baddiel had said it was a ‘Labour Party leaflet’. This has been challenged, and I have been unable to verify that he did in fact use those words, so I have deleted them. The substance of his claim remains unchanged: that it was a leaflet ‘circulated at a Labour Party Conference’. No evidence of this has ever been produced, or even asked for.
Analysis
This item is drawn from a Zoom interview of the comedian and author David Baddiel, in conversation with the Jewish former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth organised by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, on 5th March 2021.
This is the full transcript of the segment:
David Baddiel (DB): “When someone says “antisemitism” [in scare quotes], I presume that’s a Labour person, who is someone who thinks it’s all smears, and it never existed or whatever. I mean one of the things that is really annoying about that is, I notice, what they tend to do, those people, is they’ll say it was all smears and, you know, it was all weaponised by the Tories or whatever, and then they’ll say ‘and it diminishes the struggle against real antisemitism’. And I always wanna say, at what point, by the way, would you recognise real antisemitism? Cause there’s all this stuff that Jews are saying that they’re unhappy with, but you’re dismissing all that as ‘smears’. So I’d like to know what you thik antisemitism, is it just genocide? Is that the only thing that counts? You know, because it’s a really extraordinary thing. They always bring it up: it’s like, the ‘real’, what’s real antisemitism. And I always thing, who’s defining that?”
Ruth Smeeth [RS]: “Yeh they think Nazis. They mean the far-right and Nazis.”
DB: “They just mean that. Yeh okay.”
RS: “I think one of the most shocking testimonies that went through, there was far-right material that was distributed at a Labour Party event, and it had been, it was a BNP leaflet, as fact. Like, a really old school proper Nazi, Jews-run-the-world stuff. And, I mean, how the Labour Party dealt with it was appalling. They asked the Jewish person who’d seen it why she’d be offended by it as part of the evidence testimony. But it just showed the circle that we’d gone on, that certain members of the Labour Party thought it was appropriate, that there was valid messaging in a far-right leaflet.”
DB: “Yeh. That is appalling. A guy called Joel Braunold, who’s on twitter, who’s a Labour Party person, or he was, told me that he was at an NEC meeting a few years ago, and this wasn’t a right-wing thing, that there had been an information or educational leaflet going around conference or whatever about the Holocaust, and it mentioned all the groups –
RS: “Yeh”
DB: – that were targeted by the Holocaust, and it included gays, and Roma, and disabled people and communists and trade unionists, and it didn’t mention Jews, right?”
RS: “It was a trade union leaflet.”
DB: “Huh?”
RS: “It was a trade union leaflet.”
DB: “Yeh. And what is incredible about that is, I am prepared to accept that the people doing that are not just straightforward antisemites. That they think they’re doing something worthwhile. Because I think they think ‘well I think it’s important to draw attention to the other people who were killed.’ Obviously it is. But not if you miss out the primary target. Then you’re doing something that’s really weird, and vile, and whatever.”
For Mr Maginn to believe that a comment made in passing in 2021 – a year after Jeremy Corbyn stepped down as leader of the Labour Party – by one commentator towards the close of an hour-long interview on Zoom that has been viewed (at time of writing) by fewer than 1,000 people and was not covered by the media, is somehow a significant milestone in the story of Labour’s antisemitism scandal is nonsensical. It is a good example of strawmanning.
Mr Baddiel does not suggest that the leaflet in question circulated during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Party; in fact, the personalities whom he references suggest an earlier time frame. Even Mr Maginn is not able to identify the incident to which Mr Baddiel is referring. But even if Mr Baddiel had been mistaken, this item is so inconsequential that no significance could possibly be attributed to it.
What is clear is that the trend of omitting or minimising the targeting of Jews in the Holocaust is not an isolated occurrence but distressingly commonplace, including on the far-left, where, for example, calls to dilute or cancel Holocaust Memorial Day recur annually. Indeed in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn himself proposed a motion in Parliament to rename Holocaust Memorial Day. During the years of his leadership of the Party, there have been plenty of concerning spectacles at Labour conferences. At Labour’s 2017 Party conference, for example, a packed fringe event heard from American-Israeli activist Miko Peled that people should be free to ask “Holocaust, yes or no” because “there should be no limits on the discussion”, for which he was cheered.
Why Mr Maginn chose not to address an episode such as that, which took place during the Corbyn era and actually contributed to Labour’s antisemitism scandal, as opposed to a wholly unimportant comment made in passing years later at the end of a long Zoom conversation that received minimal public attention, is telling.
Verdict: Who cares?
5: The IHRA definition.
Claim: Corbyn’s Labour Party was antisemitic because of its initial reluctance to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism and all its examples.
The new head of the EHRC, Baroness Falkner, recently said the definition is ’extremely poorly worded and probably unactionable in law’ while it ‘directly conflicts with the duty to protect free speech’
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/new-chair-of-equalities-watchdog-is-against-call-for-unis-to-adopt-ihra
The Labour party have been forced to publish details of a ‘secret code’ in operation, which was an attempt to make the IHRA definition legally actionable. Corbyn was condemned for this code, which Starmer has been forced to admit he is still using.
https://skwawkbox.org/2021/04/09/court-ordered-release-shows-labour-still-using-corbyns-incendiary-code-of-conduct-despite-howls-of-outrage-against-corbyn-silence-now
Verdict: False.
Analysis
The International Definition of Antisemitism, also known as the IHRA Definition, is the globally-recognised definition of anti-Jewish racism. It was the product of years of international collaboration and careful composition. It has support from Jewish communities around the world, and has been adopted by the British Government and numerous national governments and public bodies worldwide. It is opposed only by a minute fringe of Jews and by activists, many of whom routinely breach the Definition or support those who do.
In the summer of 2018, the Labour Party became embroiled in a scandal relating to whether it would adopt the Definition in full. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the Party resisted for several months before eventually relenting and adopting the Definition.
During this controversy, in July 2018, it was revealed that the Party had adopted a “code of conduct” relating to antisemitism that took a pick-and-choose approach to anti-Jewish racism. Effectively, the Labour Party was saying that it knew better than the Jewish community how to define antisemitism.
Specifically, the code of conduct excluded four of the eleven examples of antisemitism incorporated in the Definition; namely, accusing Jews of dual loyalty, denying the Jews’ right to self-determination, comparing Israel to Nazis, and applying double standards to Israel.
These self-evidently racist positions seem obviously omitted for one reason: the Labour Party was trying to protect its then-dominant far-left contingent, including its leader, from being held to account for past comments and activity that might breach these aspects of the Definition. After all, the best way to prevent someone being exposed as an antisemite is to change the definition of antisemitism. Whether or not such a policy is antisemitic in itself – and Mr Maginn has not provided any citations for those saying that it was – it is certainly an attempt to provide institutional protection to racists.
Verdict: Not “false”.
4: The EHRC report.
Claim: The EHRC found the Labour party ‘institutionally antisemitic’.
The EHRC report, entitled ‘Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party’, is 130 pages long. A search of the document itself (Ctrl F) using the words ‘institutionally antisemitic’ turns up only one result, on page 127. This section is annex 7, ‘How we carried out the investigation’, and it cites a report by Professor Alan Johnson (BICOM), ‘Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party’ (March 2019). It is used as a reference for the EHRC report, and is not part of the content.
The claim is not made anywhere in the EHRC report itself. It simply doesn’t say it. Read it.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/investigation-antisemitism-labour-party
Verdict: False
[This section has been edited for clarity. Thanks to Dangerous Globe for their input.]
Analysis
After the Labour Party repeatedly refused to investigate our complaints against Jeremy Corbyn relating to antisemitism, we referred the Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2018. The EHRC is an independent commission that was set up by the previous Labour Government.
At the EHRC’s request, Campaign Against Antisemitism submitted detailed legal arguments. We continued to provide additional legal arguments to the EHRC in relation to subsequent developments. Thereafter, the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Against Antisemitism Ltd made further submissions, which supported our referral.
In 2019, the EHRC announced that it was starting pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party. After the Party failed to satisfy the EHRC that it could be trusted to address the antisemitism issue itself, Campaign Against Antisemitism asked the EHRC to open a statutory investigation under section 20 of the Equality Act 2006 into antisemitic discrimination and victimisation in the Labour Party. The Equality Act was legislation that had been introduced by the previous Labour Government.
On 28th May 2019, the EHRC announced a full statutory investigation, which enabled it to use its enforcement powers.
The only previous statutory investigation ever conducted by the EHRC was an investigation into unlawful harassment, discrimination and victimisation within the Metropolitan Police Service. The only other political party to have been subject to action by the EHRC was the British National Party, but that was not a statutory investigation.
The launch of a full statutory investigation by the EHRC into the Labour Party was an unprecedented development, resulting from the EHRC’s acknowledgement that the legal arguments made by Campaign Against Antisemitism were sufficiently compelling to merit investigating whether the Labour Party had committed unlawful acts.
In October 2020, the EHRC published its report into Labour antisemitism.
The EHRC did not set out to make a finding of “institutional antisemitism”, nor could it have done so, as this is not a legal category or designation. Instead, the EHRC’s objective was “to determine whether the Labour Party committed a breach of the Equality Act 2010, related to Jewish ethnicity or Judaism, against its members, associates or guests, through the actions of its employees or agents.”
The EHRC found that the Labour Party had breached the Equality Act 2010, and in its report “concluded that there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination [against Jewish people] for which the Labour Party is responsible.” In other words, Labour’s racist treatment of Jewish people had become so serious that it had broken the law.
The EHRC found, for the first time ever in relation to a political party, that the Labour Party was in breach of the Equality Act 2010 due to serious failings in the Party’s disciplinary procedures, including political interference in antisemitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints, serious errors within the complaints system, inappropriate applications of sanctions, unclear policy for antisemitism on social media and an overall failure of Party leadership in relation to antisemitism.
The 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’s report, commonly known as the Macpherson Report, defined institutional racism as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin”.
In view of the fact that the EHRC found that Labour, as an institution, was so racist that it had broken the law, it is reasonable to describe the Party as having become institutionally antisemitic. Although it was not within the EHRC’s terms of reference to make such a finding in those terms, institutional antisemitism is in essence what its report was describing.
Verdict: Strawman.
3: The Friends.
Claim: Corbyn referred to representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘our friends’.
This is so. What is missing here is context. Corbyn habitually refers to anyone at a meeting as ‘friends’. It is a boilerplate diplomatic courtesy attempting to establish a positive atmosphere to a hopefully productive meeting. It does not mean he agrees with everything every one of them has ever said and done, because that isn’t how meetings work. If it were, he would, logically, also have to agree with everything said and done by the opposing side, as well as holding all the positions of everyone he’s ever met, and I think a moment’s consideration shows this idea to be obviously absurd.
Corbyn has explicitly condemned Hamas in parliament, for instance: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/37443
Verdict: True but grossly misleading because of context-stripping.
Analysis
The groups referred to here are Hamas and Hizballah. Both are antisemitic, Islamist genocidal terrorist organisations sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, and which have persistently targeted Jewish people in Israel and around the world, murdering them in their hundreds.
In a meeting in Parliament in 2009, Jeremy Corbyn made the following remarks: “I want to first of all say thank you to everyone for being here tonight, and to say that tomorrow evening it will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hizballah will be speaking. I also invited our friends from Hamas to come and speak as well. Unfortunately, the Israelis would not allow them to travel here, so it’s going to be only friends from Hizballah. So far as I’m concerned, that is absolutely the right function of using Parliamentary facilities to invite people from other parts of the world…[applause] so that we can promote that peace, that understanding, and that dialogue. And the idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British Government is really a big big historical mistake, and I would invite the Government to reconsider its position on this matter and start talking directly to Hamas and Hizballah.”
That is the fuller context, which Mr Maginn claims has been “stripped” by Mr Corbyn’s critics.
To interpret these quoted remarks as emanating from someone with a neutral position in relation to Hamas and Hizballah, and who was only using “diplomatic” language to be inclusive – language that, incidentally, was not extended to “the Israelis” – is laughable. Mr Corbyn described these murderous, racist, terror groups as organisations that are “dedicated towards…bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice”. This is a politician who clearly sounded sympathetic to the aims of these organisations.
Worse still, at the time that Mr Corbyn made his remarks, the British Government (then a Labour Government) had only proscribed what it considered to be the “military wings” of Hamas and Hizballah, and not their so-called “political wings”. Mr Corbyn’s wider point was therefore a criticism of the British Government’s oppositional stance toward the expressly violent elements of these organisations. This is a politician who clearly sounded sympathetic not only to the aims of these organisations, but also to their methods.
In 2015, during the Labour leadership primary, Mr Corbyn was pressed on these past remarks. He explained: “I’m saying that people I talk to, I use it in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk. Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does? No. Does it mean I agree with Hizballah and what they do? No. What it means is that I think to bring about a peace process, you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree.”
In 2016, when asked by the Home Affairs Committee about the “friends” description, Mr Corbyn said: “It was inclusive language I used which with hindsight I would rather not have used. I regret using those words, of course.”
This was not the only occasion in which Mr Corbyn used “inclusive” language to describe Islamist terrorists. Another was in 2012, when, on a programme on the Iranian propaganda channel Press TV, Mr Corbyn described hundreds of Hamas terrorists as “brothers”. Among Mr Corbyn’s “brothers” was Abdul Aziz Umar, who had been given seven life sentences after he helped in the preparation of a suicide vest which was detonated at a restaurant in Jerusalem in 2003. Seven civilians were murdered.
Verdict: Not “false”.
2: Ruth Smeeth/Marc Wadsworth
Claim: Marc Wadsworth used an antisemitic trope to Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth.
At the launch of the Chakrabarti report on antisemitism in April 2016, black rights activist Marc Wadsworth was reported as saying to (then Labour MP) Ruth Smeeth, who is Jewish, ‘Look who’s working hand in hand with the media’.
- Marc Wadsworth had no knowledge Ms Smeeth is Jewish, nor any reason to know it. He merely recognised her as a Labour MP, and saw Ms Smeeth and a Daily Telegraph journalist passing a document between them. There is nothing in his words to suggest antisemitism.
- There simply is no antisemitic trope of ‘working hand in hand with the media’. Of course Jewish people work in and with the media, why shouldn’t they? The trope is control and ownership of the media. So this accusation requires the manufacturing of an entirely new antisemitic trope, and one which is patently ridiculous.
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHv3D7g4RH4
Verdict: False
Analysis
In 2016, with mounting pressure over antisemitism and two internal Labour Party investigations already quashed by the leadership, Jeremy Corbyn appointed the human rights barrister Shami Chakrabarti to lead yet another inquiry, this time not only into anti-Jewish racism, which was the trigger for the investigation, but, controversially, into the broader category of “antisemitism and other forms of racism, including Islamophobia”. Although the inquiry was billed as being independent, on the same day as her appointment, Ms Chakrabarti joined the Labour Party, and explained in her “independent” report that “my inquiry would be conducted, and any recommendations made, in the Party’s best interests.”
In April 2016, the ostensibly independent report was presented by not only Ms Chakrabarti but also, inexplicably, by Mr Corbyn. The presentation took place at a press conference. Present were numerous journalists; MPs, including Ruth Smeeth; and Labour activists, including Marc Wadsworth, to help fill the room. The activists cheered Mr Corbyn and booed the journalists in what became a small political rally instead of the sober introspection that the event had called for.
In his opening remarks launching a report about antisemitism, Mr Corbyn compared Israel to ISIS by saying “our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.”
Mr Wadsworth, a longtime associate of Mr Corbyn’s who had reportedly been handing out leaflets against “traitors” earlier on, used the event’s question-and-answer segment to accuse Ms Smeeth – a female Labour MP and one of the Party’s best-known Jewish MPs, who is active in its Jewish affiliate and more widely on Jewish affairs – sitting just a few seats away from him, of working “hand in hand” with The Daily Telegraph, which he dubbed the “Torygraph”. Those in the room interpreted his remarks as suggesting that she, a Jew, was treacherously working with Labour’s rivals to undermine Mr Corbyn’s leadership. In the context of the event, the further insinuation was that the concerns about antisemitism that this event was ostensibly meant to address were part of that effort to sabotage Mr Corbyn. Mr Wadsworth was briefly drowned out by cries of “how dare you!”
He then went on to complain that there were too few “African, Caribbean, and Asian people” in the room, implying that the Labour Party’s more immediate problem was not with Jews but with other minorities. One journalist, sitting near Ms Smeeth, commented under his breath: “antisemitism at the launch of an antisemitism report.” Ms Smeeth fled the room in tears. Mr Corbyn, standing at a podium that read “Standing Up Not Standing By”, stood by as Ms Smeeth left the room, and proceeded to answer Mr Wadsworth’s question.
When the event was over, Mr Wadsworth and Mr Corbyn had a good laugh together, with Mr Corbyn telling him that he had sent Mr Wadsworth a text message, and Mr Wadsworth boasting that he had “outed” Ms Smeeth, “bloody talking to the Torygraph!”
Shortly thereafter, Ms Chakrabarti was awarded a peerage, despite Mr Corbyn’s previous pledge not to appoint members to the House of Lords, and she was then appointed to his cabinet.
Mr Wadsworth claimed that he did not know that Ms Smeeth is Jewish. In 2018, he was expelled from the Labour Party in connection with this incident.
Ms Smeeth wrote after the event: “It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on antisemitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people, which were ironically highlighted as such in Ms Chakrabarti’s report, while the leader of my own party stood by and did absolutely nothing. People like this have no place in our party or our movement and must be opposed.”
In the months following the event, Ms Smeeth experienced some 25,000 incidents of abuse, much of it racial. One of her abusers had authored a 1,000-word document describing how he would murder her. She assumed that it was a far-right individual. It turned out that he was a supporter of Mr Corbyn’s.
Verdict: Not “false”.
1: The Mural.
Image by Donahue Rogers
Claim: Corbyn approved of an antisemitic mural, which shows ‘big-nosed Jewish bankers’ exploiting the masses.
Everyone’s favourite.
- They’re not ‘Jewish bankers’. Five are bankers, only two of whom are Jewish, and the sixth is a bizarre figure from the world of Edwardian English occultism, Aleister Crowley, also not Jewish (he invented his own religion, Thelema). It is quite obviously not a statement about ‘Jews’, as the artist himself has explained, since only two of the ‘big-nosed’ figures are Jewish. The accusation simply makes no sense.
- Neither did Corbyn ‘approve’ of it. He saw a thumbnail of a facebook post about it, and asked why it had been removed. When it was explained to him that some people maintained it was antisemitic, he apologised.
That’s literally the whole thing.
Verdict: False.
Analysis
The mural in question was titled Freedom for Humanity and was created by the American artist Kalen Ockerman, known as Mear One. It was a temporary mural painted on a wall on Hanbury Street in Tower Hamlets in London in 2012. The mural, pictured in full below, depicts older, white-appearing men in suits seated alongside one another playing a Monopoly-like board game resting on the backs of dark-skinned, bald, naked men. Behind the players is the Eye of Providence and scenes of chimneys billowing smoke and images of protest. The players are supposedly dictating the “New World Order”, and the mural plays on notions of freemasonry, the Illuminati and other conspiracy theories, many of which are often bound up with anti-capitalist and anti-establishment antisemitism on both the far-left and the far-right.
The players are claimed to represent actual figures, two of whom are Jewish. The two Jewish figures, Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg, have exaggerated noses, a classic antisemitic motif. The other figures have alternative exaggerated features.
At the time that the mural was displayed, it provoked negative reactions from local politicians, who sought to have it removed. The Mayor of Tower Hamlets, for example, said: “The images of the bankers perpetuate antisemitic propaganda about conspiratorial Jewish domination of financial and political institutions.”
The artist defended the mural, saying: “I came to paint a mural that depicted the elite banker cartel known as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, the ruling class elite few, the Wizards of Oz. They would be playing a board game of monopoly on the backs of the working class. The symbol of the Freemason Pyramid rises behind this group and behind that is a polluted world of coal burning and nuclear reactors. I was creating this piece to inspire critical thought and spark conversation. A group of conservatives do not like my mural and are playing a race card with me. My mural is about class and privilege. The banker group is made up of Jewish and white Anglos. For some reason they are saying I am antisemitic. This I am most definitely not…What I am against is class.”
He is also reported to have said that “some of the older white Jewish folk in the local community had an issue with me portraying their beloved #Rothschild or #Warburg etc as the demons they are.”
The artist posted on Facebook that there were calls to remove the mural. Jeremy Corbyn commented on the post, which featured a full picture of the mural, asking: “Why? You are in good company. Rockerfeller [sic] destroyed Diego Viera’s mural because it includes a picture of Lenin.”
In 2018, the mural controversy resurfaced, including Mr Corbyn’s comment. The Jewish then-Labour MP, Luciana Berger, asked his office to explain his historic comment. Mr Corbyn’s office issued a statement: “In 2012, Jeremy was responding to concerns about the removal of public art on grounds of freedom of speech. However, the mural was offensive, used antisemitic imagery, which has no place in our society, and it is right that it was removed.”
This statement is a non-sequitur. Did Mr Corbyn accept at the time that the mural was antisemitic, but believed that it should remain on the grounds of freedom of speech? Or did he not accept that it was antisemitic at the time, but now, as leader, recognised that it was expedient to admit that it was?
Alternatively, perhaps Mr Corbyn never noticed that it was antisemitic. This was the charitable interpretation that many drew, acknowledging that it also meant that he was not able to recognise antisemitic tropes when they appeared on the far-left. This blindness could, at best, be said to characterise Mr Corbyn’s entire approach to Labour’s antisemitism scandal. At worst, in view of his long record of utterances and activity, he is himself an antisemite.
Regarding the mural, Mr Maginn claims that it was not antisemitic, except for where it was. He also claims that Jeremy Corbyn could not have been expected to have seen the mural properly, but that when it was later explained to him, Mr Corbyn agreed that it was right to remove the mural – because it was antisemitic. Yet Mr Maginn still claims, pace Mr Corbyn, that the mural was not in fact antisemitic. In other words, even incidents that Mr Corbyn is prepared to accept are antisemitic, Mr Maginn is not.
Verdict: Not “false”.
#ItWasAScam is a scam
If I am not for myself, why should others be for me?
The future for Jewish people in Britain is under threat, but if we don’t show that we care, why should anyone else?
We cannot expect the general public, the media, the authorities or the Government to take heed of the Jewish community’s cries if we do not make the effort to show the strength of our feeling regarding the unprecedented levels of antisemitism that have permeated every aspect of our lives.
If we do not tell them how we feel, how are they to know?
We have a responsibility to make ourselves heard.
If you have not yet joined the thousands who have already signed up to march at 13:00 this Sunday, 8th December in central London, please do so now and be part of this critical and historic event.
We will be gathering from 12:00 for a prompt 13:00 start.
You can sign up for the march here.
Why are we marching?
We are marching because these sorts of incidents – all from the past ten days – have become unacceptably commonplace.
Anybody who does not think that antisemitism is a problem in Britain has their head in the sand.
The question for the Jewish community and our allies is whether we are willing to march this weekend to fight for our future.
It is not just about the Jewish community
It is essential that we march, not just for the Jewish future but for the future of our country.
We must take a stand against the growing extremism, radicalisation and support for terrorist groups that we are seeing on our streets, campuses and online, because it does not just affect the Jews.
As our Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, wrote in The Times last week: “Woe betide us if we believe this to be a passing nightmare, or an affliction that will affect the Jewish community alone and spare the rest. As the late Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks warned, ‘The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.’”
The full article can be read here.
He also wrote in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, pointing out that all of the activism that we are seeing is doing nothing to affect events in the Middle East but having a considerable, adverse impact on the fabric of our society right here. He asked: “Has this ‘activism’ done anything to change things in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon or Iran? Or are they just changing the face of our society over here?”
Th full article can be read here.
The future of British Jewry and our country’s tradition of tolerance and decency is not guaranteed. We owe it to our ourselves to fight for our future.
March with us.
“F*** Israel, nobody likes you,” reportedly shouted at Jewish children on bus
Yesterday, Jewish children were reportedly targeted with antisemitic abuse on a bus on their way home from a North London school.
It is understood that two Jewish Free School (JFS) buses were attacked by ten teenagers from another school. Four teenagers also were said to have boarded the bus whereafter they swore at and filmed the Jewish students. They also reportedly threw rocks and rubbish at the bus after leaving the vehicle.
One student attested that the teenagers boarding the bus shouted at them: “F*** Israel, nobody likes you. F*** off you b******.”
Of the incident, he said: “I was sitting at the front of the bus and everyone was completely terrified and hiding under our seats. It was really scary.”
It was reported that no one offered any help to the Jewish children during the incident, nor did anyone call the police.
The alleged attack comes just days after reports of a man throwing glass bottles at a group of identifiably Jewish girls elsewhere in North London, resulting in the hospitalisation of a fourteen-year-old child.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This incident did not take place in a vacuum. Over the past year, we have repeatedly warned of the dangerous consequences of Jew-hate going unchecked. This incident comes only a few days after a visibly Jewish 14-year-old girl was hospitalised after having a glass bottle thrown at her. The simple truth is that our streets are no longer safe for British Jews and their children. Is it any wonder that 69% of British Jews are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism in public, according to our polling? It is time for arrests and those who break the law must face consequences.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of just under nine hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews more than twelve times likelier to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.
7th October massacre game banned in Britain
British counter-terrorism police have banned a video game in which users play as terrorists invading Israel and are encouraged to murder “Zionists”.
The game, ‘Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque’, was removed from the gaming platform Steam, following a request from the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.
The trailer for the game shows characters, dressed in Hamas-style clothing, including green headbands, entering an Israeli army base using paragliders. Images of Hamas terrorists using paragliders have become synonymous with its barbaric 7th October terrorist attacks in Israel last year, in which some 1,200 Israelis were murdered and over 250 people were taken hostage.
At the beginning of the trailer, text on the screen reads: “Where are those who carry the explosive belts? Come here, I want an explosive belt to blow up myself over the Zionists!” It continues, “It is a jihad, a jihad of victory or martyrdom!”
The trailer also contains a graphic scene where players line up Israeli soldiers and execute them.
The game’s Brazilian-Palestinian creator, Nidal Nijm, said his creation “allows you to relive the iconic day on which the brave Palestinian resistance humiliated Israeli military forces”.
An earlier version of the game reportedly included a scene of a terrorist beheading an Israeli soldier, before kicking their head into the air.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This game is repulsive. To reenact the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust for gameplay is sadistic. Such explicit depictions of real-life terrorist attacks against Jews also so obviously run the risk of further radicalising young people that you start to wonder if that’s the point. It’s absolutely right that this game is banned in the UK, given the alarming rates of extremism right now. Young people are already statistically more likely to have a favourable view of Hamas, the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group that carried out the barbaric attacks, according to our polling. We must make every effort to counteract these trends.”
Almost one in ten – 9% – of 18-24 year olds have a favourable view of Hamas, according to our representative polling.
Fourteen-year-old Jewish girl reportedly hospitalised after being struck by glass bottle
A fourteen-year-old Jewish girl has reportedly been hospitalised after being struck in the face with a glass bottle.
The alleged incident occurred yesterday in north London’s Stamford Hill at approximately 19:09 when a group of identifiably Jewish girls were walking to their evening rehearsals at their school.
The group was making their way down Seven Sisters Road when a male, believed to be sixteen years old, was alleged to have thrown around a dozen glass bottles and plates down at them from his fourth-floor window in Woodberry Down Estate.
According to Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol, the group then ran to their school, at which point the fourteen-year-old girl was initially treated by Hatzola, the Jewish volunteer medical service, before needing to go to the hospital.
It is understood that the girl suffered “significant haematoma and facial grazes” and, following treatment, has now been discharged.
Police visited the suspect’s home last night but he was not in, and no arrests have been made at present.
If anyone has further information, they should contact Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123 or the Metropolitan Police on 101, citing CAD 9166 25/11/24.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This incident did not take place in a vacuum. Over the past year, we have repeatedly warned of the dangerous consequences of Jew-hate going unchecked. This is the reality in Britain right now. Jewish children cannot even walk home without fear of being targeted in violent attacks. Is it any wonder that 69% of British Jews are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism in public, according to our polling? It is time for arrests and those who break the law must face consequences. The police must identify the suspect as quickly as possible and we urge anyone who has further information to contact the police citing CAD 9166 25/11/24.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of just under nine hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews more than twelve times likelier to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.
Marching has never been more important
The situation in Britain right now is worse than any of us can remember.
Antisemitism is rife across our public life. Worst still, the authorities seem to be indifferent.
Below is a sample of recent examples across society of the problems that we are seeing. But while we may be feeling helpless, we still have a responsibility to do something.
The future of British Jewry and our country’s tradition of tolerance and decency is not guaranteed. We have to stand up to extremism.
March with us. The march will start at 13:00 on Sunday 8th December in central London.
If you were among the 105,000 people who marched with us last year, you will know that this is a historic opportunity not to be missed.
Please ensure that you sign up in order to receive details and updates, enable us to plan for the right numbers and, for those coming from farther afield, arrange coaches.
The antisemitism and extremism – and the indifference – are deafening
These are just a sample of recent developments that showcase the levels of antisemitism and extremism – and the apparent indifference of the authorities.
These incidents showcase what British Jews are facing right now, from our streets to campuses, charities to unions, hospitals to policing, and more.
If you want to take a stand, sign up to march with us at antisemitism.org/march.
We mourn the murder of Rabbi Tzvi Kogan, and reiterate our call on the Government to ban the IRGC
It has been announced that UAE-based Chabad Rabbi Tzvi Kogan was murdered.
It is believed that he was surveilled at his kosher grocery shop and murdered by Uzbek terrorists linked to Iran.
This is a global war on Jews, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is leading this antisemitic onslaught.
The British Government and other Western states must take action if they actually believe their own words about the importance of fighting antisemitism.
That is why we join a call by a cross-party group of more than 40 MPs, peers and other public figures for the Government to finally proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as promised prior to the general election. Iran’s malign influence is on display day after day in the Middle East and beyond, and that influence finds expression through the IRGC. We and others have been calling for a proscription for a long time.
We bless the memory of Rabbi Kogan, who is also the nephew of another Rabbi murdered in Mumbai in 2008 by antisemitic Islamist terrorists. This incredible but long-suffering family, which has dedicated itself to the service of Jewish communities around the world, are in our prayers and thoughts this week.
We honour Jewish veterans
Last weekend, Campaign Against Antisemitism was honoured to have participated in AJEX’s annual Remembrance Parade.
We pay tribute to the sacrifices and contributions of the British Jews who so courageously served our country.
Many people are despairing about the levels of antisemitism and are resigned to this becoming the new normal for British Jews – even if it means rethinking whether they have a future here.
But we owe it to ourselves and our children – and to wider British society – to fight for that future.
We must march. We hope that you will join us.
Image credit: Stuart Mitchell/Campaign Against Antisemitism
Our future is threatened: we must fight for it now.
The future for Jewish people in Britain is under threat.
The Hamas massacre unleashed a tidal wave of antisemitism in Britain that has left no part of our public life unaffected. Jewish people feel like they are drowning.
What we recently saw in Europe shows the depths to which our society can still sink.
The future of British Jewry and our country’s tradition of tolerance and decency is not guaranteed. We have to stand up to extremism. March with us.
The march will start at 13:00 on Sunday 8th December in central London.
Please join us on the national March Against Antisemitism 2024, and bring your family and friends. Sign up here to march with us!
The march will be friendly, well secured and properly policed. We look forward to seeing you there.
This is what ‘Globalising the Intifada’ looks like
Last Thursday evening, a modern-day pogrom took place in Amsterdam. In shocking scenes, Israeli Jewish football fans were targeted in a series of violent attacks.
Footage from the evening showed people running for their lives, an unconscious body being kicked in the street and a man begging for mercy as attackers yelled “Free Palestine”.
Others were run over, and at least one man apparently had to jump into a canal to avoid further attack as assailants shouted “cancer Jew”, a classic Dutch insult applied here towards Jews, with antisemitic undertones to boot.
From the information now available, it is clear that these attacks were pre-planned, using private messaging platforms, with bands waiting at designated spots with knowledge of where the fans would be and where they were staying. The attackers were reportedly armed with knives, clubs and other weapons.
The police warned Jews not to use local taxis, as drivers were providing information to the attackers, many of whom are believed to be youth gangs from the Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities.
Aghast at the failure of police in Amsterdam to assist the victims, Israel sent two rescue places and brought 2,000 people home.
These images mirror early 20th-century pogroms in Europe and the Middle East, where Jews were sought out by mobs and either ran or faced being beaten in the streets, or worse.
Amsterdam is a city known for Anne Frank. The house in which she hid before before taken and eventually murdered by the Nazis is now a museum and one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations.
But what good is all this memorialisation when right outside the same antisemitism thrives on Dutch streets?
The King of The Netherlands declared: “We failed the Jewish community of The Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.” The Western European country with the highest proportion of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was The Netherlands.
The comparisons to historic antisemitism were particularly unavoidable given that the pogrom took place in the week of Kristallnacht, which we commemorated this weekend.
What happened in Amsterdam is what “globalising the intifada” looks like.
Indeed not only were there further Palestine protests in Amsterdam in the days after the pogrom in defiance of a court ruling, but there are also reports of violent incidents from Sweden to the United States, and all eyes will be on Paris this week, where the Israeli and French national football teams are playing amid a deployment of thousands of police officers.
We are witnessing levels of antisemitism not seen in our lifetime, and it is of the utmost importance that Britain acts against the antisemitic thugs here at home who have become increasingly emboldened.
Anti-Israel demonstrators have taken over our streets week after week, calling for “intifada”. How much longer will it be before scenes like these are replicated here?
For all those who chant for “intifada” week in and week out, what just happened in Amsterdam is what they are asking for. This is what happens when lax policing for over a year repeatedly succumbs to the mob. When are we going to wake up?
Why people have such little faith in the news media
The immediate media coverage of the pogrom in Britain and across the Western world was deplorable.
The level of victim-blamimg in this now-deleted report from Sky News, for example, cannot be put down merely to mistaken reporting in the heat of the moment.
Instead, they are seeing what they want to see. They are refusing to see what they do not wish to see.
This is the essence of media bias, where the story is known ahead of time, and information will be manipulated, distorted or fabricated to fit with it, facts be damned.
Last week there was a pogrom against Jews in the most liberal city in Europe. Sky News and so many other outlets did not cover it. They covered for it.
A clear message to LSE
Yesterday, we sent a clear message to Francesca Albanese and the London School of Economics.
Someone with Ms Albanese’s history of rhetoric, which includes reference to the “Jewish lobby”, support for a “right to resist” and repeated comparisons of Israel to Nazis, is not welcome at British universities.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in letting LSE know exactly what they think of Ms Albanese.
Jewish patient allegedly refused treatment in Palestine t-shirt controversy
A Jewish patient has allegedly been refused treatment following an incident with a student nurse at a hospital in East London.
The patient reported that the incident occurred when they took a photo of a student nurse who was wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘Palestine’ on the front and a map of the entirety of Israel on the back, which could very readily be understood as support for the erasure of the world’s only Jewish state and its replacement with a Palestinian state.
It has also been alleged that a security guard at the hospital was co-opted in trying to get the patient to delete the photo.
These allegations are unbelievable. The NHS has a responsibility to ensure that its patients, who are among the most vulnerable in society, feel safe. That means restricting the display of political images and symbols, and – it is incredible that this needs restating – not refusing treatment to patients.
This alleged incident underscores how toxic life has become in Britain since 7th October, that something like this could happen to a Jewish patient.
We have called for an investigation to be opened immediately. We are also writing to the hospital to ask how this nurse was reportedly allowed to wear this t-shirt in the first place and what will be done in response to this extremely serious allegation of threatening and grossly unethical conduct.
We are in contact with the patient and our lawyers are examining the case.
If you have experienced discomfort or discrimination in the medical industry because you are Jewish or perceived to be Jewish, please contact us.
This weekend, we honoured the fallen
Kristallnacht was not the only event that we commemorated this weekend.
Sunday was Remembrance Day, and yesterday was Armistice Day, when we honour those heroes who fought for our freedoms, and reflect on the values that so many of them died to defend. Sadly, not everyone in our country will be doing the same.
A pogrom targeting Jews in one of the most developed Western countries in the world.
We had hoped that we would only be using those words to commemorate Kristallnacht this past weekend. Never forget? It seems that we already have.
People must wake up and the authorities need to be held to account. We will continue to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Modern-day pogrom in Amsterdam as antisemitic thugs attack Israeli Jews
Last night, Jewish Israeli football fans were reportedly targeted in a series of violent attacks.
We have received reports of shocking scenes across Amsterdam last night, where Jewish Israeli football fans appear to have been targeted in a series of violent attacks. Footage from the evening shows people running for their lives, an unconscious body being kicked in the street and a man begging for mercy as attackers yell ‘Free Palestine’.
Others were reportedly run over, and at least one man apparently had to jump into a canal to avoid further attack.
Information is still emerging but it appears that these attacks were pre-planned, with bands waiting at designated spots with knowledge of where the Israeli Jewish fans were and were staying. The attackers were reportedly armed with knives, clubs and other weapons, with information about the locations of fans even provided by taxi drivers.
It has been reported that Israel is sending rescue planes for the Jewish football fans.
The assailants are believed to be of Moroccan heritage.
It is understood that five people have been taken to hospital with injuries and Dutch police have arrested 62 people, but details about the arrests still remain scant.
Dutch authorities have said that they will provide extra police to the city and that there will be increased security around Jewish buildings over coming days.
One of the supporters said of the evening: “We don’t feel safe. You come to the game to have fun, but I can’t believe what happened here. I come here for a holiday, but it looked like a war zone.”
Media coverage of the event has been appalling, with many major outlets rushing to victim-blame the Israeli fans and play down the apparently orchestrated violence against the them.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is what ‘globalising the intifada’ looks like. We are receiving shocking reports of people running for their lives, unconscious bodies being kicked in the street and people begging for mercy as attackers yell ‘Free Palestine’. These images mirror early 20th century pogroms in Europe and elsewhere, where Jews were sought out by mobs and either ran or faced being beaten in the streets, or worse. We are witnessing levels of antisemitism not seen in our lifetime, and it is of the utmost importance that Britain acts against the antisemitic thugs here at home who have become increasingly emboldened. This is what happens when lax policing for over a year repeatedly succumbs to the mob. When are we going to wake up?”
Jewish patient allegedly refused treatment in hospital
A Jewish patient has allegedly been refused treatment following an incident with a student nurse at a hospital in East London.
The patient reported that the incident occurred when they took a photo of a student nurse who was wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘Palestine’ on the front and a map of the entirety of Israel on the back, which could very readily be understood as support for the erasure of the world’s only Jewish state and its replacement with a Palestinian state.
It has also been alleged that a security guard at the hospital was co-opted in trying to get the patient to delete the photo.
We are in contact with the patient and our lawyers are examining the case.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “These allegations are unbelievable. The NHS has a responsibility to ensure that its patients, who are among the most vulnerable in society, feel safe. That means restricting the display of political images and symbols, and – it is incredible that this needs restating – not refusing treatment to patients.
“This alleged incident underscores how toxic life has become in Britain since 7th October, that something like this could happen to a Jewish patient. An investigation must be opened immediately. We will be writing to the hospital to ask how this nurse was reportedly allowed to wear this t-shirt in the first place and what will be done in response to this extremely serious allegation of threatening and grossly unethical conduct. We are in contact with the patient and our lawyers are examining the case.”
If you have experienced discomfort or discrimination in the medical industry because you are Jewish or perceived to be Jewish, please e-mail us at [email protected].
At LSE, SOAS and QML, you can help us #BanFran
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is going to be lecturing on British campuses. She has previously posted about “the Jewish lobby” and is alleged to have told a conference featuring Hamas leaders that they have “the right to resist”.
We will be holding demonstrations at universities where she is scheduled to speak to make clear that she is not welcome. Even if the UN refuses to #BanFran, Britain’s leading educational institutions should.
Please join us at:
We are also writing to the universities which are planning to host her.
By now, Ms Albanese’s indefensible past comments about “the Jewish lobby” and repulsive comparisons between the Nazis and the Jewish state are well known. There can be no excuse for inviting her to address students on campus in light of her views, which she has unrepentantly promoted for decades.
You can read more about her record here.
At a time when, according to our polling, almost one in ten 18-24 year olds have a favourable view of Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, universities need to be doing more to stop the spread of antisemitic extremism on campuses, not inviting those who appear to endorse it into their lecture theatres.
We are at a tipping point and Jewish students, who have been facing over a year of hatred on campus, need us.
Speakers like these help to fuel the activism on campuses that puts Jewish students at risk and radicalises the student body and the leaders of tomorrow. We will not let this pass without an answer.
Join us. Together, we can #BanFran!
Since students returned to campus, we have been standing with them
Students have been back on campus for several weeks now, and Campaign Against Antisemitism has been standing with them. Our campus tour is well underway, and we have launched our new Student Ambassadors programme, bringing together fearless, motivated students – Jewish and non-Jewish – for training in monitoring and combating antisemitism at their universities.
In addition to supporting students, we have also been monitoring developments on campuses and submitting complaints to universities.
By way of example, in recent weeks in London:
Last year, Jewish students faced the worst period of campus antisemitism. We will continue to do everything that we can to ensure that that this year is not a repeat, and that university authorities and regulators finally do their jobs.
Palestine Action and this weekend’s protests
The authorities have been too lax on Palestine Action.
Given the events of this weekend – during which Palestine Action activists allegedly smashed glass at Manchester University to steal two busts of Chaim Weizmann, a Reader in chemistry at the University who went on to become the first President of Israel, and vandalised the premises of Jewish charities in London – it is clear that Palestine Action will only continue to escalate its campaign of criminality, and the authorities are failing to stand in its way.
Whether that is due to an unwillingness to take action or an inability to do so due to the constraints of existing legislation, the result is that a group of petty vandals continue to terrorise the British public and, in particular, the Jewish community and its institutions. This has got to change.
We are talking to the Government and our legal team is reviewing existing legislation to assess its effectiveness in tackling what has become essentially a criminal organisation that wrecks businesses and charities, and terrorises the Jewish community.
The police and the Government must take urgent steps to ensure that Palestine Action faces enforcement action.
This latest vandalism comes in the same weekend when anti-Israel protesters in London invoked the age-old blood libel in a banner that read, “Israel enjoys killing kids. Never forgive. Never forget,” and when a sign was displayed at the protest that read, “Our media, TV, radio and government are controlled by Zionists.” This sort of rhetoric is regularly seen on the streets of London these days, another sign of what happens after a year of failed policing.
Still, there are some bright spots. A Met Police officer was filmed calmly explaining to an anti-Israel protester how wearing a T-shirt bearing a swastika and comparisons between Israel to the Nazis could be seen as offensive. The protester grew belligerent and started yelling at the officer who was trying to do his job. The police rightly detained the man. We will be writing to the Met to find out what further action they took.
Also at the regular anti-Israel march this weekend, police spoke to a man carrying a flag with the words “Free Palestine” and an inverted red triangle. In recent months, the inverted red triangle and its emoji variant have been used by some anti-Israel activists to signal support for proscribed terrorist organisations such as Hamas, inspired by the appearance of the symbol in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate targets for attack. It was encouraging to see that the police actually pulled this man aside.
Could it be that our police forces are beginning to recognise what may possibly count as more nuanced forms of support for banned terror groups? We will be writing to the Met to find out what the outcome of this interaction was and whether any arrests were made.
We are grateful to the volunteers of our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit, who continue to monitor anti-Israel protests and activities, week after week.
Problems in our politics persist
Concerns over antisemitism in our politics do not seem to go away.
Regarding the Conservative Party:
Labour MPs, meanwhile, continue to upset members of the Jewish community and their allies, many of whom have written to us to share their frustrations with how their MPs have replied to their letters about the hostages, the suspension of arms licences to Israel and other issues.
These replies have included references to “hostages on both sides” and support for Gaza with no appreciation for the impact of the war on Israeli or British Jews. The levels of ignorance and ideological entrenchment are remarkable.
We encourage you to continue writing to your MP – no matter their party and no matter their stated position – to express your views and show them that you are an active and interested constituent whose opinions matter. You may not change minds, but there is no harm and only good can come from engaging with your MP.
If you receive particularly supportive or egregious responses, please forward them to us at [email protected].
Jewish students have been facing the worst period of campus antisemitism over the past year.
From submitting complaints and publishing open letters, to organising targeted protests and publicising incidents, providing victim-support and launching our Student Ambassador programme, we will continue to do everything that we can to ensure that that this year is not a repeat of last year, and that university authorities and regulators finally do their jobs, and do right by Jewish students.
As Francesca Albanese heads to LSE, SOAS and QML, it’s time to #BanFran
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is going to be lecturing on British campuses. She has previously posted about “the Jewish lobby” and is alleged to have told a Hamas-organised conference that they have “the right to resist”.
We will be holding demonstrations at universities where she is scheduled to speak to make clear that she is not welcome. Even if the UN refuses to #BanFran, Britain’s leading educational institutions should. Join us at:
We are also writing to the universities which are planning to host her. Should they come to their senses and reconsider the invitation, our protests will be called off.
Sign up at antisemitism.org/BanFran
Here is just a selection of Ms Albanese’s past rhetoric:
Is this the kind of person that LSE, SOAS and QML want to be lecturing their students?
Do not let this go unanswered. Join us. #BanFran
If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].
CAA submits complaint to BBC following alleged bias in reporting Israel’s response to Iran and Hizballah
Campaign Against Antisemitism has submitted a complaint to the BBC, following a report on BBC News that implied that Israel’s response to ongoing attacks by Iran and its proxies was unprovoked.
The report, which aired at the weekend, included a backgrounder on the recent targeting of military infrastructure in Iran by Israel, in which the news anchor listed a series of actions taken by the Jewish state, but failed to provide adequate context for why those actions were taken.
The anchor began: “Let us just remind you now of exactly how we got here.” She then said that “Tensions rose in Lebanon last month” due to the explosion of pagers that had been purchased by Hizballah and distributed to its members.
Apparently, 10,000 unprovoked rockets fired by Hizballah at the Jewish state, causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israeli civilians from their homes for over a year now, were not relevant to “how we got here”, because it all began when Israel randomly decided to blow up pagers.
The pagers, the BBC implies, were not purchased by Hizballah, a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror organisation funded by Iran, and distributed to its members, but rather found their way to Lebanon somehow and a few just happened to be in the possession of Hizballah members when they exploded.
She went on to say: “Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Israeli air strikes on southern Beirut.”
According to the backgrounder, Israel has been doing everything, and Hizballah and Lebanon have done nothing at all. The viewer is presented with no possible motivation for Israeli action, which is portrayed as unilateral and unwarranted.
Moreover, throughout the report, Hizballah is not described as a terrorist organisation. Whatever it is, it just has a leader who was assassinated by Israel for reasons that are apparently unfathomable. The BBC’s failure to describe Hizballah as a terrorist group is not impartial but inaccurate. No context is provided for why this organisation, which began firing rockets at Israeli homes on 8th October in solidarity with Hamas, which is also a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror group, might have provoked a response from the Jewish state.
The reporter continued to imply that it is Israel that expands conflict rather than Hizballah terrorists who created the northern front in this war in the first place, saying: “Three days later, Israeli tanks crossed the border into southern Lebanon opening up a new offensive in the conflict.”
“Within hours Iran had launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel.” Iran is presented not as the financier and puppet-master of Hamas and Hizballah terrorists, which it is, but as a third party merely showing solidarity with Lebanon after Israel attacked for no reason whatsoever.
Of the Iranian missile attack – the largest barrage of ballistic missiles in history – the BBC is at pains to point out that “Most were intercepted”. But Israel, it seems, decided to target Iran for no good reason anyway.
Our polling shows, year after year, that British Jews believe that media bias against Israel fuels antisemitism.
When the Jewish state is falsely portrayed, as in this BBC report, as needlessly aggressive and the methods and motivations of its enemies are whitewashed, it invites viewers to view Jews negatively and gives licence to antisemites to attack them.
You can sign our petition calling on all broadcasters to call Hizballah terrorists here.
Sir Alan Duncan suggests Conservative leadership candidate supports Israel because of family “Jewish link”
In a recent YouTube interview, Sir Alan Duncan, a former Minister and former Conservative Party MP, suggested that Robert Jenrick, a sitting Conservative MP, supports Israel due to “family connections which have a Jewish link”.
In an interview with a YouTube channel, he said of Mr Jenrick, one of the Conservative Party leadership candidates: “Now this man is an extremist. He does not believe in any kind of two state solution, although he says he does. He knows nothing about it. He takes his script entirely from the Conservative Friends of Israel and the Israelis, so he would be a disaster if he were leader of the Conservative Party.”
Sir Alan was asked why he thinks that Mr Jenrick, whose wife is Jewish, is a supporter of Israel. He replied that “it is disgusting extremism born of ignorance. But there’s also family connections which have a Jewish link. But just because someone’s Jewish doesn’t mean that they have to agree with Netanyahu.” The suggestion that a politician’s political views are adversely dictated by the ethnic heritage of their spouse is surely beyond the pale of our politics.
In a further statement, Sir Alan seems to have recognised the damage that his rhetoric might cause him, claiming: “My interview specifically excluded family links as mattering, stating that being Jewish doesn’t mean you necessarily agree with Netanyahu. It’s [Jenrick’s] views as a politician which matter.”
In the same interview, he was asked: “Something you said in the beginning of this conversation, and something that you wrote in your diaries: ‘The Conservative Friends of Israel and Israelis think that they control the Foreign Office, and probably they do.’ What did you mean by that?” He replied: “I think the influence of donor money really goes straight into No.10 Downing Street, and then they tell the Foreign Office what to do.”
He also invoked the Livingstone Formulation, claiming that accusations of antisemitism are levelled to silence criticism of Israel.
Sir Alan was already investigated earlier this year by the Party, following accusations of using antisemitic tropes when he suggested on-air that members of the House of Lords were working at the behest of the Jewish state. Shockingly, the Party cleared him of the accusations.
We will be writing to the Conservative Party regarding Sir Alan’s appalling conduct.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
Britain’s ‘anti-racists’ may be coming to a neighbourhood near you
This past Saturday, Stand Up to Racism and other ‘anti-racist’ groups gathered in London, ostensibly to protest a march organised by Tommy Robinson.
But there was plenty of racism on display among the so-called ‘anti-racists’, including signs and flyers demanding that “Zionism must be destroyed” and calling for an “End to Zionism”, claiming that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson are all “Israeli puppets”, and explaining “genocide maths” as “racism plus colonialism equals Zionism.”
Labour MPs and National Education Union leaders were among those in attendance. For those who like far-left ‘anti-racism’ maths, this seems like a more accurate equation: all anti-racisms are equal, but some are more equal than others.
The next day, the ‘anti-racists’ came to JW3, the Jewish cultural centre in North London, where a conference on Israel was taking place amid other regular programming. As members of the Jewish community entered the venue in order to attend that day’s events, they were forced to bypass an angry mob, who were screaming and chanting intimidatory slogans.
We have offered support to Jewish counter-demonstrators who were reportedly arrested by police, who otherwise allowed the anti-Israel protest to take place directly outside the entrance to the centre.
We are writing to the Metropolitan Police. Of course, this is the same Metropolitan Police whose officers do not seem to know that Hizballah is a terrorist organisation, even at a time when we know that Iran and its proxies pose a threat to Britain and the Jewish community.
After we publicised a video exposing ignorance among police officers, the Met rightly acknowledged the need for improved briefings for its officers. However, it feels like twelve months of excuses now while terror is being glorified on our streets, and British Jews are paying the price with unprecedented levels of antisemitism.
If you want to remind Hizballah supporters and forgetful police officers about the law of the land, our T-shirts and hoodies – with the caption “Hizballah Are Terrorists – It’s not an opinion. It’s the law.” – are available for purchase!
Show us the legal advice on UNRWA funding!
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has refused to reveal to us whether legal advice was sought or obtained in relation to the restoration of funding to the highly controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), so we are now calling on Foreign Secretary David Lammy to publish the legal advice in the interests of transparency and consistency.
Last month, “in the interests of transparency” Mr Lammy published a summary of the legal advice in relation to the decision to suspend some 30 licences for arms exports to Israel following legal advice from the Attorney General, due to a supposed “clear risk” that they may be used in ways that breach international law.
We called on the FCDO to confirm whether legal advice had been sought or obtained in relation to the decision to resume UNRWA funding, but the Ministry has refused to tell us. We have therefore now written to Mr Lammy calling on him to do so, and to publish a summary of the advice.
It is time that, in the interests of transparency and consistency, Mr Lammy reassures the British public that legal advice identified no such risks in relation to taxpayer funding of UNRWA.
Watermelons on Big Brother
Last week, a Big Brother ‘housemate’ was seen wearing a t-shirt depicting the map of Israel as a watermelon – a symbol widely associated with anti-Israel sentiment. Many British Jews regard this symbol as a genocidal message similar to the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ which calls for the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state.
We therefore submitted a complaint to Ofcom in relation to its appearance on the programme.
After we did so – and others complained as well – the episode was removed from ITVX and re-uploaded, having been edited to remove the offending image.
A spokesman for Big Brother said that the show did not “allow any personal items into the house that could be deemed harmful,” adding: “We regret that the implications of this particular item of clothing were not fully understood in our bag checks or prior to broadcast of last night’s show. We apologise to any viewers who have been offended by the broadcast and assure viewers that Big Brother was unaware of the implications of the image.”
We are grateful to ITV for acting swiftly to ensure that this sort of programming is free from unnecessary political or threatening messaging.
How the British media sees Israel’s conflict with Iran and its terror proxies and supporters
In explaining Israel’s targeting of military infrastructure in Iran over the weekend, BBC News offered a backgrounder, with the anchor saying: “Let us just remind you now of exactly how we got here.”
What followed was several minutes in which Israel was portrayed as the solitary actor engaging in entirely unprovoked military action against Hizballah – which was not described as a terrorist organisation or explained in any way – and Iran, whose firing of the largest barrage of ballistic missiles in history against Israel was played down.
You can watch the full clip and read our analysis here.
Once again, the BBC’s failure to describe Hizballah as a terrorist organisation was not impartial but inaccurate. We will be writing to the BBC.
When the Jewish state is falsely portrayed, as in this BBC report, as needlessly aggressive and the methods and motivations of its enemies are whitewashed, it invites viewers to view Jews negatively and gives licence to antisemites to attack them. In this surge of antisemitism in Britain, the BBC is not innocent.
Please sign our petition calling on all broadcasters to call Hizballah what they are: terrorists.
The BBC is not alone in its dubious portrayal of what is happening in the Middle East or right here in Britain. Last weekend, Sky News gave national airtime to a ‘peaceful’ protester who claimed that Israel is “systematically targeting civilians” in Gaza.
Yet, we interviewed this same individual earlier this year, and he openly described Hamas as a “legitimate resistance organisation”. In fact, he even admitted that if he were a Gazan, he would probably join Hamas himself. In 2015, he also ran as an Independent Parliamentary candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, one of the most heavily-Jewish constituencies in the UK.
When people show you who they truly are, believe them. These are not peace marches. It’s time they stopped happening on our streets.
Meanwhile, The Guardian recently removed its appalling review of ‘One Day in October’, a documentary about the Hamas massacre on 7th October. In the review, the author lamented that, watching the documentary, “All our sympathies are with relatable Israelis…By contrast, Hamas terrorists are a generalised menace on CCTV, their motives beyond One Day in October’s remit.”
The review did not meet its editorial guidelines, according to the newspaper, but we’re wondering why. After all, we put together a selection of other articles which are still up on the newspaper’s website that apparently do meet The Guardian’s editorial standards.
Clearly, The Guardian’s editorial standards are deficient. Perhaps at long last, it is time that The Guardian acquired some moral standards.
Sukkot and Simchat Torah, which we celebrated over the past two weeks, were joyous occasions. But they were tinged with the memory of what took place at this time last year.
We remembered those murdered on these days twelve months ago, and mourned their absence. We also marked the absence of the over 100 hostages still in Hamas captivity.
Thanks to a contribution from a generous supporter, we were able to build and dedicate a sukkah to the hostages, and in particular recreated what the Bibas family sukkah may have looked like if Yarden (35), Shiri (33) and their beautiful children Ariel (5) and baby Kfir (1) were free to celebrate this wonderful festival with the rest of their people.
We continue to hope, advocate and pray for their safe return.
David Lammy must now come clean on UNRWA legal advice
Following the Government’s announcement of a suspension of certain arms licences to Israel in September, purportedly in accordance with legal advice, Campaign Against Antisemitism submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) asking whether the Government sought or obtained legal advice in relation to its resumption of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over the summer.
The arms licences were suspended because the legal advice claimed to have identified a “clear risk that” the arms may be used in ways that breach international law.
UNRWA’s premises and personnel have been involved in Hamas terrorism, yet, as one of its first acts in office, this Government restored the funding that its predecessor had suspended. The decision in July came shortly before a review by the United Nations was completed, which unsurprisingly sought to provide reassurance that UNRWA was putting processes in place to ensure that it “meets the highest standards of neutrality and strengthening its procedures”. Since that report, however, further allegations have arisen regarding UNRWA personnel and resources.
We were therefore interested to know whether the Government sought legal advice in relation to the UNRWA decision and whether that advice found no risk of the funding being used in ways that breach international law.
However, the FCDO has replied to us, acknowledging that it holds information relevant to the FOI but refusing to disclose whether legal advice was sought or obtained, or the content thereof.
We have now called on Foreign Secretary David Lammy to publish a summary of the legal advice, just as he did in relation to the arms licences, in the interests of transparency and consistency.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “UNRWA’s premises are regularly used by Hamas terrorists and some of its personnel were directly involved in the 7th October massacre, but the FCDO has refused to reveal to us whether legal advice was sought or obtained in relation to this controversial decision. We are therefore now calling on David Lammy to publish the legal advice in the interests of transparency and consistency. He relied heavily on legal advice in deciding to suspend certain arms exports to Israel because of a supposed ‘clear risk’ of a breach of international law. British taxpayers have a right to know if legal advice identified no similar risks by UNRWA before the restoration of funding.”
JCIO issues formal advice to magistrate, who referred to a “Jewish accounting system”
On Friday, the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO) issued a magistrate with formal advice, following allegations of “unconscious bias of an antisemitic nature”.
The JCIO’s decision related to Lynn Killoran JP, a Merseyside magistrate, following a complaint by a fellow magistrate who is Jewish, regarding comments in which Ms Killoran allegedly referred to a “Jewish accounting system”.
She allegedly said that “Jewish charities are believed to make use of the ‘Jewish Accounting System’, whereby money disappears without a trace and reappears later at a much higher value.”
The complaint alleged that Ms Killoran made the comments when talking about her work within the charity sector and that she drew links between Jewish charities and fraud.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by the Judicial College, “making stereotypical allegations about Jews” is an example of antisemitism.
Ms Killoran reportedly denied making most of the alleged comments and also said that the comments she did make were taken out of context and were not antisemitic.
Following an investigation, a nominated member of the North-West Region Conduct Advisory Committee advised the JCIO that some of Ms Killoran’s statements “betrayed unconscious bias”. They also concluded that whilst her actions were “not deliberate or malicious”, they did demonstrate a “lack of awareness” and made her colleagues “uncomfortable”.
Mr Justice Keehan and the Lord Chancellor concluded that formal advice, which had been suggested by the nominated member of the Advisory Committee, was “reasonable and proportionate”. They also considered that Ms Killoran’s comments were “ill-judged” but “not malicious or intended to cause offence” and agreed that it was an “isolated incident”.
Antisemitism in Britain, one year on
We are one year on from 7th October.
In that time, we have witnessed regular anti-Israel protests featuring antisemitic rhetoric and chanting and glorification of terror on our streets, encampments on our campuses, intimidation in and around schools, online, in workplaces and even in hospitals, media bias on our televisions and radios and in newspapers, growing sectarianism in our politics, and indifference by our public bodies and criminal justice system.
But what do the British people think, one year on? What do they think of Hamas? What do they think of the Jews?
These are questions we put, through YouGov, to the British public. The results are concerning, but with regard to young people (aged 18-24) the results are positively alarming.
This is what we found.
Views on Hamas
Antisemitic attitudes
The YouGov survey was designed in collaboration with Campaign Against Antisemitism and used the peer-reviewed Generalised Antisemitism Scale. The full results and methodology can be read here.
We provided an exclusive briefing on the polling results to MPs and the findings have been covered widely in the media.
Extremism is becoming normalised in our country, and as ever Jews are the canaries in the coal mine. We have been marking one year since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but here in Britain we need to turn our attention to the home front, where British society is changing before our eyes.
Most alarming of all, our young people are becoming radicalised at a far greater rate than the rest of the population, sympathising with terrorists and espousing extreme anti-Jewish racism.
If the authorities continue to let radicalism run rampant on campuses and on social media, it will not be long before we are looking over our shoulders at generation hate.
This is National Hate Crime Awareness Week, but are the police aware?
The intensifying antisemitic attitudes among segments of the British public are manifesting in hate crimes.
New Home Office statistics show that attacks against Jews between spring 2023 and the following year more than doubled, and our analysis of the numbers shows that Jewish people are considerably more likely to be the victims of hate crime than any other faith group per capita.
This was after the Met Police disclosed that hate crimes against Jews in the capital over the past eleven months have increased fourfold.
This is National Hate Crime Awareness Week. But all the statistics and record-keeping notwithstanding, are the police really aware?
Are they really aware that perpetrators need to be identified, arrested and prosecuted? Are they really aware of the effect of failing to do that? Are they really aware of the impact that all of this antisemitism, one year on, is having on ordinary British Jews?
To give voice to that anguish, we invited three Jews living in Britain who had never met before to talk to one another, in front of a camera, about how they are really feeling, one year on. The full video can be watched here.
Police don’t know Hizballah are proscribed terrorists
One thing that some police officers do not appear to be aware of is that Hizballah is a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK law.
We have released new, jaw-dropping footage showing a concerned member of the public approaching two Metropolitan Police officers at a vigil for Hizballah’s leader. The vigil took place in broad daylight in Trafalgar Square.
In this footage, taken on 28th September, the officers appear not to know that Hizballah is a proscribed terrorist organisation and demonstrate no concern about the event. When the member of the public tells the officers that Hizballah is proscribed under British law, one of the officers responds: “Your opinion is your opinion.”
The Head of MI5 has warned about the risk that Iran and its proxies pose to the UK, yet here was a vigil for an Iranian-backed proscribed terrorist group leader on our streets. When someone tried to point out to police officers that Hizballah is a terrorist organisation, he was gaslit, told that this was merely his ‘opinion’.
It is hard to watch the lack of training of Met officers on display here without despairing. For Britain’s Jews, acutely aware of Hizballah’s antisemitic genocidal intentions and record, it is terrifying. How are our officers supposed to protect us when they don’t even understand the law? We will be writing to the Metropolitan Police Service.
The Met are not the only ones.
Last week, we also called out the BBC for failing to describe Hamas and Hizballah as terrorists on BBC Newsround, a news programme for younger viewers. When the BBC fails to call these groups what they are, they are not being ‘impartial’: they are being inaccurate.
If you believe that our broadcasters should call terrorists what they are, please sign the petition.
The fight goes on
With antisemitism still at record-levels amid growing radicalisation and sectarianism in British society, we are continuing to ensure that these issues remain in the news and on the public agenda.
This week, we published the 100th episode of our podcast, Podcast Against Antisemitism, the world’s only podcast dedicated to discussion of antisemitism. For this anniversary episode, we interviewed our Chief Executive, for his take on the last year and our plans going forward.
We also continue to lead the debate on this issue within the Jewish community. Last week, for example, our Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, joined the President of the Board of Deputies, Phil Rosenberg, for a conversation moderated by journalist Nicole Lampert on the state of antisemitism today.
We wish our Jewish supporters a joyous Sukkot and a meaningful Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
This Shemini Atzeret, our thoughts are also with those who were murdered on 7th October 2023, which fell on this festival last year. May their memory be a blessing.
Jews over twelve times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than other faith group, CAA analysis of home office stats shows
An analysis by Campaign Against Antisemitism of new Home Office statistics released this week shows that Jews are more than twelve times likelier to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group, as figures reach record numbers.
Police forces across the country record hate crimes against Jews as religious hate crimes, and these records show that in the year 2023/24, 3,282 hate crimes were committed against Jews, making Jews the target in 33% – almost one in three – of the total number of religious hate crimes.
These figures mean that there is an average of just under nine hate crimes directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales. Hate crimes against Jews are also still widely believed to be under-reported, and also do not reflect the extent of antisemitic material and abuse on social media.
However, when one accounts for the miniscule size of the Jewish population, it emerges that Jews are statistically more than twelve times more likely to be the targets of hate crimes than any other religious group, with some 1,210 hate crimes per 100,000 of the Jewish population in 2023/24.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “These figures should be alarming. For years, we have seen the number of Jewish victims of religious hate crimes rise, but this year, that number has soared. Following Hamas’ barbaric attacks on 7th October last year, antisemitism has surged in all areas of British life, and this is what that looks like. If the Jewish community is to be reassured that the authorities are taking this frightening trend seriously, it is finally time for arrests and prosecutions.”
Today, we remember.
Today is the first anniversary of 7th October 2023, a day that traumatised the Jewish people and will live in infamy.
On this day, the Jewish people suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostage.
We remember the victims who brutally lost their lives that day, some of whom lived their final moments in agony. We also remember the brave acts of heroism from those who made it their mission to help and rescue others nearby, even if it cost them their life.
May their memory be a blessing.
Through the testimonies of courageous survivors, we are still piecing together the horrific events of that day.
We continue to fight for the release of the over 100 hostages who still remain in captivity. They and their loved ones are in our thoughts. The Jewish people is incomplete without them.
We were proud to partner with organisations across the Jewish community in support of the commemorative event in Hyde Park yesterday, and to host a stall to speak to members of the community.
London supports the hostages
As we know, one year ago today, Hamas terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostage. More than 100 hostages are still being held captive.
We recently went out in London to offer pedestrians yellow ribbon pins in support of the hostages still held by Hamas. Watch what happened here.
Last week, we invited people to print off “Bring Them Home” posters and place them in their windows to show solidarity with the hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on 7th October.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us photographs of your posters so far. To take part, just e-mail your picture to [email protected].
Learn more about 7th October and the hostages
Over the past year, we have released a number of episodes of our podcast addressing the events of 7th October and its impact on survivors and the families of hostages.
On this day of commemoration, you may be particularly interested in our interviews with:
Antisemitism at its highest levels
It has been reported that, over the past eleven months, there were more reported abuses of Jews than Muslims in London, for the first time.
For years, Jewish people have been by far the biggest victims of hate crime per capita – as we have previously highlighted in national billboard campaigns – but now, notwithstanding our relatively minuscule numbers, Jews are also the biggest victims in absolute terms.
This is an indictment of where our society is at, with rising levels of antisemitism and radicalisation, particularly among British youth – a trend that our national polling, released today, demonstrates. The polling has already been covered in the national press.
The antisemitic hate crime figures – which show that hate crime against Jews has increased fourfold – cannot come as a surprise to many people, particularly given that there is antisemitic rhetoric and chanting on our streets week after week. Indeed, this past Saturday, an anti-Israel demonstration was held in London marking one year since the Hamas invasion. As always, our Demonstration and Events Monitoring team was present and documented what took place.
Nearly one year on, the streets of London are filled with the same calls for intifada and grotesque Holocaust inversion. But now, support for Hizballah is on display too. This is the result of inaction from those in power who failed to forcefully clamp down on support for terror over an entire year.
Among the photographs and footage captured by our volunteers this past weekend was a man holding a pro-Hamas sign and declaring his “love for October”. The Times and The Telegraph picked up the story, and the Metropolitan Police then put out a witness appeal.
If you have any information, please e-mail us at [email protected] or contact the Metropolitan Police directly.
Join us to discuss the state of antisemitism today
From arson attacks to chants calling for intifada, to the harassment of Jewish students on campus, British Jews have been facing torrents of abuse. For the past year, our community has felt uncertain not just about safety, but our place in Britain.
One year on from 7th October, we invite you to join communal leaders for an important conversation as they discuss the current state of Jewry in Britain and what the future holds.
Hosted by journalist Nicole Lampert, the event will feature Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, and Phil Rosenberg, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
This event will take place on Wednesday 9th October at 19:00 in North London. Booking is essential. The location will be announced to ticketholders on the day.
We are one year on from what was only the beginning of a heart-wrenching period for the Jewish people and our friends and allies.
Israel’s entry into a multi-front war, continuing efforts to free the hostages and a worldwide surge in antisemitism unprecedented in recent times have deprived us of an opportunity to properly mourn and process what happened that day.
This anniversary is one such opportunity, imperfect though it may be. In the meantime, we will continue to do whatever we can to defend British Jews.
We wish those fasting this weekend an easy and meaningful Yom Kippur.
New polling shows extent of sympathy for Hamas and frightening trends of radicalism among young Britons
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) commissioned YouGov to survey British adults’ attitudes towards Jews.
The polling has revealed very concerning levels of support for Hamas and antisemitic views, especially among young people in Britain.
As we mark one year since Hamas’ barbaric attacks in Israel, levels of antisemitism in Britain have never been higher.
Here are some key takeaways from the polling:
Views on Hamas
Antisemitic attitudes
The YouGov survey was designed in collaboration with Campaign Against Antisemitism and using the Generalised Antisemitism Scale, more on which below.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Extremism is becoming normalised in our country, and as ever Jews are the canaries in the coal mine. This week marks one year since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but here in Britain we need to turn our attention to the home front, where British society is changing before our eyes. Most alarming of all, our young people are becoming radicalised at a far greater rate than the rest of the population, sympathising with terrorists and espousing extreme anti-Jewish racism. If the authorities continue to let radicalism run rampant on campuses and on social media, it will not be long before we are looking over our shoulders at generation hate.”
Full results
(Figures in brackets represent the 18-24 answers)
Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business
Jewish people are just as loyal to Britain as other British people
I am just as open to having Jewish friends as I am to having friends from other sections of British society
Compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media
Jewish people talk about the Holocaust just to further their political agenda
Jewish people chase money more than other people do
I am comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel
Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people
Israel is right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it
Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on our democracy
Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media
Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews
Since last year there have been regular marches in many city centres in support of Gaza. If you were due to visit a city centre when you knew a large pro-Palestinian march was due to happen, would it put you off from visiting?
Do you have a favourable or unfavourable view of Hamas?
From what you have seen or heard, do you think the attacks that Hamas launched on Israel on 7th October 2023 were justified or unjustified?
The British Government currently classifies Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Do you think they are right or wrong to class them as terrorists?
It has been reported that Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis in the attacks on the 7th October 2023. From what you have seen or heard, do you think these reports are…
Background and Methodology
The twelve statements – which include six relating to Judeophobic antisemitism and six relating to anti-Zionist antisemitism – together comprise the Generalised Antisemitism Scale.
The Generalised Antisemitism Scale was devised by Dr Daniel Allington of King’s College London, Dr David Hirsh of Goldsmiths, and Dr Louise Katz (then) of the University of Derby. The research behind the Generalised Antisemitism Scale has been peer reviewed.
In particular, in developing the Generalised Antisemitism Scale, they were guided by the International Definition of Antisemitism, which Campaign Against Antisemitism, together with other Jewish communal institutions from around the world, has long campaigned to be widely adopted. Further background on the Generalised Antisemitism Scale can be found here.
Our survey of British adults were conducted by YouGov Plc. The surveys were administered online to members of YouGov’s panel of over 1,000,000 British adults who have agreed to take part in surveys. E-mails were sent to adult panellists who fulfilled the requirements of the sample, inviting them to take part in the surveys, and providing a link to the survey. YouGov normally achieves a response rate of between 35% and 50% to surveys however this does vary depending on the subject matter, complexity and length of the questionnaire.
The total sample size was 2,615 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 2nd-5th August 2024 by YouGov plc. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
YouGov ensured that there were no duplicate responses and that all respondents were adults living in Great Britain.
The responding sample was weighted according to age and gender, social grade, political attention level, education, and region, in addition to past voting behaviour, to provide a representative reporting sample. The profile is derived from the Census as well as the mid-year population estimates and Annual Population Survey published by the Office for National Statistics.
Reflecting on a year of tragedy, and looking ahead
As we approach Rosh Hashanah, we reflect on a year of tragedy for the Jewish people, a multi-front war against the Jewish state, skyrocketing antisemitism around the world, and over one hundred hostages still in captivity.
The international community has failed the Jewish people, and at home the authorities in Britain have failed the Jewish community.
Over the past year, we have raised awareness of the hostages on billboards and digital vans, exposed antisemitism on weekly anti-Israel marches, made scores of reports to the police, regulators and broadcasters about antisemitic incidents and rhetoric, supported more victims than ever, kept antisemitism on the front pages, engaged with ministers and political parties on legislation, supported students and arranged groundbreaking events, including the largest gathering against antisemitism in living memory.
But it is still not enough. That is why, on the cusp of the Jewish New Year – the Festival of Judgment – we rededicate ourselves to the fight for justice for British Jews.
You can help. If you want assistance pursuing justice in a case of antisemitism on the street or at work, on campus or online, please e-mail us in confidence at [email protected]. Only by raising our voices and seeking justice can we make a change.
The “peaceful” protests continue
The anti-Israel protests are continuing on our streets and on some campuses.
We are continually being told that these protests are peaceful, but our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit begs to differ.
Call Hizballah “terrorists”
Like Hamas, Hizballah is a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror group. But you wouldn’t know this from Britain’s broadcasters, including the biased BBC.
We are therefore calling on our broadcasters to call Hizballah what they are: terrorists. Please sign the petition to make your voice heard!
Come discuss the future of British Jewry with us
From arson attacks to chants calling for intifada, to the harassment of Jewish students on campus, British Jews have been facing torrents of abuse. For the past year, our community has felt uncertain not just about safety, but our place in Britain.
One year on from 7th October, we invite you to join communal leaders for an important conversation as they discuss the current state of Jewry in Britain and what the future holds.
Hosted by journalist Nicole Lampert, the event will feature Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, and Phil Rosenberg, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
This event will take place on Wednesday 9th October at 19:00 in North London. Booking is essential. The location will be announced to ticketholders on the day.
This 7th October, we remember
Rosh Hashanah is immediately followed by remembrance for the first anniversary of the 7th October massacre over the weekend and into next week.
We are proud to support the cross-communal commemoration event on at 14:30 on Sunday 6th October in Hyde Park in solidarity with Jews in Israel and calling, once more, for the swift and safe return of the hostages.
With your help, we will continue fighting
However difficult this past year has been, we are also reminded of the strength and resilience of the Jewish community. It is thanks to your support that we are able to continue to fight.
Please consider making Campaign Against Antisemitism the recipient of your Rosh Hashanah donation. Your contribution, no matter the size, will help us to defend our community.
May the Jewish people know no more sorrow, and may the new year be one of happiness, joy and justice.
Nearly one year on, the police are still missing the mark
Despite having over eleven months of experience in policing weekly anti-Israel protests, the Metropolitan Police Service is still missing the mark.
Many of our supporters will have seen images online of anti-hate activist Mark Birbeck, who was recently arrested after holding a sign at an anti-Israel protest stating that under UK law, Hamas is a terrorist organisation.
Mr Birbeck’s bail conditions prevented him from entering the City of Westminster on the day of Israel-related protests, attending Israel-related protests and contacting Niyak Ghorbani, who was also arrested after holding a sign bearing the same simple statement of fact.
In order to avoid breaching his bail conditions, on the night of an Israel-related protest last week outside the Foreign Office, Mr Birbeck stood on the Lambeth side of Westminster Bridge with his sign in order to give people a “gentle reminder” that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation.
We decided to keep him company, and film what happened.
Following a bail application at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, Mr Birbeck’s bail conditions were overturned. However, disgracefully, Mr Ghorbani is prohibited from attending any Israel-related protest on a Saturday without obtaining prior permission from the police.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has provided the legal defence for both Mr Birbeck and Mr Ghorbani throughout their ordeal. We will continue to provide free legal defence to those who are improperly arrested whilst standing up to antisemitism. It comes at a significant cost, but it is the least that we can do for those who stand with Jews amid this outpouring of antisemitism.
The question is, why is it necessary?
All the while, at the very same protest, anti-Israel demonstrators in London chanted for the complete eradication of the only Jewish state with calls for a return to “1948”. And their only solution? To “globalise the Intifada” through armed “resistance” — a phrase synonymous with terror, violence, and the murder of innocent Israelis.
This isn’t about coexistence; it’s about the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.
Damning report on policing of protests released
The Policy Exchange think tank has released a damning report into the policing of anti-Israel protests. The report reinforces what we have been saying all along and echoes a number of our legislative and policy recommendations.
The Met has failed abysmally in its policing of these demonstrations and ordinary people trying to go about their lives have had their rights curtailed.
According to the report:
Matt Twist, Assistant Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police, admitted: “When we look back at the policing of protests over the past eight months, we know we didn’t get everything right, particularly in the early stages in October.”
Next month will be one year since anti-Israel protesters took over our streets on a regular basis. Real change is long overdue. The British public deserves better.
The full report can be read here.
Making sure that the Foreign Secretary hears our voices
Campaign Against Antisemitism recently wrote to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, after it was announced that the UK would suspend some 30 licences for arms exports to Israel, to ask whether legal advice had been sought in relation to the restoration of funding to UNRWA, and for a summary of that advice similarly to be published.
We asked our supporters to write to the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, the Solicitor General, Sarah Sackman, and the Attorney General, Lord Hermer.
Following our call to action, three Labour MPs, including the Solicitor General, wrote to the Foreign Secretary, noting that “constituents have been in touch and expressed deep concern and upset” at the decision. The full letter can be read here. He has yet to respond.
Thank you to those who wrote to your MPs, and to those who shared with us the responses that you received.
Our call to advocate for the hostages
We will soon mark one year since Hamas abducted 251 Israelis and other nationals from Israel and took them into captivity in Gaza. Over 90 hostages remain in Gaza, including four who have been held by Hamas since before October 2023.
Thank you to our many supporters who wrote to their MPs, educating them and urging them to advocate for the hostages and ensure that their plight is not forgotten within the walls of our Parliament.
If you have yet to share a particularly supportive or hostile response from your MP, please let us know by e-mailing [email protected].
Unfortunately, there are still many people out there who deny that Israelis are being held hostage by Hamas.
We recently obtained and published footage of someone defacing posters of the hostages. The incident occurred in Hampstead, North London and we encourage anyone with further information to contact us at [email protected].
What is the biggest threat to an antisemite?
In the wake of 7th October, Jewish student life on campus was turned on its head.
That is why we hosted our first ever student panel where Jewish university students spoke about their experiences of antisemitism on campus in Britain following Hamas’ 7th October terrorist atrocities in Israel.
Our audience heard stories from our five panellists that were at the same time moving, troubling, and at times, inspiring.
Gili, one of the students on our panel, spoke of the importance of being a proud Jew on campus. He also emphasised how vital support from fellow students is against those who aim to intimidate Jews on university campuses.
One of the attendees wrote to us after the event to thank Campaign Against Antisemitism and tell us that whilst it was “sad hearing what [the students] are facing at university…the love that they have for their Judaism and the strength they have in standing up to antisemitism is wonderful”.
Education is a crucial part of the fight against antisemitism. Our work has never been more important.
Thank you to our audience for dedicating your time to learning more about what Jewish students are facing, and thank you to our panellists for bravely sharing your stories.
If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].
Become a Student Ambassador!
Are you a student at university in 2024-2025, or do you know somebody who is? Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Student Ambassador programme is an exciting opportunity to work with us in a prestigious year-long initiative.
Student Ambassadors will work closely with our Education Officer and wider team to help us to expose and challenge the rising tide of antisemitism overwhelming UK university campuses.
The contributions of our students are more important now than ever before to the fight against antisemitism.
For further information and details about the programme please visit antisemitism.org/become-a-student-ambassador.
Applications close on 30th September so make sure that you apply soon!
We need you
We are hiring two paid positions in diverse areas of our work.
Are you a lawyer? Are you disgusted with surging antisemitism? Do you want to hold antisemites to account?
We are seeking an experienced solicitor or barrister to become our new General Counsel.
Our in-house General Counsel will be at the forefront of the fight against antisemitism, using this unique position to hold antisemites to account and force the authorities to fulfil their duty to protect British Jews.
For more information, please visit antisemitism.org/jobs/general-counsel.
Are you skilled in creating impactful videos? Do you want to help combat Jew-hatred?
Campaign Against Antisemitism is looking for a Video and Content Creator to join us in the fight against antisemitism.
The Video and Content Creator will play a critical role in shaping visual narratives that educate, inform and inspire action against antisemitism.
To find out more, go to antisemitism.org/jobs/video-and-content-creator/.
Are you a medical professional, or a recent patient?
We are collecting testimonies on antisemitism in the medical field.
We are interested to hear from doctors and other medical practitioners, staff, patients and anyone else who has encountered antisemitism in medicine over the past year.
If you have been affected, please e-mail us confidentially at [email protected] with the subject: “Medical”.
After eleven months, we are still calling on the police, our ministers and members of Parliament to stop making the same mistakes. But it is clear that public dissatisfaction with these failures is growing and decision-makers are beginning to listen.
We will continue to make our voices heard and remain unrelenting in our fight against anti-Jewish racism.
CAA, ten years on
This past weekend marked ten years in the Jewish calendar since Campaign Against Antisemitism was launched.
When we were first founded, our task was daunting, but in the history of Jewish endeavour, the successes have been achieved by small, plucky, single-minded groups using every ounce of their determination and ingenuity to strike blows for our people against seemingly insurmountable odds.
We dedicated ourselves to the fight against antisemitism through pioneering litigation and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law, far-reaching communications campaigns, strident advocacy and innovative means of education.
We have put antisemites behind bars, put antisemitism on the front pages and trained anyone from regulators to schoolchildren in how to identify and address antisemitism.
Our thanks go to you, our supporters, for being with us over the past decade. You have enabled us to ensure that antisemites face ruinous consequences for their conduct, and to expose antisemitism wherever and whenever we see it, without fear or favour.
We are immensely proud of everything that we have achieved in just ten years. There is still much more to do, but, with your support, we are ready to do whatever it takes.
We are enormously grateful to our volunteers, staff, trustees and supporters: we couldn’t have come this far without you.
We are marking our tenth anniversary at one of the worst periods for Jews in living memory. Our work, sadly, is more urgent than ever. But we are as true to our mission today as we were ten years ago, best encapsulated by our motto, taken from this past week’s Torah portion: “Justice, justice you shall pursue.”
If you would like to support our work, you can do so by applying to volunteer or making a donation. We are extremely grateful for any help that you are able to give.
We demand justice just as loudly now as we did ten years ago outside the Royal Courts of Justice, and we will continue to do so.
An obscene decision
The Foreign Secretary has announced that the Government is suspending some 30 licences for arms exports to Israel following legal advice from the Attorney General, whose views on Israel were well-known before he was appointed.
In the interest of “transparency”, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has published a summary of this legal advice.
This decision comes just weeks after Mr Lammy announced that the Government was resuming funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), after the previous Government suspended funding earlier this year following allegations — which have since effectively been admitted — that some UNRWA staff had been involved in the 7th October Hamas attack and even that at least one hostage was held captive at the home of an UNRWA teacher.
Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to ask whether legal advice was sought in relation to the restoration of funding to UNRWA, and for a summary of that advice similarly to be published. Weapons sales to the Jewish state have been suspended because of a supposed “clear risk” that they may be used in ways that breach international law; we are interested to see whether no such risks were identified in relation to the funding to UNRWA.
The Government has ensured that a UN agency that is, at best, reckless to Hamas’s use of its premises and personnel for purposes of terror and, at worst, complicit, has the resources that it wants, while depriving Israel of what it needs to defend its citizens. It is a Government whose decisions thus far have all been hostile toward the Jewish state — decisions announced by a Foreign Secretary who insists that his Government supports Israel while sanctioning it and who wears a yellow ribbon in support of the hostages when he meets Israeli officials but removes it for meetings with the Palestinian Authority.
This latest announcement of arms sale suspensions comes on the day that Israel was burying the six hostages brutally slaughtered in cold blood by antisemitic Hamas terrorists. The British Government is broadcasting that Western allies should not be supplying Israel with the arms that it needs to fight to save the hostages and defeat Hamas. This is obscene.
The announcement also comes on the day that Jeremy Corbyn declared the establishment of a new alliance of five independent MPs who have made Gaza their principal priority. Each of these MPs has a concerning record of rhetoric in relation to the Jewish community or the Jewish state, yet it is they and their supporters whom Labour is choosing to appease with this announcement, while paying lip service to the Jewish community.
British Jews cannot be bought with fine words and hand-wringing every Holocaust Memorial Day. We continue to make every effort to engage with Sir Keir Starmer’s new Government, but, as he himself said as he took over the leadership of the Labour Party, the Jewish community should judge him by his actions and not his words. The events of 7th October and the ongoing captivity of hostages are the worst single antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust, and we join the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, in condemning the actions of the Foreign Secretary.
We invite you to write to:
Continuing to do our part to help the hostages
Our joy at the rescue of hostage Qaid Farhan Al-Kadi from Gaza last week has been displaced by heartbreak at the news that six hostages were murdered by Hamas hours before their own abortive rescue.
This news makes our campaign to encourage MPs to take action all the more urgent.
Later this week, 7th September 2024 will mark eleven months since Hamas abducted 251 Israelis and other nationals from Israel and took them into captivity in Gaza. Of those 251 hostages, 117 have been returned alive, and now 36 bodies have been repatriated. Over 100 still remain, including four who have been held by Hamas since before October 2023.
In a month’s time, on 7th October 2024, we will be marking the one-year anniversary of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas. We must do whatever we can to ensure that no hostage is still in captivity by that date.
That is why we are running a campaign encouraging everyone to write to their MP to educate our Parliamentarians — including the hundreds of new MPs — about this issue and put the hostages back on the agenda. Thanks to so many of you for heeding our call and writing to your MP.
You can write in two easy steps.
If you get particularly supportive or hostile responses, you are welcome to share them with us by forwarding them to [email protected].
Last chance to RSVP for Stories from Students
Since 7th October, Jewish student life on campus has been turned on its head.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has therefore brought together current students and recent graduates from universities across the country to share their stories and answer questions from prospective students and their parents, as well as current students and other interested members of the Jewish community.
This event, taking place this Thursday 5th September at 18:30 in North London, is an important opportunity to hear directly from Jewish students.
It is also a chance for us to come together to show our support and solidarity with those who faced this new generation of hate head-on.
Booking is essential.
Sir Keir Starmer said that the Jewish community should judge him by his actions and not his words. So far, this Government’s words regarding the Jewish state have tried to be reassuring but its actions have been little short of hostile.
This bodes very ill for the coming years, and Sir Keir risks rapidly losing the goodwill with British Jews that he spent years building up.
The wheels of justice turn slowly. CAA is here to give them a push.
We would like to update you on a number of cases that we have working on.
You may recall this video that was posted back in March and circulated on TikTok. It threatened violence against a named individual, saying that he was being hunted to “dish out the justice” and that once found, they would “drag him away from his family in front of his family”.
We reported the individual to counterterrorism police and commenced a private prosecution. We can now confirm that the CPS has taken up the case and the individual in the video has been charged with communications and terrorism offences and is awaiting trial.
In another case, last October, a social media user published these posts in the wake of a terrorist rocket that fell short and killed people in a Gaza hospital. The explosion was blamed by the BBC and other media outlets on Israel, fuelling antisemitic rhetoric like this. Apologies from the media, even after the damage was done, were few and far between.
One of the posts showed images of long knives. The posts threatened that “There won’t be a f***ing Jew walking the streets of London if this carries on!”
We argued that there is a direct link between inflammatory, unverified, incorrect reporting on Israel and this kind of reaction. We reported the case to the police and, after a considerable period of inaction by the police, we can now confirm that the individual has been charged.
The LGBTQ+ nightclub Adonis announced in its Instagram bio that “definitely no f***ing Zionists” were welcome at its club nights. The promoters also claimed that “Zionism has no place in queer spaces”. After an outcry, the bio was amended to read “no genocidal maniacs plz xx.”
We consider that Adonis’ ban on “Zionists” entering its events may breach criminal, equality, and licensing laws. We wrote to the co-Directors of DL Food and Drink Limited, the company that holds the licence for the premises, The Cause, that hosts Adonis at Silver Building in the Docklands. The company has now announced that Adonis’ event on 7th September will not take place on its premises.
Whilst Adonis sought to backtrack on its inflammatory online comments, the harm has already been done and our lawyers are examining various potential courses of action closely.
There have been several instances of Jewish people being actively or implicitly excluded from LGBTQ+ spaces and parades, and we will always act to ensure that all spaces — especially those that pride themselves on their “inclusivity” — understand that ostracising Jews carries consequences.
In addition, we continue to write to venues alerting them to Reginald D. Hunter’s recent conduct at the Edinburgh Fringe and his social media activity since then, and we are pleased to report that several have already cancelled his bookings. We are continuing to work with the victims and our lawyers are examining legal options.
These are only a selection of the cases that we are working on, and they represent only a fraction of the matters that we have reported to the police. These prosecutions are likely to take months, if not years, but we will see them through to the end.
Doing our part to help the hostages
We were delighted by the news today that one of the hostages, Qaid Farhan Al-Kadi, has been rescued from Gaza.
In just over a week’s time, 7th September 2024 will mark eleven months since Hamas abducted 251 Israelis and other nationals from Israel and took them into captivity in Gaza.
Of those 251 hostages, 117 have been returned alive, and 30 bodies have been repatriated. Over 100 still remain, including four who have been held by Hamas since before October 2023.
In a month’s time, on 7th October 2024, we will be marking the one-year anniversary of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas. We must do whatever we can to ensure that no hostage is still in captivity by that date.
That is why we are launching a campaign encouraging everyone to write to their MP to educate our Parliamentarians — including the hundreds of new MPs — about this issue and put the hostages back on the agenda.
You can write in two easy steps.
First, download this Word document, which contains a draft letter that you are welcome to use or amend as you please before sending either as a hard-copy letter, or as an e-mail attachment, or simply as text in the body of an e-mail. Remember to add your MP’s name and your name and postcode so that they know that you are a constituent and that they should respond.
Second, find out who your MP is and how to contact them, by clicking here.
If you get particularly supportive or hostile responses, you are welcome to share them with us by forwarding them to [email protected].
For those interested, we recently interviewed Eylon Keshet, a relative of the Bibas family, for our podcast. It has been over ten months since Hamas terrorists kidnapped Yarden and Shiri Bibas and their children, baby Kfir and Ariel. You can listen here.
Book now to hear Stories from Students
Since 7th October, Jewish student life on campus has been turned on its head.
CAA has therefore brought together current students and recent graduates from universities across the country to share their stories and answer questions from prospective students and their parents, as well as current students and other interested members of the Jewish community.
This event, taking place at 18:30 on Thursday 5th September in North London, is an important opportunity to hear directly from Jewish students.
It is also a chance for us to come together to show our support and solidarity with those who faced this new generation of hate head-on.
Booking is essential.
British Jews, how are you?
Do want to say your piece on antisemitism in Britain for one of our videos? If British Jews do not speak out about how we are feeling right now, we are less likely to get the action from the authorities that we need.
If you want to speak to camera or would like more information, please e-mail us now at [email protected] with the subject: “British Jews”.
Are you a medical professional, or a recent patient?
We are collecting testimonies on antisemitism in the medical field.
We are interested to hear from doctors and other medical practitioners, staff, patients and anyone else who has encountered antisemitism in medicine over the past year.
If you have been affected, please e-mail us confidentially at [email protected] with the subject: “Medical”.
Become a CAA Student Ambassador!
Are you a student at university in 2024-2025, or do you know somebody who is? CAA’s Student Ambassador programme is an exciting opportunity to work with us in a prestigious year-long initiative.
Student Ambassadors will work closely with our Education Officer and wider team to help us to expose and challenge the rising tide of antisemitism overwhelming UK university campuses.
The contributions of our students is more important now than ever before to the fight against antisemitism.
For further information and details about the programme please visit antisemitism.org/become-a-student-ambassador.
We are grateful to all of you who have answered our invitation to speak on camera about antisemitism or our call for evidence of antisemitism in the medical profession, or applied to become a Student Ambassador or have RSVPed to our Stories from Students event. It is only with the active help of the Jewish community and our allies that we can continue to raise awareness of antisemitism, confront it and deliver justice.
All of the legal cases that we are working on are likely to take months, if not years, before they reach an outcome. But, no matter how slowly the wheels of justice turn, CAA will be there to give them a push.
Is this summer of riots just the beginning?
The recent riots and counterdemonstrations have come to define this summer. But as they appear to cool off and the country finally gets a break, it remains to be seen whether the Jewish community will get any respite.
As we head into the new academic year and new Jewish year, we are ready for the fight ahead.
Riots, racism and “anti-racism”
Over the last few weeks, the criminal justice system has been woken from its slumber to confront the riots and hooliganism that have been plaguing the cities of Britain.
The rioters
We wrote about how far-right forums, which were being used to organise the riots, were targeting Jews, with messages in one far-right Telegram channel, for example, saying that they “support neither brown nor Jew”, and that Hitler was “the only politician since Roman times to truly care for his people”.
“The Jewish people fabricated the Holocaust – ensuring they would never again be questioned by Europeans while they destroyed their homelands… Today Jewish media, NGOs, finance, business, entertainment and a huge overrepresentation in government, are doing the same all over Europe,” said another.
The counter-demonstrators
While we applauded the strong response by the authorities to the riots, there were two things that we could not help but notice.
The first was that many of the so called “anti-racist” counter-demonstrators exhibited their own flavour of extremism, for which they have not suffered any consequences. The disgraced former academic David Miller, asserted that “the riots have been instigated by the Zionist asset, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,” in reference to far-right activist Tommy Robinson, while a former Parliamentary candidate for George Galloway’s Workers Party also reportedly shared content claiming that “Tommy Robinson is on Israel’s payroll”.
A video circulated online in which a man claimed that the rioters and Muslims should not be at odds with one another as the rioters are only targeting Muslims because of their “Zionist-backers”. The LBC presenter James O’Brien signposted this video, only to quickly apologise, claiming that he had not watched it in full. A user on X wrote in a post that received over three million views: “What’s happening in England is the perfect example of how Zionists manipulate the media to pin [sic] Christians and Muslims Against each other.” The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) charity also blamed “Zionist financiers” for the riots in a letter to the Home Secretary, and we have submitted a complaint to the Charity Commission.
Perhaps the best example was the “Finchley Against Fascism” WhatsApp messages that we exposed, in which so-called “anti-racist” activists not only referred to Zionism as “fascism” and “racism”, but, astoundingly, the activists were so blinded by their hatred of ‘Zionists’ that they would refuse their help in opposing the rioters.
Opposition to the far-right does not whitewash the racism of the far-left.
We supported the urgent action against the violent riots on our streets, but we have remained vigilant against some of the extremists amongst those counterprotestors who have also themselves been marching on our streets for months and are now trying to portray themselves as anti-fascist moderates.
The criminal justice system
The second thing that we could not but notice over the past few weeks was how, whereas nine months of one type of extremism on our streets was apparently not enough to wake up the criminal justice system, a few days of another type of extremism was. Accordingly, we have called for the resources mobilised to combat the riots now to be trained on the other extremists too.
Those espousing any extremist ideology must be made to face the full force of the law. If we are selective, our society will suffer.
To the authorities, we say that if you believe there to be no double standard in the policing, prosecution and sentencing of the current rioters over the past three weeks versus the violent or antisemitic anti-Israel demonstrators over the past year, at the very least you still need to reckon with why that perception has arisen.
That perception is not limited to the hooligans and thugs who have rightly been bearing the full consequences of their actions: it is widely shared by many law-abiding Britons across the country and by many in the Jewish community, who have suffered the most from failures in policing over the past year.
For ten months, they have been frustrated and let down by a lethargic criminal justice system that was apathetic and at times even hostile to the challenges that they faced; now they see how quickly the system can be mobilised when there is the institutional and political will to do so. Why has that been lacking for so long?
We cannot tackle extremism through double standards. Every type of extremism must be confronted by the full force of the law, no matter the perpetrators.
Reginald D. Hunter at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
A Jewish Israeli couple was reportedly hounded out of comedian Reginald D. Hunter’s show two Sundays ago at the Edinburgh Fringe, whilst audience members shouted insults at them.
The show was described by a reporter for The Telegraph reviewing the performance as “the ugliest Fringe moment [he] had ever witnessed”.
The alleged incident was triggered when Mr Hunter apparently made a joke in which he compared the State of Israel to an abusive wife, who, in a Channel 5 documentary, had accused her husband of being abusive. He is reported to have remarked: “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.”
The Jewish couple, who were in the front row of the audience and said that they were Israeli, responded by shouting “not funny” at the comedian. Audience members reportedly responded by shouting “genocidal maniac”, “you’re not welcome,” “baby-killers”, “f* off” and “free Palestine” at the couple. It is understood that Mr Hunter responded to the couple, saying: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f* you been? You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish…Look at you making everyone love Israel even more.” After the couple left the show, Mr Hunter reportedly quipped: “That tells me that I still got voltage.”
This is not the first time that the comedian has courted controversy in relation to the Jewish community. In 2006, also during the Edinburgh Fringe, he received backlash after making a joke about Holocaust-denial. At the recent performance, it is understood that he compared the moment to his 2006 controversy and made reference to being unable to access an article in a Jewish newspaper about the incident. He is alleged to have said: “Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.” He reportedly then added: “It’s just a joke.”
We have spoken with the Jewish couple, as well as additional witnesses. The couple, noting that nobody in the audience came to their aid, told us that they were left in fear of violence. We are writing to venues currently scheduled to host Mr Hunter to ensure that they are fully aware of his conduct at the Edinburgh Fringe. We are encouraged to see that the first venue has decided to cancel his planned appearance. Our lawyers are exploring legal options and we urge anyone present at the show to contact us in confidence at [email protected].
We are also contacting Police Scotland, which opened and then closed an investigation, with additional evidence for them to review.
While Mr Hunter has released a statement in which he stated that he “regrets any stress caused”, the word “sorry” and a fulsome apology were noticeably missing. His social media activity since the incident does not indicate remorse. The victims reject this non-apology from Mr Hunter. The venue’s statement portraying the incident simply as audience members “choosing to leave” is appalling and wilfully overlooks the facts. Their claims that staff supported the couple during their exit do not chime with the victims’ accounts whatsoever. Our lawyers are also considering legal action in relation to the venue.
We will continue to support the victims and ensure that Mr Hunter faces the consequences of his actions.
This incident may remind some of another incident earlier this year, involving comedian Paul Currie. Incidentally, Mr Currie was also performing at the Fringe, having been booted by numerous other venues following our letters. We are aware of reports that he “banned Zionists” from his Fringe show. Our lawyers are also looking into that.
Are you a medical professional, or a recent patient?
We are collecting testimonies on antisemitism in the medical field.
We are interested to hear from doctors and other medical practitioners, staff, patients and anyone else who has encountered antisemitism in medicine over the past year.
If you have been affected, please e-mail us confidentially at [email protected] with the subject: “Medical”.
Meanwhile, Dr Wahid Shaida, who referred to the 7th October Hamas terrorist attacks as “resistance” and then denied that they even occurred, has had his suspension lifted by NHS England.
While working as a GP, Dr Shaida also chaired meetings for the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has since been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the British Government. We have written to NHS England and to the GMC about this shocking decision.
We also wrote to the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) regarding the scheduling of its annual conference over Rosh Hashanah. Although unable to change the date at this late stage, the RCGP did at least apologise and regret the clash.
University encampments
For months, we have seen hideous anti-Israel encampments erected on campuses across Britain, physical embodiments of the exponential rise of Jew-hatred in our universities, which were already hotbeds of antisemitism.
We have been closely monitoring what different universities have done to address (or not address) the encampments. The full report can be read here, or the specific responses of universities can be read below:
These encampments have had a grossly detrimental effect on the Jewish campus experience, and it is shameful that, exceptions notwithstanding, universities did not quickly act to remove them and sanction participants in line with their codes of conduct and legal duties.
In addition to the impact on Jewish students, several wider student activities are also known to have been disrupted by the encampments, hampering learning and student life on campus.
Some universities moved faster than others to address the encampments, some capitulated to the anti-Israel protesters while others held firm. In all cases, precedents have been set.
Some universities have had regard to the effect on Jewish students and staff; some seem not to care. Several seem more concerned with the commercial impact of the encampments – removing them as summer open days approached – than they did with the welfare of current students, which is particularly galling.
We will continue to expose antisemitic activity on university campuses, hold universities to account and support Jewish students.
While we are on the subject of encampments, Minouche Shafik has had to resign as President of Columbia University after becoming one of the symbols of the Ivy League’s abysmal treatment of Jewish students and its failure, if not refusal, to tackle antisemitism.
The prospect of her now coming to work for David Lammy in the Foreign Office is, at best, tone deaf. At worst, it is a slap in the face to Jews on both sides of the Atlantic, who are hearing the message that failing to tackle antisemitism and abuse of Jews has no impact on your career advancement, and apparently qualifies you to craft foreign policy, including in relation to the Jewish state.
Become a Campaign Against Antisemitism Student Ambassador!
Are you a student at university in 2024-2025, or do you know somebody who is? Our Student Ambassador programme is an exciting opportunity to work with us in a prestigious year-long initiative.
Student Ambassadors will work closely with our Education Officer and wider team to help us expose and challenge the rising tide of antisemitism overwhelming UK university campuses. The contributions of our students is more important now than ever before to the fight against antisemitism.
For further information and details about the programme please visit antisemitism.org/become-a-student-ambassador.
Book now to hear Stories from Students
Since 7th October, Jewish student life on campus has been turned on its head.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has therefore brought together current students and recent graduates from universities across the country to share their stories and answer questions from prospective students and their parents, as well as current students and other interested members of the Jewish community.
This event, taking place at 18:30 on Thursday 5th September in North London, is an important opportunity to hear directly from Jewish students.
It is also a chance for us to come together to show our support and solidarity with those who faced this new generation of hate head-on. Booking is essential.
Media bias and the BBC
Two recent incidents — one in Gaza that reportedly killed Gazans and one in the Golan Heights that killed Israeli children — illustrated media bias at the BBC more clearly than ever. The screenshots below speak for themselves, and you can read our full analysis here.
Notwithstanding the struggle to get the BBC to report fairly – with more than 200 people from across the television and film industry writing to the Corporation demanding that it open an urgent investigation into alleged “systemic problems of antisemitism and bias” – there are occasionally admissions and reversals.
For example, you will recall that, a few weeks ago, BBC Newsnight allowed a panelist – the climate activist Mikaela Loach – to say: “The Lancet yesterday, in one of their reports, said that the death toll [in Gaza] is probably more likely to be more than 186,000 people.” The host did not challenge this assertion – which was false on multiple levels – but we did. Following our complaint, the BBC has acknowledged that the widely-propagated “186,000” is “not a statement of fact”.
We also complained about a recent BBC Four Front Row radio segment in which the actress and provocateur Miriam Margolyes referenced “vile Jews”. The BBC did not apologise but agreed to “remove it from the programme”.
This summer will be remembered as one of riots being confronted by a determined criminal justice system, in stark contrast to the policing that we have seen over the past year. But it remains to be seen whether the extremists will now call it a day or be back in force on our streets and campuses, online and in our workplaces, as the country returns from the summer break.
“This is not an act of resistance”: Relative of kidnapped Bibas family opens up about life after 7th October
Eylon Keshet, a relative of the Bibas family who were kidnapped and taken as hostages to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on 7th October, appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism where he spoke candidly about how he is coping with the ongoing situation and his thoughts on those who claim the terrorist attacks were an act of “resistance”.
This podcast can be listened to here or watched here.
Mr Keshet is the cousin of Yarden Bibas who is married to Shiri Bibas and are the parents of baby Kfir and his five-year-old brother Ariel. The Bibas family lived on the Nir Oz kibbutz, close to Gaza, where a quarter of the community were killed, kidnapped or injured in the 7th October attacks.
In the podcast, Mr Keshet told our host that the current situation for him and his family is “very surreal”.
He said: “You learn to very artificially control your feelings and just get through the day because if you keep thinking about it, you can’t operate. It’s too much for the mind to handle. It’s so nightmarish.”
When asked how he is coping with the situation, he revealed that he feels like he is “on the verge of crying any minute…it feels like torture.”
Almost immediately after Hamas’ barbaric attacks were carried out on 7th October, missing persons posters of the hostages appeared all over Britain and around the world.
Less than a week after the attacks, there were scenes of people tearing down the posters. Videos and photos of people defacing the posters and scrawling slurs on them have become a shamefully common phenomenon.
Posters of Kfir and Ariel Bibas have also been vandalised.
Speaking about these incidents, Mr Keshet said: “How could you rip posters of Kfir and Ariel? And try to politicise it? What kind of monster do you have to be? What kind of ignorant [person] do you have to be to try to merge these issues together?”
“Hamas is a terrorist organisation that has done horrific stuff… there is no merit in it. There is only sadism and destruction in mind,” he added.
Describing scenes of the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Mr Keshet said: “They decapitated heads, they killed elderly people. This is not an act of resistance.”
Yarden and Shiri Bibas, along with Kfir and Ariel, all remain in captivity in Gaza.
Podcast Against Antisemitism, produced by Campaign Against Antisemitism, talks to a different guest about antisemitism each week. It streams every Thursday and is available through all major podcast apps and YouTube. You can also subscribe to have new episodes sent straight to your inbox.
Previous guests have included comedian David Baddiel, television personality Robert Rinder, writer Eve Barlow, Grammy-Award-winning singer-songwriter Autumn Rowe, and actor Eddie Marsan.
Ivy League student sentenced to 21 months in prison over threatening antisemitic messages
A student at the Ivy League university, Cornell, who pleaded guilty to posting a series of threatening, antisemitic messages on a campus message board last year, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Engineering student Patrick Dai, 22, used several different usernames including “Kill jews,” “Hamas Soldier,” and “Sieg Heil” to post a series of messages.
In one message he wrote: “Watch out pig Jews. jihad is coming. nowhere is safe. your synagogue will become graveyards. your women will be raped and your children will be beheaded. glory to Allah [sic].”
He also threatened to “shoot up” the University’s kosher dining hall, and described Jews as “rats” who “need to be eliminated”. Mr Dai said that he was going to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews.” He also threatened to “slit the throat” of any Jewish men whom he saw on campus, to “rape and kill Jewish women” and to “behead Jewish babies in front of their parents,” the court heard.
With around 2,500 students who identify as Jewish, Cornell reportedly has the highest number of Jewish students of any Ivy League university.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department declared in court that every student had “the right to pursue their education without fear of violence based on who they are…or how they worship.”
She said that “antisemitic threats of violence” like Mr Dai’s “vicious and graphic threats” violated that right. The sentencing, stated Clarke, “reaffirms that we will hold accountable those who violently threaten and intimidate others based on their religious practice or background”.
Before imposing the sentence, the court had determined that Mr Dai’s actions constituted a hate crime. US Attorney Carla B. Freedman said that Mr Dai’s threats had “terrorised the Cornell campus community for days” and had “shattered the community’s sense of safety.”
Craig L. Tremaroli, the agent from the FBI’s Albany Field Office in charge of investigating the threats, said that Mr Dai’s actions served as “a disturbing reminder of the terrifying hatred our Jewish communities encounter.”
He added that it was “thanks to the strong partnerships” between the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, the New York State Police and the Cornell University Police Department, that Mr Dai was quickly identified and charged, and that he had remained in custody.
Last year, in response to Mr Dai’s hateful messages, police were stationed at Cornell’s Jewish Centre and Rabbi Ari Weiss, the Executive Director of Hillel at Cornell, said that the Jewish community interpreted the online posts as “a call for our genocide.”
Following his arrest, Mr Dai was diagnosed with autism, which his lawyer, Lisa Peebles, claimed, explained his crime.
“He believed, wrongly, that the posts would prompt a ‘blowback’ against what he perceived as anti-Israel media coverage and pro-Hamas sentiment on campus,” Ms Peebles wrote in pre-trial court papers adding that his “flawed logic” was a result of his autism.”
She wrote that he was “depressed” and “struggled with autism that had not been diagnosed yet”. She claimed that he “had a breakdown and came up with this idea to do these posts.”
Prosecutors argued that “he had “terrorised a campus community for days” and had “horrified the nation at a very volatile time.” His autism, they argued, “was not a defence”.
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism throughout the United States.
Photo credit: Broome County Sheriff
RMT and Unison leaders address inflammatory protest outside Downing Street
Last night at a protest outside Downing Street, amid the sort of docile policing that we have come to expect in situations like these, an anti-Israel crowd provided passersby with a whole panoply of antisemitic rhetoric and incitement to violence.
They called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, chanting that ‘Palestine is Arab, Zionists out!’ They screamed for ‘Intifada’, yearning for more of the violent campaign of terror that left over 1,000 Jews dead in recent decades. They shouted ‘No Zionists here!’ whether oblivious to or in full knowledge of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionists. They accused Israel of ‘harvesting Palestinian organs’, a popular reinvention of the ancient blood libel. Then they heard from Eddie Dempsey of the RMT union and Liz Wheatley of Unison, who apparently felt comfortable in this sort of crowd.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “After almost a year of this rhetoric at such demonstrations, it stretches credulity that these union leaders did not know or anticipate that such chanting would feature. If their unions wish to distance themselves from this language, they must immediately discipline these individuals and set out steps to ensure that in future their representatives do not risk being associated with these messages, which have undoubtedly contributed to the unprecedented surge in antisemitism over the past ten months.”
Jewish couple reportedly hounded out of comedy show whilst audience members allegedly shout “genocidal maniac” at them
A Jewish Israeli couple was reportedly hounded out of comedian Reginald D. Hunter’s show on Sunday, whilst audience members were said to have shouted “genocidal maniac”, among other insults, at them.
The show, which was part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was described by a reporter for The Telegraph reviewing the performance as “the ugliest Fringe moment [he] had ever witnessed”.
The alleged incident was sparked when Mr Hunter apparently made a joke in which he compared the State of Israel to an abusive wife, who, in a Channel 5 documentary, had accused her husband of being abusive. He is reported to have remarked: “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.”
The Jewish couple, who were in the front row of the audience and said that they were Israeli, responded by shouting “not funny” at the comedian. Audience members reportedly responded by shouting “genocidal maniac”, “you’re not welcome,” “f*** off” and “free Palestine” at the couple.
It is understood that Mr Hunter responded to the couple, saying: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f*** you been? You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish…Look at you making everyone love Israel even more.”
After the couple left the show, Mr Hunter reportedly quipped: “That tells me that I still got voltage.”
This is not the first time that the comedian has courted controversy in relation to the Jewish community. In 2006, also during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, he received backlash after making a joke about Holocaust-denial.
At Sunday’s performance, it is understood that he compared the moment to his 2006 controversy and made reference to being unable to access an article in a Jewish newspaper about the incident
He is alleged to have said: “Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.”
He reportedly then added: “It’s just a joke.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The events described at the Edinburgh Fringe are extremely concerning. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but they also have a responsibility to their audience. Reginald D. Hunter has laughed off his Holocaust jokes and another supposed joke about ‘typical f***ing Jews’ in the past, but watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.
“We have seen this before in recent months, and venues must stand extremely firm against this kind of behaviour. Our lawyers are examining this incident and we urge anyone who was present at the show to contact us in confidence at [email protected].”
CAA to submit complaint to Charity Commission over IHRC’s “Zionist financiers” letter
The controversial Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) charity has written a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper blaming “Zionist financiers” for the far-right riots in the UK.
The letter opened by saying: “The horrifically shocking racist violence of the last few days in which Muslim communities and asylum seekers have seen their persons, homes, vehicles, businesses, places of residence and mosques attacked has left them feeling unsafe and vulnerable.
“Enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad, far right elements have weaponised the tragic murder of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.”
The reference echoes ancient tropes relating to the Jews about secretive power and puppet-wielding.
The IHRC is best known for its pro-Hizballah “Al-Quds Day” parades under IHRC-badged placards that read “We are all Hizballah”. Hizballah is an antisemitic genocidal terror organisation.
The IHRC is a registered charity, and its rhetoric brings the charitable sector into disrepute.
Campaign Against Antisemitism will be submitting a complaint to the Charity Commission.
Neo-Nazi rhetoric used on far-right forums as riots sweep across Britain
Far-right forums, which are being used to organise riots, are reportedly being used to target Jews.
A series of far-right riots across Britain began in response to the murder of three children in Southport last week, which was falsely attributed to an asylum-seeker.
The first riot in Southport, which began as an anti-immigration protest, was organised on a forum which is allegedly partially run by a neo-Nazi. According to the CST, the neo-Nazi is alleged to have previously incited attacks on synagogues abroad and was also reported to the police last year for suspected involvement in violent antisemitism.
Messages in “Southport Wake Up”, a far-right Telegram channel, have reportedly said that they “support neither brown nor Jew” and claimed that “our nation is our land and our people.” Another message in the channel described Hitler as “the only politician since Roman times to truly care for his people”. In the same message, they wrote: “The Jewish people fabricated the Holocaust – ensuring they would never again be questioned by Europeans while they destroyed their homelands […]
“Today Jewish media, NGOs, finance, business, entertainment and a huge overrepresentation in government, are doing the same all over Europe.
“The fight will be long brothers, but we will succeed. Never capitulate.”
It is also understood that Matthew Hankinson, a convicted neo-Nazi, whom a judge previously described as a man with a “deep hatred of ethnic minorities and Jews”, attended the riot in Southport. Mr Hankinson was sentenced in 2018 for membership of National Action, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the British Government following pressure by Campaign Against Antisemitism and others.
At one of the riots, a man was spotted with a swastika tattooed on his back.
The riots, which have led to asylum centres and police stations being set on fire and have targeted offices of immigration lawyers, have occurred in numerous cities, including Liverpool, Plymouth and Belfast, and have sometimes led to violent pushback from counter-protesters who have also been making inflammatory statements in relation to Jews.
For example, there have been reports of counter-protesters chanting, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” The genocidal chant ‘From the River to the Sea’, which is regularly heard at anti-Israel protests, refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and, whether intended or not, is widely understood to represent a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and its replacement with a Palestinian state. It is reasonably interpreted to be a call for the annihilation of half the world’s Jews, who live in Israel.
There have also been claims that ‘Zionists’ are responsible for the far-right riots in an attempt to target Muslims.
Prof. David Miller, an academic obsessed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, who was fired by the University of Bristol in 2021 one month after Campaign Against Antisemitism commenced a lawsuit on behalf of students against the institution, said online: “The riots have been instigated by the Zionist asset, Stephen Taxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), who has been working for the State of Israel since 2009 as part of the so-called ‘counterjihad’ Islamophobia movement established by the state.”
Mehmoona Ameen, a former Parliamentary candidate for George Galloway’s Workers Party, also reportedly shared content that claims that “Tommy Robinson is on Israel’s payroll”. It is understood that Ms Ameen has a history of sharing inflammatory rhetoric online, including an image of a mural which features Jewish bankers beneath a pyramid playing Monopoly on a board carried by straining, oppressed workers.
A video has also circulated online in which a man claims that rioters are targeting Muslims because of their “Zionist-backers”, and that the rioters and Muslims should not be at odds with one another.
Similarly, a user on X wrote in a post that received over three million views: “What’s happening in England is the perfect example of how Zionists manipulate the media to pin Christians and Muslims Against each other.”
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth of Jews controlling the media,” is an example of antisemitism.
UN says UNRWA has fired nine employees over involvement in Hamas attack on 7th October
The United Nations has announced that nine employees of the controversial UN agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), have been fired over alleged involvement in the Hamas terror attack in Israel on 7th October 2023.
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said that “the evidence was sufficient” regarding the nine individuals “to conclude that they may have been involved” in the 7th October attacks.
The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services commissioned an investigation into nineteen UNRWA employees who were allegedly involved in the massacre, when Hamas terrorists and other Gazan terror groups rampaged across southern Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting some 250 hostages.
The UN investigation connected nine employees to the terrorist attacks. In nine other cases, the agency found the evidence to be “insufficient” to “support” the employee’s involvement.
All nine dismissed staff members were understood to be men.
Mr Haq said that “any participation in the attacks” was a “tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people”.
In March, Israel claimed that 450 of UNRWA’s 14,000 personnel in Gaza were members of terrorist groups. Many countries, including the UK, paused funding to UNRWA amid allegations that the agency aided Hamas terrorists.
UNRWA employs 30,000 staff members across the Middle East.
Israel has been aware for several years that Hamas uses UNRWA facilities in Gaza – including its schools – to store weapons, and as bases to run terrorist operations against Israel. The Israeli military claims that in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Hamas terrorists were found in UNRWA’s central logistics compound alongside UN vehicles. A group of 3,000 teachers working in Gaza for UNRWA even praised the 7th October Hamas attack. UNRWA-operated schools in Gaza have also been accused of teaching children antisemitism and hatred of Israel.
In June, more than 100 Israeli victims of the 7th October terrorist attacks sued UNRWA, alleging that the agency “knowingly provided material support to Hamas in Gaza.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism worldwide.
Head of Algerian Olympic committee blames “Zionist” conspiracy for gender row
The head of the Algerian Olympic committee has claimed that a boxer at the centre of a gender row is the victim of a “Zionist” conspiracy.
Speaking before the women’s 66kg division quarter-final against Hungarian Luca-Anna Hamori – which guaranteed that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif would win at least a bronze medal – Yassine Arab, the director of Algeria’s Olympic and Sports Committees, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Khelif had been attacked by “Zionists”.
“The Zionist lobby” wanted to “break the mind” of Imane, he declared. “They don’t want a Muslim girl or Arabic girl [to go] higher in the level of the rank of female boxing,” he said.
The row, over Ms Khelif’s eligibility to fight as a woman, followed claims she was a man and a “bullying cheat” after her Italian opponent withdrew from their bout after only 46 seconds.
Angela Carini said that she had pulled out of the bout to “save my life” after claiming that the Algerian boxer hit her so hard she could not breathe.
Ms Khelif was previously disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships – organised by the Russian-led International Boxing Association (IBA) – after the boxer failed gender eligibility tests. The results of the IBA tests – which exclude persons with XY chromosomes from competing against other women – have not been disclosed, but the body has said Ms Khelif had a “competitive advantage”.
It has never been proven that Ms Khelif has XY chromosomes and she has never identified as transgender or intersex.
Speaking to Qatari sports network, BeIN Sports, she declared that the IBA was being “unfair” with her and that she wanted “to tell the entire world” that she was female, and would “remain a female.” She said she was dedicating her medal to “all the Arabs” adding: “Long live Algeria.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism worldwide.
What have universities done about anti-Israel encampments?
For months, we have seen hideous anti-Israel encampments erected on campuses across Britain, physical embodiments of the exponential rise of Jew-hatred in our universities, which were already hotbeds of antisemitism.
So, what action have universities taken?
University of Birmingham
University of Nottingham
London School of Economics
Organisers of the encampment responded, calling the move “an extremely concerning act of repression”.
University of Bristol
On 11th July, organisers of the encampment announced the decision to close down the encampment, stating: “The thousands of pounds in legal fees […] is better spent given to Palestinian mutual aid funds.”
University of Oxford
On 7th July, students shut down the encampment and said in a statement online: “Admin shut down our camp to distract from their complicity in this genocide. They will not shut down our movement.”
Newcastle University
SOAS
According to a social media post by protesters, the University served them with “accelerated proceedings for eviction” on 30th July.
Queen Mary University
Protesters on the encampment refused to comply with the court order, resulting in bailiffs arriving at the site to evict them on 12th July.
University College London
The encampment remains on the University’s campus.
University of Cambridge
The encampment at the University remains, but organisers have said that they “are planning to undertake a process of decamping” following the University’s statement.
University of Leeds
Organisers of the encampment said in a statement that they had “achieved much” and vowed to “be back in September”.
Goldsmiths University
Goldsmiths is in the middle of an independent inquiry into antisemitism, which will doubtless need to address the encampment and the University’s capitulation to protesters’ demands.
These encampments have had a grossly detrimental effect on the Jewish campus experience, and it is shameful that, exceptions notwithstanding, universities did not quickly act to remove them and sanction participants in line with their codes of conduct and legal duties.
In addition to the impact on Jewish students, several wider student activities are also known to have been disrupted by the encampments, hampering learning and student life on campus.
Some universities moved faster than others to address the encampments, some capitulated to the anti-Israel protesters while others held firm. In all cases, precedents have been set.
Some universities have had regard to the effect on Jewish students and staff; some seem not to care. Several seem more concerned with the commercial impact of the encampments – removing them as summer open days approached – than they did with the welfare of current students, which is particularly galling.
We will continue to expose antisemitic activity on university campuses, hold universities to account and support Jewish students.
If you wish to report an incident to us, please send us an e-mail [email protected] in confidence.
Amazon investigating antisemitism allegations in relation to comments on internal Arabs@Amazon group
Amazon is investigating allegations of antisemitism among some of its workers following comments made on an affinity group on a company-wide chatroom.
The investigation began after other staff members flagged up the comments on the Arabs@Amazon group. These allegedly included comments that Israel was behind threats to Jewish schools, and posts that appeared to deny that Hamas was responsible for rape and sexual violence during the 7th October 2023 massacre. There were also posts claiming that Western media was “controlled” by the Israeli Government.
The messages were posted between December 2023 and July 2024 on an internal social media channel on the Slack instant messaging platform. The Arabs@Amazon group is one of a number of “affinity” groups set up to foster diversity and inclusion, according to a company spokesperson.
The posts can be seen across the multinational company. Most of the alleged posts are understood to be from office-based staff, rather than warehouse employees and include software engineers. At least three of the users who posted the content are based in the UK.
Much of the discussion in the group appeared to be prompted by the Hamas-Israel war.
In one post on the channel, an employee appeared to deny that Hamas was a terrorist organisation and noted “the fine treatment” of the “Israeli civilian hostages” by Hamas.
Another user dismissed “mass rape on Oct 7” as “Israeli atrocity propaganda, like 40 beheaded babies.”
Amazon employs more than 1,000 people at its offices in Israel located in Tel Aviv and Haifa and there are understood to be thousands of Jewish employees at Amazon offices across the world.
The allegations follow previous complaints by Jewish staff at Amazon about antisemitism from colleagues since the 7th October massacre. In December, Amazon suspended an employee who inserted a note that read “Death to Zionists” inside a copy of a book on Israel that was shipped to a customer.
An Amazon spokesperson said: “We don’t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind in the workplace.”
The spokesperson added: “We investigate any such conduct that’s reported and take action – up to and including termination – against any employee who is found to have violated our policies.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism throughout the United States.
University Rector removed from university court over comments which made students “fear for their safety”
Stella Maris, the Rector of the University of St Andrews has reportedly been removed from her position on the University’s court over comments which made some students “fear for their safety”.
In November last year, Ms Maris sent an e-mail to the University’s student body, in which she accused Israel of “genocidal attacks”. The statement came just under two months after Hamas carried out barbaric attacks in Israel on 7th October 2023, murdering over 1,200 Israelis and taking some 250 people hostage.
Since the attacks, antisemitism in Britain has skyrocketed, including a reported 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people in the wake of the massacre.
It is understood that before sending the e-mail, the Rector met with students from the University’s Jewish Society to discuss a statement that she had prepared regarding Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
However, once the e-mail was sent out, the Jewish Society published a statement online: “The Rector of St Andrews, Stella Maris, published a statement regarding the events in Israel and Gaza, which was e-mailed to all students at the University. The Rector is elected by students as a representative voice. However, her words were divisive, harmful and not based on fact. Whilst constructing this statement, [Ms] Maris met with the Jewish Society, but her published statement was significantly different to that which was shared with us, deliberately misleading members of our community […]”
It was also reported that a letter was sent to Ms Maris, signed by over 1,400 current students and alumni, which said: “We are concerned that your letter does not demonstrate equal care for Palestinian and Israeli lives. Moreover, your letter does not show any appreciation for how your inflammatory and unfounded accusations of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘occupation’ concerning the Jewish state will further embolden attacks and hatred against the Jewish students whom you were elected to care for. It is unacceptable for the Rector to be selective in their responsibility to represent all students.”
Regarding the e-mail, the University’s Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Sally Mapstone, said: “We are utterly dismayed that the rector, on this occasion, put her right to freedom of expression ahead of her duty to represent all students, and to be concerned for their welfare.”
Ms Stella responded to allegations of antisemitism online, saying that she would “not have antisemitism weaponised” against her.
She also reportedly shared a graphic, which said, “I don’t hate Jewish people, please stop being weird,” and another that claimed Zionism is “an ideology based on racial elimination”.
An independent investigation was then launched.
Chaired by Judge Lady Ross, then Morag Ross KC, the investigation concluded that Ms Maris had exercised “poor judgment”.
It added that while Ms Maris had been entitled to free speech, she ignored the possibility that her comments could “encourage antisemitic behaviour by others”.
The University concluded in its investigation that Ms Maris had made some students “fear for their safety”.
Although Ms Maris will remain in her position as Rector until the end of her term in October 2026, she will be barred from sitting on the University’s governing court.
Ms Maris, who intends to appeal the decision, said: “It is clear that I have been removed from court because I called for an end to Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, and I will not apologise for doing so. As a young, neurodiverse black woman with limited financial resources, I have faced the full force of the university, including a KC investigation, all because I made a statement supported by the overwhelming majority of students, calling for an end to a genocide.”
An apology has been issued by Ray Perman, the Chairman of the University’s court, to all those affected by Ms Maris’ comments.
If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].
Anjem Choudary sentenced to life in prison with minimum term of 28 years
Anjem Choudary, one of Britain’s leading Islamists, has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 28 years after he was found guilty of directing terror group Al-Muhajiroun and encouraging support for it through online meetings.
He was arrested and charged with three terrorism offences last year: directing a terrorist organisation, being a member of a proscribed organisation, and addressing meetings to encourage support for a proscribed organisation. He was recently convicted and a sentence has now been handed down at Woolwich Crown Court.
Mr Choudary, born in the UK and of Pakistani descent, failed his first-year medical exams at the University of Southampton due to his party lifestyle, but eventually graduated in law, later becoming Chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers. He became radicalised in the 1990s, launching al-Muhajiroun in the UK – later banned under terror laws – in 1996 with Syrian-born Islamist, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The Jihadist group became linked to international terrorism, antisemitism and homophobia as it sought a world subject to Sharia law, and praised the 9/11 highjackers. The group disbanded in 2004 following its proscription but is believed to have continued to operate under different aliases. According to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Choudary was involved in recruiting Muslims to undergo weapons training in the UK in order to fight for Osama Bin Laden’s International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, and in 2010 he was linked to those involved in an al Qaeda plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
Mr Choudary praised the murderer of drummer Lee Rigby in 2013, in response to which comments then-Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Let’s be clear about Anjem Choudary: he does have absolutely despicable and appalling views, an absolutely classic case of that poisonous narrative of extremism and violence that we need to confront and defeat.”
In 2016, Mr Choudary was convicted of supporting the Islamic State in connection with speeches posted on YouTube. He was jailed for five years and six months. At the time he was jailed, he had reportedly been linked to fifteen terror plots dating back approximately twenty years, and had connections to hundreds of British jihadists who had travelled to Syria to fight.
He was released from Belmarsh prison after serving half of his sentence, although he remained subject to some 25 licence conditions.
In 2021, he was reported to have suggested that the MP Sir David Amess may have been murdered because of his “rumoured pro-Israel views”.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer has consistently showed that large majorities of British Jews consider the threat from Islamists to be very serious.
Image credit: Metropolitan Police Service
Expelled former Conservative mayor apologises following exposure of “offensive and inappropriate comments”
Councillor Atiqul Hoque, the former Conservative Mayor of Salisbury, has apologised after a number of “offensive and inappropriate” messages were leaked.
In a published statement, issued on his behalf, it said: “Cllr Atiqul Hoque in considering the content of his texts which were reported in the Salisbury Journal and the response which they have occasioned, has reflected and revisited those words and the offence that they have cased. He wishes to offer an unreserved apology.
“He wholeheartedly regrets and apologises for any hurt and or offence that he may have caused when his words were reported in the Salisbury Journal. His texts, written in haste, were clumsy.
“He intended no offence to anyone and apologises without reservation. Cllr Hoque is opposed to violence from whatever source and is deeply committed to peace and the inclusion of all people of whatever religion, racial or cultural persuasion.”
Cllr Hoque was expelled from the Conservative Party in February, following complaints from a whistleblower regarding a number of messages on WhatsApp and a post on Facebook. At the time, the Party confirmed that Cllr Hoque had been expelled for sending “offensive and inappropriate comments”.
One of the alleged messages appeared to refer to “Zionist pay masters”.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions,” is an example of antisemitism.
Our representing polling also shows that eight in ten British Jews consider themselves to be a Zionist. Only six percent do not.
Another of the alleged messages said: “Don’t forget who planted crucifixion of our beloved Jesus Christ peace be upon him, they are good at that,” appearing to reference the accusation that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, a conspiracy which has fuelled centuries of anti-Jewish violence and rhetoric.
He also reportedly shared a photo of a published letter, published less than two months after Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terror group, carried out barbaric attacks in Israel on 7th October, with the caption: “Faith RESTORED […]” The letter included the statement: “Despite being Jewish, I do not support the genocide and ethnic cleansing by Israel. My religion has taught me compassion and to strive for universal peace. It certainly does not advocate violence, death and destruction.”
Cllr Hoque now sits as an Independent councillor on Salisbury City Council.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
Jewish student allegedly physically assaulted at school which already has alleged history of racist bullying
A Jewish student at Desborough College, a school in Maidenhead, was allegedly physically assaulted by fellow students.
According to the father of the student, his son, whose identity has been kept anonymous, has experienced multiple incidents of bullying following the barbaric attacks carried out by Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terror organisation, in Israel on 7th October last year.
Since the attacks, antisemitism in Britain has skyrocketed, including a reported 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people.
In November last year, the student was allegedly physically attacked by students who were shouting, “f*** Israel” and performing Nazi salutes. The students also allegedly threatened to hurt or kill him if he reported the incident. The school sanctioned these students in January but did not exclude them.
Earlier this year, another student allegedly shouted at the Jewish boy: “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.” The genocidal chant ‘From the River to the Sea’, which is regularly heard at anti-Israel protests, refers to the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, and, whether intended or not, is widely understood to represent a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and its replacement with a Palestinian state. It is reasonably interpreted to be a call for the annihilation of half the world’s Jews, who live in Israel.
In March, whilst waiting for a bus after school, two students allegedly approached the victim and accused him of “supporting the genocide of Palestinians”. In a separate incident, also in March, another student allegedly shouted at his friends when the victim was with them: “Stop talking to [name] because he supports genocide.”
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel” is an example of antisemitism.
According to a “Stage 2 outcome letter” addressed to the father of the Jewish pupil from the Pioneer Educational Trust, the trust that oversees the school, three complaints were made to the Trust, which were summarised as follows:
1) “Handling of incidents involving religiously aggravated assaults and malicious communications and the failure of AM (Assistant Master) to address these incidents in a timely manner according to practices and policies advertised by the school’ extending to ‘the lack of cooperation, imposition of unnecessary hurdles for parents seeking resolution, and misguided responses that do not align with the official policies of the school.
2) “Recent incident of repeat victimisation outside the school is a direct result of its inability to enforce the school’s own policies.
3) “The school failed to change the timetable of one of the perpetrators and effectively put him into the same class with [the victim] causing stress and anxiety to [the victim].”
For all three complaints, the Trust resolved to deliver “a management response” where there had been a “failure to apply school policies and practices”.
For the first complaint, the Trust recommended “further training” in terms of pastoral care and “timely and appropriate communications with parents” for its school leaders, as well as “further messaging and support to staff about the school’s policy on mobile phones”.
Regarding the second complaint, the Trust committed to an “appropriate package of leadership training to ensure and assure school policies and practices are implemented robustly” and to “continue to implement a programme of anti-racist education, including assemblies, tutor programme and PSHE (Personal Health and Social Education)”.
The school reportedly has a recent history of racist bullying, when a black student found dozens of notes on their desk, including one that said: “Go back to the plantation.”
The police became involved in an investigation into that incident, and Desborough College said regarding the matter: “Our aim as a school is to provide a safe, nurturing and welcoming environment so that every pupil, colleague and family member feels welcome in our community.”
The father escalated the complaint further through the school’s complaints procedure as he felt that the school’s response to the recent alleged antisemitic incidents was inadequate and failed to address the issue at hand. He thought that, given that the school has an alleged history of racist bullying, its promises were too vague and had no immediate resolution.
The complaint was considered by the Trust’s Complaint Appeal Panel, which partially upheld one of the father’s requests for the Trust “to conduct a thorough investigation into the School’s leadership, policy and application of policy and whether it is sufficient to ensure a ‘secure, inclusive environment that actively combats racism, including anti-semitism [sic]’”.
According to a letter sent to the Jewish student’s father, the Panel stated: “It is noted that the Director of Education has been tasked with regular oversight and review of the school’s policies and procedures and that the School and the Trust have multiple layers of scrutiny over policy and performance as a matter of course.
“In light of the seriousness of the issue and the crucial importance to the Trust, the Panel recommends an appropriate sub-committee of the Trust Board (which should include any appropriate link-Trustees) is convened by the Chair of the Trust Board and to which the Director of Education should report with his periodic review. It is important to the Trust Board that the anti-racist policy and procedure at Desborough is comprehensive and effective and the subcommittee should be assured of that on behalf of the Trust Board in addition to usual reviews.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism is assisting the family of the victim.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is harrowing that a Jewish child has had to endure such vile bullying apparently for the mere fact that he is Jewish. Schools should be environments where pupils are taught values of tolerance and harmony, not where pupils can expect to be verbally and violently assaulted because of their ethnicity. The school’s response has been utterly lacklustre and has, understandably, failed to inspire the confidence of the victim’s family that the school understands the gravity of these incidents or that their child will be protected. We are continuing to support the victim and his family throughout this painful ordeal.”
If you are concerned about antisemitism at your child’s school, please contact us in confidence on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].
Image credit: Google
Lawyer in Manchester Airport case says he has been chosen by Allah to “challenge the Zionist regime”
Akhmed Yakoob, a lawyer who is representing two brothers that were involved in an incident with police at Manchester Airport, has reportedly claimed the he has been chosen by Allah to “challenge the Zionist regime”.
In a speech at a mosque in Dewsbury in April, he is reported to have said: “I know now why Allah has put me in this position, it’s to challenge the Zionist regime, challenge the elites of this country and the world.”
It has also been alleged that he has described Zionism as a “fascist ideology” and claimed that Zionists “control everything”.
Mr Yakoob also ran as an independent Parliamentary candidate for the Birmingham Ladywood seat in the recent General Election and previously as a candidate for West Midlands Mayor.
Earlier this year, Campaign Against Antisemitism published screenshots of his alleged online activity, which included posts with the text, “WILL YOU GUYS SUPPORT ME?! Anti Zionism is NOT Anti Semitism [sic],” and “ANTI ZIONISM IS NOT ANTI SEMETISM [sic]!!”
Mr Yakoob was also alleged to have said: “So this general election can be a slap on the faces of the political elites who are ruled by the Zionist lobby.”
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions,” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour,” are examples of antisemitism.
Our lawyers are looking at a potential regulatory complaint to the SRA.
It is understood that brothers Mohammed Fahir Amaaz and Amaad Amaaz contacted Mr Yakoob after a video circulated online, which appeared to show a police officer kicking one of their heads at Manchester Airport.
Anjem Choudary found guilty of terror offences
Anjem Choudary, one of Britain’s leading Islamists, has been found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of directing terror group Al-Muhajiroun and encouraging support for it through online meetings.
He had been arrested and charged with three terrorism offences last year: directing a terrorist organisation, being a member of a proscribed organisation, and addressing meetings to encourage support for a proscribed organisation.
Mr Choudary, born in the UK and of Pakistani descent, failed his first-year medical exams at the University of Southampton due to his party lifestyle, but eventually graduated in law, later becoming Chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers. He became radicalised in the 1990s, launching al-Muhajiroun in the UK – later banned under terror laws – in 1996 with Syrian-born Islamist, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.
The Jihadist group became linked to international terrorism, antisemitism and homophobia as it sought a world subject to Sharia law, and praised the 9/11 highjackers. The group disbanded in 2004 following its proscription but is believed to have continued to operate under different aliases. According to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Choudary was involved in recruiting Muslims to undergo weapons training in the UK in order to fight for Osama Bin Laden’s International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, and in 2010 he was linked to those involved in an al Qaeda plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange.
Mr Choudary praised the murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby in 2013, in response to which comments then-Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Let’s be clear about Anjem Choudary: he does have absolutely despicable and appalling views, an absolutely classic case of that poisonous narrative of extremism and violence that we need to confront and defeat.”
In 2016, Mr Choudary was convicted of supporting the Islamic State in connection with speeches posted on YouTube. He was jailed for five years and six months. At the time he was jailed, he had reportedly been linked to fifteen terror plots dating back approximately twenty years, and had connections to hundreds of British jihadists who had travelled to Syria to fight.
He was released from Belmarsh prison after serving half of his sentence, although he remained subject to some 25 licence conditions.
In 2021, he was reported to have suggested that the MP Sir David Amess may have been murdered because of his “rumoured pro-Israel views”.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer has consistently showed that large majorities of British Jews consider the threat from Islamists to be very serious.
Foreign Secretary announces UK will restore UNRWA funding
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has announced that the UK will restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Under the previous government, funding was halted in January this year, following allegations that some UNRWA staff were involved with the Hamas terrorist organisation.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is a deeply regressive and dangerous step. The UN and its agencies like UNRWA do not recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation, which means that they are less inhibited in their activities and their hiring processes than they would be if they had to operate under UK law, which rightly does recognise Hamas as the antisemitic genocidal terror group that it is.
“UNRWA’s official educational curricula have promoted antisemitism and violence, referring to the Jewish state as the ‘enemy,’ teaching mathematics by counting ‘martyred’ terrorists, using phrases like “Jihad is one of the doors to Paradise” in grammar lessons, and more.
“UNRWA teachers have glorified terrorism and some UNRWA personnel have been found to be members of Hamas, and UNRWA schools and premises have been used as storage facilities for munitions and launching pads for rockets.
“UNRWA prefers to downplay its failures rather than address them, the body lacks proper oversight and has constantly faced allegations of corruption. If one wants to know how Gazan society became radicalised, start with its schools. They are run by UNRWA.
“It is not only disappointing but dangerous that David Lammy and the FCDO have chosen to restore funding to this nefarious organisation.”
What does this election result mean for British Jews?
The Labour Party arrives in Government as levels of anti-Jewish racism have skyrocketed and rocked the Jewish community for months. Our polling of British Jews is proof of the widespread fear that antisemitic extremists in our country are now completely out of control, with the effects of their hatred most visible on our streets and our campuses.
So far, precious little has been done to tackle this outpouring of hatred and we are making urgent proposals to the new Government, seeking firm action to halt the surge of Jew-hatred in Britain.
Labour has had to confront rampant antisemitism in its midst in recent years, and we hope that at this time of need it will do what is necessary to confront antisemitism in society, and defend this country’s Jewish community.
Two other noteworthy local results were in Islington North and Rochdale:
Jeremy Corbyn comfortably won his London seat as an Independent. This is the man who led Labour from being an anti-racist party to becoming the first ever political party found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to have unlawfully discriminated against, harassed and victimised Jews, following our referral. At a time of record-breaking antisemitism, the man who used to call Hamas his “friends” and oversaw the normalisation of Jew-hatred in one of the most shameful episodes of modern British politics is back making our laws. Many British Jews will find it hard not to read into this.
George Galloway narrowly lost his Rochdale seat, which he had won in a by-election earlier this year (the Labour candidate was suspended by the Party in relation to antisemitism allegations which we helped to publicise). Given Mr Galloway’s track record and the situation currently faced by Jews in this country, it seems unlikely that many in the Jewish community will be mourning his departure from the institution that makes our laws.
But the real stories of this election were beneath the surface.
First, the fragmentation of our politics. While the Labour Party won a landslide, it was with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn had won, and with one of the smallest vote shares of any winning party in modern British history. The Conservatives, meanwhile, suffered their worst-ever defeat, in an election with one of the lowest turnouts in recent times.
Taken together, it meant that the main parties haemorrhaged more vote share than ever to smaller parties, with the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Greens all breaking records in votes or seats. Numerous candidates for the latter two parties faced serious antisemitism allegations during the campaign following our revelations, albeit not those who ultimately won seats. In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, Sinn Fein became the largest party for the first time.
Regardless of one’s political views, this result clearly represents heightened scepticism about our nation’s institutions – a feeling apparently shared across the Channel as well, judging by the recent French election results. While the Jewish community may share some of this disillusionment, given the failures of the authorities to act decisively against the antisemites over the past several months, it also cannot be forgotten that political and societal instability also tend to pose unique risks to the Jews.
Second, the Gaza vote. One of the biggest stories from this general election has been the rise of sectarianism in our politics. The emergence of single-issue pressure groups purporting to represent particular communities risks pitting certain communities against others. It is an extremely worrying omen for our politics, and all major parties must be absolutely resolute in their rejection of its implications.
The prospect of a handful of MPs – some of whom have records of grossly inflammatory language – bringing what seems to be a single-minded obsession with Gaza to Parliament is not a positive development.
Jeremy Corbyn declared on election day, “Today, Palestine is on the ballot,” and promised that he would “stand up for the people of Gaza” and fight for “an end to the occupation of Palestine”. He was joined in victory by four other Independents who ran on the Gaza issue: Ayoub Khan in Birmingham Perry Barr, Adnan Hussain in Blackburn, Iqbal Mohamed in Dewsbury and Batley, and Shockat Adam in Leicester South – where Shadow Cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth was defeated.
We have published an exposé on these new MPs.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and prominent backbencher Jess Phillips were among several more Labour MPs who only narrowly escaped defeat by other Gaza candidates, whose presence was felt in many constituencies across the country.
As a Parliamentary grouping, this Gaza caucus is level with Reform UK on five MPs, outranking the Greens and Plaid Cymru.
It is difficult to think of another instance in modern times when a foreign policy issue in which Britain is not directly involved has captured so much attention at home as to bring our streets to a standstill week after week, undermine many of our major institutions, and bring more MPs to Parliament than even some long-established parties – with numerous more candidates only narrowly missing out.
Why this foreign policy issue in particular? The Jewish community believes that it knows why, and it will take a fundamental reset of our political culture to convince British Jews that they have nothing to fear from this ominous development.
What we do know is that all of the attention on Gaza in the UK is not bringing peace to the Middle East but spreading hatred here at home. We have sought to promote that message.
BBC lets Gaza propaganda go unchallenged
One of the reasons that Gaza candidates do so well is that our broadcasters allow unverified statistics and propaganda to go unchallenged – and sometimes even repeat it.
Recently, BBC Newsnight allowed a panelist – the climate activist Mikaela Loach – to say: “The Lancet yesterday, in one of their reports, said that the death toll [in Gaza] is probably more likely to be more than 186,000 people.” The host did not challenge this assertion.
For context, the so-called “report” to which Ms Loach was referring is simply a letter to The Lancet – the prestigious medical journal – by readers with documented hostility toward Israel. It is not a peer-reviewed study nor a figure which the journal has endorsed. It is not even an estimate of current deaths. It is a speculative estimate about a future, final death toll that includes excess deaths and other categories. Indeed the letter itself acknowledges that even Hamas, a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror organisation, estimates the current death toll at around 37,396, a figure that does not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants and which has been revised downwards considerably by the United Nations.
Given how controversial these statistics have proven, it is not possible that the host of a debate on Newsnight could plausibly plead ignorance of this issue.
We are submitting a complaint to the BBC. It will be just the latest of the many complaints that we have submitted to our national broadcaster in recent months.
While our broadcasters are failing in their duty, one social media company is making an effort.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has announced: “We will now remove speech targeting ‘Zionists’ in several areas where our process showed that the speech tends to be used to refer to Jews and Israelis with dehumanising comparisons, calls for harm, or denials of existence.”
Our polling shows that eight in ten British Jews consider themselves to be a Zionist. Only six percent do not.
While there is still more work to be done in combatting online antisemitism, this is certainly a step in the right direction.
“They use the Holocaust as a sort of cover”
Last week, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge National Education Union (NEU) hosted an event “in association with” the Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). According to an online flyer for the event, the supposed conference would include “workshops on antisemitism and anti-Zionism”.
Attendees at the antisemitism workshop were told: “They use the Holocaust as a sort of cover”; “It makes me very angry when people talk about the Jewish community because there’s no such thing”; and “Israel is nothing to do with being Jewish”; among other outrageous remarks.
It appears that this so-called workshop was rife with antisemitism, from comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany, to allegations that the Jewish state was somehow complicit in the murder of its own people on 7th October, to characterising Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’, to describing Zionism as a virus, to the wild claim that Israel ‘wanted the Holocaust to happen’.
Both the PSC and NEU have long histories of causing distress to the Jewish community. You can listen to excerpts from the here, which we have published exclusively.
No expulsion for Sir Alan Duncan
The former Conservative MP and Minister, Sir Alan Duncan, recently suggested on-air that members of the House of Lords were working at the behest of the Israeli state, and that was not the first time that he had made such an assertion. We submitted a complaint to the Party and urged the Conservatives to expel him as a member.
However, a spokesperson for the Conservative Party has now said: “Following a two-month investigation, an independent panel has reviewed the complaint and dismissed it.”
At a time when antisemitism is at an all-time-high, invoking conspiracy theories and tropes about dual loyalty only inflames the situation for British Jews. This is a shameful decision, and we are aware of members resigning from the Party in response.
The new Government comes into office facing an array of challenges. For the Jewish community, skyrocketing antisemitism is among the most important. Sir Keir Starmer has shown a willingness to confront antisemites in his own party. Now he must do it in wider society, and ensure that the authorities do so as well.
Attendees at PSC “antisemitism training” at local National Education Union event told “Israel is the biggest amplifier of antisemitism there is”
Last night, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge National Education Union (NEU) hosted an event “in association with” the Newham, Tower Hamlets and Redbridge branches of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
PSC is known to regularly organise national anti-Israel demonstrations and earlier this year, its Director, Ben Jamal, encouraged thousands of protestors to “ramp up pressure on MPs” and flood into Parliament “so that they would have to lock the doors of Parliament itself”.
The event, which took place in Newham, East London, was titled, “How to talk about Palestine in our schools”. According to an online flyer for the event, the supposed conference would include “workshops on antisemitism and anti-Zionism”.
Approximately 40 people attended the event, which was open to parents, carers, youth-workers and the general public. Attendees were split into smaller workshops to talk about specific topics.
Several people, including three children, attended a workshop on antisemitism and anti-Zionism, which was led by two representatives of the PSC. The discussion in the workshop was primarily focused on criticising the widely-accepted International Definition of Antisemitism, which was reportedly dubbed “the bad one”, whilst promoting the adoption of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which was allegedly referred to as “the good one”.
The Jerusalem Declaration is a wrecking document intended to undermine the globally-recognised Definition.
In the supposed critique of the International Definition, the PSC representatives allegedly said: “Speak against Israel, oh you’re antisemitic,” and “If people say something against Israel, they say it is antisemitic.”
Another reported comment regarding the Definition was: “They use the Holocaust as a sort of cover because it says once you’ve got Holocaust in there, it must be right.”
During the workshop, the PSC session leaders allegedly claimed that “Israel is nothing to do with being Jewish” and are understood to have told attendees that “if you’re anti-racist you’re anti-the-State-of-Israel.”
One of the representatives allegedly stated: “Israel is a racist endeavour.” According to the International Definition, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.
Organisers were also heard saying: “A large proportion of the people killed on October the 7th were killed by the Israeli army,” before going on to later claim that Israel has not fought for its hostages that currently remain in Gaza.
On 7th October last year, Hamas, an antisemitic genocidal terror organisation, carried out barbaric attacks in Israel, massacring over 1,200 Israelis and taking some 250 hostage. The event has since been described as the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Astonishingly, these claims were not the only controversial statements that were heard at the workshop. One PSC representative was heard stating: “The Nazis were ashamed of the gas chambers, sadly Israel is not ashamed of what it’s doing in Gaza,” and “Gaza is not an open-air prison camp, it is an open-air ghetto in the same way that our ancestors were kept in ghettos before they were murdered.”
According to the International Definition, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.
In yet another sickening comparison to the Holocaust, a representative allegedly said: “Like the Nazis, [Israel] wanted to keep the Holocaust quiet because it didn’t play into their narrative.”
Attenders were also given supplementary written materials, which included a “further reading” list. On the list was Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry. Mr Finkelstein is a controversial American activist who once praised Holocaust-denier David Irving at a pro-Corbyn meeting of Labour Against the Witchhunt, an antisemitism-denial group of former and expelled Labour members.
Other claims that were heard throughout the event were: “They [Israel] wanted the Holocaust to happen,” and “Israel is the biggest amplifier of antisemitism there is.”
A clear theme throughout the workshop was opposition to Zionism, the embodiment of the Jewish right to self-determination. Attendees reported that organisers compared Zionism to a “virus” and asserted that “too many Jews” have been “injected” with it.
Eight in ten British Jews consider themselves to be a Zionist. Only six percent do not, according to our representative polling.
This is not the first time that the PSC has found itself at the centre of an antisemitism-related controversy, with many of its rallies being host to antisemitic placards and rhetoric. A month-long investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism in 2017 exposed extensive antisemitic bigotry amongst PSC supporters on social media. Last year, the PSC Brixton published an Instagram post calling Zionists “brainwashed racists” who should be fired from their places of work.
The General Secretary of the NEU also has a controversial record when it comes to antisemitism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism: “It appears that this so-called workshop was rife with antisemitism. This conference had it all, from comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany, to allegations that the Jewish State was somehow complicit in the murder of its own people on 7th October, to characterising Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’, to describing Zionism as a virus, to the wild claim that Israel ‘wanted the Holocaust to happen’.
“What makes the whole thing even more appalling, is that it was organised by the National Education Union ‘in association with’ members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Both organisations have a long history of causing distress to the Jewish community. The only silver lining of this conspiracy-fuelled event is that it was so very poorly attended.”
Conservatives shamefully clear Sir Alan Duncan following use of antisemitic tropes on-air
The Conservative Party has cleared Sir Alan Duncan, a former Minister and MP for the Party, of accusations of using antisemitic tropes on-air, following an investigation.
Sir Alan was under investigation after he suggested in an LBC interview that members of the House of Lords were working at the behest of the Israeli state.
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party said: “Following a two-month investigation, an independent panel has reviewed the complaint and dismissed it.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This decision is shameful, and the Conservative Party’s rationale is even more insulting. The Party has effectively concluded that an antisemitic trope targeting a Jewish person is not antisemitic if it is in the context of debate about Israel. The implication of this decision, spelled out somewhat more explicitly by Sir Alan Duncan in his statement reacting to the decision, is that antisemitism accusations are used to silence criticism of Israel. The Conservative Party has thus in effect endorsed the Livingstone Formulation as a defence against allegations of antisemitism. This is utterly appalling.
“This judgement totally fails to grasp the gravity of what Sir Alan said and shames the Conservative Party, which claims to stand with the Jewish community. We are aware of members who have resigned from the Party in reaction to this decision.”
This is not the first time that he has drawn links between our Parliament and the Jewish state. In 2014, he delivered a speech in which he said: “We need British Jews for the Conservative, Labour, or other UK parties; not the Israeli lobby for any party. The time has come to make sure above any doubt that the funding of any party in the UK is clearly decoupled from the influence of the Israeli state.”
It was also reported that he said during a BBC interview regarding the speech: “We all know that the United States is in hock to a very powerful financial lobby which dominates its politics.” He did not specify who he believed to be behind this “lobby”.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, which has been adopted by the Conservative Party, “Making stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective, such as, especially the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the economy, government or other societal institutions,” is an example of antisemitism.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
Now, the Jewish community and its allies can make an informed choice
Antisemitism is a major issue for so many voters in the Jewish community and among our allies. That is why, when this election was called, Campaign Against Antisemitism jumped into action.
We set out to do everything that we can to ensure that you have the facts and insight that you need to make an informed decision on this issue.
What do the parties propose to do about antisemitism?
We have reviewed the manifestos of the major national parties in relation to antisemitism, and you can read the pertinent points here. Most remarkable is that the manifestos do not in fact say very much about what the parties intend to do about antisemitism. That is why our Hustings Against Antisemitism was so important.
Last week, we hosted an urgent and unprecedented hustings, where, for the first time, senior figures from the major national political parties participated in an open event focusing exclusively on the fight against antisemitism.
Hundreds of attendees joined us for an informative and sometimes boisterous evening in North London with the Conservatives’ Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat; Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, Alex Norris; the Liberal Democrats’ Lords Foreign Affairs Lead, Lord Purvis; and Deputy Leader of Reform UK, Ben Habib.
The scale of interest in this hustings shows how important this issue is to the Jewish community. The party representatives were left in no doubt about the strength of feeling and the scale of the task ahead for whomever forms the next Government.
These hustings leave the Jewish community better informed about the parties asking for their votes, when it comes to antisemitism. We were proud to have hosted this unique event. You can watch the whole event here.
Pledge against antisemitism
‘Our Policy team has invited all Parliamentary candidates to sign up to our pledge to adopt and abide by the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism, and to encourage and promote its widespread adoption and implementation, unamended and in its entirety, to the exclusion of any other definition or modifying document. It is so important to engage incoming MPs now and show them the issues that matter to us.
We are pleased to report that hundreds of candidates have signed so far, from a wide range of parties.
If you want to encourage your local candidates to sign, please ask them to e-mail [email protected].
Candidates exposed
Our Political and Government Investigations Unit has spent the past few weeks rapidly researching thousands of candidates from across political parties. Those findings have made the front pages and impacted the national conversation.
These include significant revelations about the Green Party, the Workers Party of Britain – whose candidates have allegedly said things like “Zionists are rap**ts…Zionists kill kids and then play victim…Zionists are trying to legalise peados,” and “world financial institutions are controlled by Jews” – and now Reform UK.
We have exposed a number of Reform candidates who have propagated conspiracies from Rothschilds and Israel controlling American presidents to antisemitism-denial, comparisons of the Jewish state to Nazis and the great replacement theory. The revelations were also mentioned on Sky News and on Channel 4 News.
We have also exposed a number of Independent candidates, including some who are members of the Alba Party. We are currently working with the media in Scotland regarding the Scottish National Party.
The Conservatives and Labour have also not escaped controversy.
Fight for our future
Thanks to so many of you who donated to our crowdfunder last week, we have the funds to defend the Jewish community and Fight for our Future. If you have not yet had a chance to donate, there is still time.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is a grassroots organisation that you built. It is only with your support that we are able to do what we do, including pursuing the three major cases that we announced last week. Thank you.
Help the March Against Antisemitism win an award!
The branding and graphics for our March Against Antisemitism last November, produced in collaboration with the design, brand and digital agency Creative Clinic, have been shortlisted for two awards which are decided by votes by the general public. We warmly congratulate our friends at Creative Clinic.
At a time of high levels of antisemitism, the shortlisting itself is noteworthy. With your help, the designs can now scoop one or two awards.
You can vote for each of the two categories by clicking on the links below (you can vote in each separately). You may need to register in order to vote.
When the General Election was called, we jumped into action. To ensure that those who are concerned about surging antisemitism are able to make an informed choice, we resolved to:
In addition, we pledged to begin engaging with all candidates and would-be MPs on antisemitism, and we have begun devising new policy proposals for incoming ministers. The election may be this week, but, regardless of who forms the next Government, our policy work begins anew.
CAA reviews the parties’ manifestos
Campaign Against Antisemitism has reviewed the manifestos of the major national parties in relation to antisemitism.
The following is not an exhaustive analysis of how all of the manifesto policies could impact the fight against antisemitism, but what follows are some of the most pertinent policy proposals and pledges.
Conservatives
Regarding protests, the Conservatives propose “a plan to counter extremism and to protect our streets” and pledge to “introduce further powers to ban face coverings, pyrotechnics and climbing on war memorials.” Moreover, the Party declares that it “will strengthen police powers to prevent protests or marches that pose a risk of serious disorder, by allowing police to take into account the cumulative impact of protests.” In addition, they promise to “place a duty on the police and prosecutors to publish regular guidance on the statements, chants or symbols, for example, the swastika or the term ‘jihad’, that in the context of political protest may constitute an offence. We will explore ways for the police to recover some of the costs of policing disruptive protests from the groups that organise them.”
On protection of Jewish institutions, the Conservatives reiterate that “we have pledged £54 million for the Community Security Trust to give Jewish schools and synagogues the security measures they need.” Meanwhile, on education, the Conservatives note that “we have allocated additional funding to support schools and universities to understand, recognise and tackle antisemitism,” adding: “we will get the UK Holocaust Memorial built.”
Finally, the manifesto pledges to expand the Online Safety Act, consulting widely, including in partnership with other countries.
Labour
The Labour Party in its manifesto pledges to “introduce a landmark Race Equality Act, to enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority people, strengthen protections against dual discrimination and root out other racial inequalities.” They add that “Labour will also reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate.”
On proscriptions, the Labour manifesto explains: “From the Skripal poisonings to assassination plots by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, threats from hostile states or state-sponsored groups are on the rise, but Britain lacks a comprehensive framework to protect us. Labour will take the approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with state based domestic security threats.”
In the online sphere, Labour says that it “will build on the Online Safety Act, bringing forward provisions as quickly as possible, and explore further measures to keep everyone safe online, particularly when using social media.”
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats say that they will “scrap the Conservatives’ draconian anti-protest laws, restoring pre-existing protections for both peaceful assembly and public safety, and immediately halt the use of live facial recognition surveillance by the police and private companies.”
They also pledge to “work with communities to tackle the alarming rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia.”
Regarding proscriptions, the manifesto says they will: “Work with our allies to help bring security to the Middle East…including by recognising the existential threat of Iran not just in the Middle East but to Western democracies, by proscribing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard [the IRGC].”
Turning to social media, the Liberal Democrats pledge to “free up local officers’ time to focus on their communities by creating a new Online Crime Agency to effectively tackle illegal content and activity online, such as personal fraud, revenge porn and threats and incitement to violence on social media,” and to “require social media companies to publish reports setting out the action they have taken to address online abuse against women and girls, and other groups who share a protected characteristic.”
Reform
Reform UK, in its ‘Contract’ manifesto, announced that it would “change the definition of Hate Crime,” arguing that “the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and police definition of a hate crime has led to systemic bias. Members of the British public must not be investigated because ‘any’ person ‘perceives’ that a hate crime has been committed. Proper evidence must be required.”
They also pledge to “enforce existing laws to stop violent, hate demonstrations such as Free-Palestine marches.”
Finally, the Party also promises to “replace the 2010 Equalities Act [sic],” reasoning that “the Equalities Act requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action’. We will scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity.”
Green Party
The Greens would “scrap the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, Public Order Act and other legislation that erodes the right to protest and to free expression.” The Party also says that it would scrap the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme.
The Party also writes in its manifesto: “The recent rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism highlights the importance of tackling hate crime and opposing divisions in our society. Elected Greens will support the right to religious expression and work with religious communities to defend the safety of places of worship.”
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru says in its manifesto that the Party “believes that non-violent protest is an important mechanism in democracy to show public support of solidarity for a cause. We support the right of an individual to freedom of expression and assembly. The rights of the individual should be respected, as should the rights of police officers not to be under threat of harm while carrying out their legitimate duties. We do not support the legislation introduced by the Conservative UK Government which unfairly restricts opportunities for non-violent protest. Plaid Cymru would repeal these powers at Westminster, including the relevant parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023. Sadly, some groups frequently resort to violence in order to make their point, and this needs to be policed in a stronger manner than events which are non-violent in nature.”
Workers Party
The Workers Party of Britain writes in its manifesto: “Our criticisms in this case are not antisemitic nor supportive of terrorism. Our analysis can be said to be very courageous in the current climate. Our stand against Israel is a stand for the Jewish people. We welcome Jews into our Party and we will remain steadfast opponents of antisemitism. However, we also abhor the weaponisation of antisemitism for dubious political purposes in British politics and consider that the neglect of Islamophobia in society and its weaponisation by the populist Right receives inadequate attention.”
CAA announces three new private prosecutions
We are pleased to be able to announce three new private prosecutions.
We have received permission from the Attorney General’s Office to pursue a private prosecution against a prominent individual for incitement to racial hatred contrary to section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986. Those inciting hatred during the past few months must be held to account. That is what we are here to ensure. There will be more details to come in due course on this significant case.
We have also been granted our application for summons by the court in a case relating to horrendous activity on social media which engages section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. We will ensure that posting online from the comfort of your home does not immunise trolls from the consequences of their actions.
Finally, we are particularly proud to let you know that we are among the very first to bring a case under the new Online Safety Act 2023. Specifically, the offence in this case engages section 181 of the Act: sending a message online conveying a threat of death or serious harm, with the intention that an individual encountering the threat would fear the threat would be carried out.
We continue to pioneer new legal strategies to ensure that those who pose a risk to the Jewish community do not do so with impunity.
First-ever Hustings Against Antisemitism enlightens Jewish community in week before election day
This evening, Campaign Against Antisemitism hosted an urgent and unprecedented hustings, where, for the first time, senior figures from the major national political parties participated in an open event focusing exclusively on the fight against antisemitism.
Hundreds of attendees joined us for an informative and sometimes boisterous evening with the Conservatives’ Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat; Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, Alex Norris; the Liberal Democrats’ Lords Foreign Affairs Lead, Lord Purvis; and Deputy Leader of Reform UK, Ben Habib.
The hustings took place at a venue in North London, and you can watch the whole event here.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Monday evening’s event was the first ever hustings devoted exclusively to antisemitism. The scale of interest shows how important this issue is to the Jewish community. We were able to put questions to senior figures from the main national parties to understand what they propose to do to fight unprecedented levels of antisemitism were they to win power in July.
“The situation for British Jews is desperate, with urban centres becoming no-go zones for Jews during weekly anti-Israel protests that have persisted for eight months now. The party representatives were left in no doubt about that strength of feeling and the scale of the task ahead for whomever forms the next Government.
“The Jewish community leaves these hustings better informed about the parties asking for their votes, when it comes to antisemitism. We were proud to have hosted this unique event.”
For many in the Jewish community, this election is about antisemitism
All elections are about a range of issues, but with the surge in antisemitism since the Hamas attack last October, for so many Jews and our allies, so much of this General Election is also about that.
With the surprise calling of a snap election, in the midst of this global rise in antisemitism, CAA has sprung into action.
We have exposed candidates from across political parties – with some stories making the front pages of national newspapers – and there will be more to come this week.
We are also urging all Parliamentary candidates to sign up to our pledge to adopt and abide by the International (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism, and to encourage and promote its widespread adoption and implementation, unamended and in its entirety, to the exclusion of any other definition or modifying document.
With the polls showing likely changes in the size of the party representation in the House of Commons and so many incumbents stepping down, we are likely to see a vast number of new MPs in July. It is vital that we engage as many of them as possible, educate them about antisemitism and win their commitment to the Definition.
Scores of candidates from across the political spectrum have signed the pledge so far.
Please encourage your local candidates to sign the pledge by inviting them to e-mail us at [email protected].
We are also looking closely at the parties’ manifestos in relation to antisemitism, and will have more to say in the coming days, but you can put your questions directly to party representatives at our antisemitism hustings in London tomorrow evening.
Hustings on antisemitism tomorrow: Have you booked your place?
We have organised an urgent hustings, where, for the first time, candidates from the major national political parties will participate in an open event focusing exclusively on the fight against antisemitism.
Join us for an evening with the Conservatives’ Security Minister, Tom Tugendhat; Labour’s Shadow Policing Minister, Alex Norris; the Liberal Democrats’ Lords Foreign Affairs Lead, Lord Purvis; and Deputy Leader of Reform UK, Ben Habib.
The hustings is taking place at a venue in North London tomorrow evening – Monday, 24th June – so please book your place now.
For more information, please visit antisemitism.org/hustings.
Victims of antisemitism speak out
As part of our work making the voices of British Jews heard, our unique series of powerful testimonials by members of the Jewish community and allies continues, detailing how they have been affected by the events of the past several months.
Previously, we have shared testimonials from:
We have now published our final three testimonials.
The anti-Israel marches in London have forced Jessica* and her family to alter the way they live. It is the same for many British Jews.
She describes in her testimonial how there is a sense of “doom” when the marches take place.
Jessica and her family are not alone. A staggering 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid travelling to a city centre if a major anti-Israel demonstration was taking place there. Our urban centres have become no-go zones for Jews.
*For security reasons, we have changed the name of the interviewee.
When Liahav and other Jewish audience members were hounded out of a comedy show, Campaign Against Antisemitism immediately investigated the situation to ensure that the comedian was held to account.
As a result of our efforts, the comedian has been banned from the Soho Theatre in London, and was also recently disinvited from the Glastonbury Festival.
No one should have to endure the events described in this testimonial.
In the final instalment of our testimonial series, Simon recalls the night when he was told by a fellow London Underground passenger that he “kills Muslims” because he is Jewish.
More than six in ten British Jews say that they have either personally experienced or witnessed an antisemitic incident since 7th October or know somebody who has.
As our eight-part testimonial series has shown, there are faces with stories behind the statistics. Racism against Jews is only getting worse in Britain, and we won’t stay quiet about it.
We would like to sincerely thank everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this project. Their stories are being used to educate and spread awareness of the current situation for Jews in Britain.
Fight for our Future
This week, Campaign Against Antisemitism will be running a crowdfunding campaign, to give you the chance to join us in the fight for our future. We will be trying to raise the funds that we need to continue bringing cases, exposing political parties, assisting victims, exposing hate on the marches, supporting students on campus, holding the media to account, putting antisemitism on the front pages and giving a voice to the Jewish community and our allies.
Please consider making a donation when the campaign goes live on Wednesday morning.
If you would like to help by becoming a Team Leader and spending just a few minutes this week encouraging your family and friends to support Campaign Against Antisemitism, or you would like more information, please e-mail us at [email protected].
No previous experience is necessary, and we will provide all the resources and instructions that you need.
If you can’t wait to support us and want to make a donation now, you can do so by clicking here! But you may wish to wait, because during the crowdfunder your donation will be matched.
Maccabi Fun Run
Campaign Against Antisemitism was proud to join organisations from across the Jewish community at the Maccabi Fun Run this weekend.
Thank you to everyone who visited our stall for such a positive reception!
With election day fast approaching, we are proud to have arranged the first-ever hustings focusing exclusively on antisemitism, featuring senior representatives from the major national political parties.
This will be your opportunity to ask them about what they propose to do to defend the Jewish community during this unprecedented surge in antisemitism. Tickets are going fast, so be sure to reserve your place.
We hope that you will join us!
Man who wielded knife in antisemitic incident in Golders Green avoids prison
Earlier this year, brave staff members of a kosher supermarket in Golders Green defended themselves against a man wielding a knife in an antisemitic incident.
Campaign Against Antisemitism spoke with a member of staff involved, who told us that the assailant – Gabriel Abdullah, 34 – entered the shop demanding to know the staff’s feelings on what was happening “in Palestine”.
One staff member refused to engage, explaining that he did not wish to discuss politics. He and another staff member then escorted the suspect out of the shop.
Shortly after, Mr Abdullah allegedly attempted to grab at the neck of one of the staff members. Defending himself with Krav Maga martial arts moves that he remembered learning as a youth, the staff member tried to restrain him before hearing people around him yell: “Knife, knife!”
At this point, the staff member quickly backed away, and the suspect began moving towards him.
Thinking quickly, he grabbed a nearby shopping trolley, pushing it into the body of the suspect in order to create distance.
The staff member told us that he retreated into the shop, where Mr Abdullah then followed, before leaving and making his way across the road into a building.
He then left that building approximately five minutes later in a change of clothes, apparently wearing traditional Muslim garb, and began walking up the road.
One of the staff members then ran ahead of him so that he could view his face to confirm that this was the same man from minutes earlier.
Shortly thereafter, Mr Abdullah was apprehended by the Shomrim North West London neighbourhood watch patrol and the Metropolitan Police, and arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and racially-aggravated affray.
He pleaded guilty in February to causing affray and being in possession of a knife, before Judge Sir Charles Gregory Bourne. The racially-aggravated element had apparently been dropped, despite the evidence.
Mr Abdullah has now been sentenced at HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs, as Harrow Crown Court is temporarily closed. Judge Corinne Searle sentenced him to eighteen months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and twelve months’ imprisonment, also suspended for two years.
The suspended sentences are to be served concurrently. He has also been given a nine-month alcohol treatment requirement, after claiming that he was intoxicated during the incident having tried to self-medicate his alleged paranoid schizophrenia. He has also been given a 30-day rehabilitation requirement.
One of the victims, Yosef Reitman, with whom Campaign Against Antisemitism is in contact, expressed shock at the lenient sentence.
Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Once again the Jewish community has been let down by the justice system. Brave attendants at the kosher supermarket defended themselves from a clearly antisemitic knifeman and the Shomrim neighbourhood watch group apprehended him, with support from police. But then, once the justice system stepped in, everything seemed to go wrong. The racially-aggravated charge was apparently quietly dropped, the assailant pleaded guilty to minor charges and he walked away from court effectively a free man.
“This is by no means the first time that this has happened. Why is it that every perpetrator who commits a violent act against religious Jews is let off? What do violent antisemites need to do to a Jew before a court agrees that they deserve to go to prison? We are in contact with one of the victims and are examining legal options to try to remedy this travesty of justice.”
Judge given formal warning after CAA complaint in relation to appearance of bias after his lenient sentence for Hamas paraglider protesters
Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Taiwo, 27, were given twelve-month conditional discharges at Westminster Magistrates’ Court earlier this year after being convicted of terrorism offences.
During a demonstration in London shortly after the 7th October attack, when Hamas murdered over 1,200 Israelis and took some 250 people hostage, Ms Alhayek and Ms Ankunda attached images of paragliders to their backs; Ms Taiwo attached such an image to the handle of a placard.
They were arrested and charged with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of the proscribed antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation, Hamas.
Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram reportedly said: “Seven days earlier, Hamas went into Israel with what was described by the media as paragliders. A reasonable person would have seen and read that. I do not find a reasonable person would interpret the image merely as a symbol of freedom. You’ve not hidden the fact you were carrying these images. You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue. Your lesson has been well learnt. I do not find you were seeking to show any support for Hamas.” He concluded that he had “decided not to punish” the trio.
Campaign Against Antisemitism revealed that Judge Ikram’s social media activity may suggest bias. Specifically, the judge ‘liked’ a post that stated: “Free Free Palestine. To the Israeli terrorist both in the United Kingdom, the United States and of course Israel, you can run, you can bomb but you cannot hide – justice will be coming for you.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism submitted a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO), and it is understood that Judge Ikram also referred himself to the body as well. The complaint has been upheld and the JCIO has published a statement.
Judge Ikram was found to have breached Social Media Guidance for the judiciary by identifying himself as a judge on LinkedIn, but it was accepted that he had ‘liked’ the post inadvertently and that there were no other inappropriate posts or engagement.
He reportedly described the contents of the post as “repulsive”, and told investigators that he had closed his LinkedIn account to mitigate the impact of his action. He said that it was an account that “he had primarily used for his work as a Diversity and Community Relations judge”.
The act was found to have amounted to misconduct and the nominated judge recommended a sanction of formal advice. However, Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk and Lady Chief Justice Dame Sue Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill “were not satisfied that a sanction of formal advice was sufficient” and increased the sanction to a formal warning because “the judge’s actions caused significant reputational damage to the judiciary”.
Judge Ikram sits on the judicial appointments committee and is a Diversity and Community Relations judge.
How well do you know your local candidates for Parliament?
Over the past few weeks, we have been monitoring developments across all political parties, first among local council candidates and councillors in the run-up to and aftermath of the local elections, and now with a greater focus on the candidates for Parliament, following the announcement of the snap general election.
We have worked with national newspapers to publicise our research, which has been reported in multiple articles, including on the front page of The Times. The Jewish community and the wider public have a right to know about the records of the candidates who are asking for our votes, and we are doing everything we can to provide that information.
What we have found is that no party is immune from antisemitism, but some are doing better than others to address concerns and investigate allegations.
Green Party
Of the main national parties, the Green Party is proving to be a magnet for controversy relating to antisemitism, and is largely failing to deal with cases as they arise.
Our fears that the far-left would gravitate towards the Greens following the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party have proved prescient. This trend is encapsulated by Green candidates like Cllr Jo Bird, formerly of Jewish Voice for Labour.
We are uncovering Green candidates who have made statements like “there’s no such thing as a good Zionist” and called Zionism a “cancer”; compared Israel to the Nazis; denied Labour antisemitism; provided apparent justifications for the “resistance”; and denied the Hamas attack or victim-blamed the Jewish state.
We have written about a sample of these candidates, and they have been covered extensively in the press using our research.
The Greens have dropped a small number of problematic candidates, but many are still running with the Party’s endorsement. It is therefore difficult to escape The Times’ assessment that there may be more than merely a dysfunctional internal vetting process at play here.
Workers Party of Britain
Candidates in George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain have even more frightening records, which we have worked hard to expose and publicise in the media. Among them is a candidate who said: “It can’t possibly be six million.” Every day we seem to uncover new horrors from candidates for the Workers Party. The rhetoric from these candidates is utterly shocking.
The Party must urgently consult the EHRC’s antisemitism report, but given Mr Galloway’s record of baiting the Jewish community – and that of his deputy leader, disgraced former Labour MP Chris Williamson – we will not be holding our breath.
Conservatives
The Conservative Party has selected a lot of its candidates at very short notice, reducing the timeframe that we have to investigate. We are aware of at least one candidate of interest so far and are continuing to examine the records of others.
On the local level, however, some problems persist. For example, Cllr Mohammad Aslam is alleged to have a history of engaging with conspiratorial rhetoric regarding the Jewish community. The Party said some time ago that it was investigating Cllr Aslam and yet now he is the Mayor of Pendle. This is not what a transparent disciplinary process looks like, and it is not the only instance of the Tories appearing to brush antisemitism allegations relating to local councillors and associations under the carpet.
Labour
Labour may be unrecognisable from what it was in recent years, but it still has challenges relating to antisemitism. The Party has finally expelled Jeremy Corbyn, not for his role in staining UK politics with antisemitism, but for standing as a candidate against the Party.
Candidate Faiza Shaheen has been dropped by the Party after she liked a social media post which appeared to support conspiratorial claims and make reference to the “Israel lobby”, as well as publicising her closeness with Mr Corbyn.
But Diane Abbott has had her suspension lifted after a seemingly interminable investigation by the Party that lacked transparency.
Other parties
We are continuing to monitor Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Reform UK, other parties and independent candidates, and our research will be published soon.
#ItWasAScam is a scam
Since the 2019 electoral defeat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the EHRC’s finding that Labour had become institutionally antisemitic, some of his most ardent supporters on the far-left of British politics have sought any way to undermine that finding.
An idea has developed that it was the Jewish community and its supposedly false and malicious allegations of antisemitism that fatally undermined Labour’s electoral ambitions at the time. This idea has been heavily promoted via a social media campaign that uses the hashtag “#ItWasAScam”.
This phrase has trended on social media repeatedly over the past several years. Today, the Labour Party is unrecognisable from what it was at the time of the EHRC’s investigation. Not perfect, but unrecognisable. But whenever Labour has tried to address far-left antisemitism in its ranks, it has been confronted by antisemitism-denial – by #ItWasAScam.
We scrutinised the claims of the #ItWasAScam campaign, and found each claim to be nonsense. In other words, #ItWasAScam is a scam.
Read the full rebuttal at antisemitism.org/itwasascam-is-a-scam/.
Victims of antisemitism speak out
As part of our work making the voices of British Jews heard, our unique series of powerful testimonials by members of the Jewish community and allies continues, detailing how they have been affected by the events of the past several months.
Last week, we shared testimonials from Lysa, who revealed the precautions that she feels that she must take to maintain her safety as a Jew in Britain; and Anatole, a Jewish student at University of Leeds, who, like so many other students, does not feel safe right now. This week, we have published further testimonials.
We spoke to Sarah*, who told us that when she and her friends went out one evening to put up posters of hostages taken by Hamas, they were assaulted. She now fears for her safety.
*For security reasons, we have changed the name of the interviewee.
In another testimonial, Josh recounts how his film about two gay Jews was due to be screened at an LGBTQ+ support group. However, fearing the reaction that Josh might have faced, the organiser cancelled it. Josh now questions where he fits in as a gay Jewish man.
Speaking with Farhad, it is clear that he is horrified by what is happening on our streets.
Though not Jewish himself, he considers himself an ally and recognises what a frightening time it is for many British Jews right now. Farhad believes people should speak up when they see antisemitism occurring. He’s right. We need more people like Farhad right now.
Campaign Against Antisemitism launches Student Ambassador programme!
Are you a student at university in 2024-2025, or do you know somebody who is? Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Student Ambassador programme is an exciting opportunity to work with us in a prestigious year-long initiative.
Student Ambassadors will work closely with our Education Officer and wider team to help us expose and challenge the rising tide of antisemitism overwhelming UK university campuses.
Student Ambassadors will:
The contributions of our students is more important now than ever before to the fight against antisemitism.
For further information and details about the programme please visit antisemitism.org/become-a-student-ambassador.
Would you like to become a Team Leader for Campaign Against Antisemitism?
Later this month, we will be running a crowdfunding campaign to help us raise the funds that we need to continue bringing cases, exposing political parties, assisting victims, exposing hate on the marches, supporting students on campus, holding the media to account, putting antisemitism on the front pages and giving a voice to the Jewish community and our allies.
If you would like to help by becoming a Team Leader and spending just a few minutes in late June encouraging your family and friends to support Campaign Against Antisemitism, or you would like more information, please e-mail us at [email protected].
No previous experience is necessary, and we will provide all the resources and instructions that you need.
If you can’t wait to support us and want to make a donation now, you can do so by clicking here! But you may wish to wait, because during the crowdfunder your donation will be matched.
With the General Election campaign underway, we are working hard to expose candidates whose records concern us and calling attention to parties that are failing to act. We are bringing this information to the Jewish community and the wider public, with front-page exposés in national newspapers, without fear or favour.
We will always advocate for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we will continue to monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
#ItWasAScam is a scam
Since the Labour Party’s defeat in the 2019 General Election under the leadership of the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn, some of his most ardent supporters have sought to find a scapegoat. An idea has developed – similar to the historic “stab-in-the-back” myth – that it was the Jewish community and its supposedly false allegations of antisemitism that fatally undermined the Labour Party’s electoral ambitions. This idea has become known as “#ItWasAScam”.
The theory behind this idea is that allegations of antisemitism in Labour were a fraud, and represented an effort to smear Mr Corbyn, his supporters and the Labour Party under his leadership.
The notion that claims of antisemitism are disingenuous is the foundation of the “Livingstone Formulation”. Named after the controversial former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, the Livingstone Formulation is used to describe how allegations of antisemitism are dismissed as insincere and malevolent. Often, such allegations are portrayed as baseless attempts to silence criticism of Israel. In its report on antisemitism in the Labour Party, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found that suggestions of this nature were part of the unlawful victimisation of Jewish people in the Party.
Although #ItWasAScam has not been the only attempt to undermine the finding that the Labour Party had become institutionally racist against Jewish people, it has proved the most popular and enduring. It has trended repeatedly on X/Twitter in the years since 2019, and has often been referred to whenever the Labour Party has attempted to address antisemitism on the far-left of the Party.
As with most political myths, #ItWasAScam thrives on vagueness, capturing a feeling of injustice on the part of Mr Corbyn’s most blindly loyal supporters but rarely being elucidated with actual facts and argumentation. The principal exception to this trend is a document authored by the writer and activist Simon Maginn, who is believed to have coined and popularised the #ItWasAScam hashtag.
Given the popularity of this myth, and the distress that it has caused Jewish victims of Labour antisemitism, users of social media and the wider Jewish community, Mr Maginn’s (since deleted) document – originally posted on 11th April 2021 and later, in 2023, accompanied by a graphic tweet and series of videos – merits authoritative refutation. The document is titled “Top Ten Labour Antisemitism Smears”.
Before examining the ten items, it must be borne in mind that these are only ten instances in the scandal of Labour antisemitism, which was an unprecedented development in British politics that proceeded for several years in the national spotlight and which is still in the process of remediation. Some of these ten instances, selected by Mr Maginn, received considerable media attention when they arose; others did not. Why these ten have been chosen, as opposed to the countless other allegations of antisemitism in the Party, interviews with leading Labour officials or other instances that might have been included in the document, is not known. The failure even to address the fact that these are only a sample of such instances itself exposes the document to charges of strawmanning, in which Mr Maginn has addressed only those instances that were convenient for his purposes, rather than those that were not. Even so, his analysis of each of the ten chosen instances is deficient or inaccurate and invariably misleading.
Let’s see how.
10: Chris Williamson.
Claim: Mr Williamson, then an MP, said Labour had been ‘too apologetic for antisemitism’.
BBC’s Nick Robinson tweeted it. It’s still up today.
In fact, what Mr Williamson said was this:
“The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party’s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion…we’ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we’ve been too apologetic…We’ve done more to address the scourge of antisemitism than any other party.”
Oddly, the last part of Mr Williamson’s statement, where he talks about ‘addressing the scourge of antisemitism’, doesn’t get quoted. This is called ‘clipping’ — extracting words from a longer speech in order to misrepresent it.
Transcript here: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/in-defence-of-chris-williamson/
Verdict: False
Analysis
Chris Williamson is a disgraced one-term Labour MP who was suspended from the Party before eventually resigning his membership and running as an Independent in the 2019 General Election. He received so few votes that, extraordinarily for an incumbent MP, he lost his deposit. Research by Campaign Against Antisemitism shows that Mr Williamson has been involved in numerous antisemitic incidents, and since his ejection from frontline politics, Mr Williamson can be found presenting a programme on the Iranian state propaganda channel, Press TV. He has also become the Deputy Leader of George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain.
Mr Williamson’s comments quoted here were made at an event in Sheffield organised by the pro-Corbyn pressure group, Momentum, in February 2019.
With regard to the substance of the comments, Labour’s history as an avowedly anti-racist party was no defence of its descent into institutional racism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Indeed, that very history made this development so distressing for those Jews and opponents of racism who had made the Labour Party their political home. Mr Williamson nevertheless contended that, in response to this scandal of antisemitism, the Party had been too defensive. In twisted logic, he argued that Labour had done more to address the scourge of antisemitism, seemingly without acknowledging that it was also by far the most antisemitic party, an assessment confirmed by both the Home Affairs Committee in 2016 and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2020. Both the Home Affairs Committee and the EHRC found that the Labour Party had in fact not been too apologetic for antisemitism but, on the contrary, had failed to identify and deal with antisemitism within the Party appropriately, despite numerous recommendations to improve its procedures.
In any event, this is all background to Mr Maginn’s obscure focus on a tweet by the BBC presenter Nick Robinson. Whether or not one tweet by one journalist half a year after they were made accurately represented the thrust of Mr Williamson’s remarks is immaterial. Mr Williamson’s remarks are available to watch, they were reported across the national media at the time that they were made, and they rapidly led to his suspension from the Labour Party.
Verdict: Not “false”.
9: Jackie Walker.
Claim: Ms Walker said ‘Jews controlled the slave trade’. Again, the BBC’s old reliable Nick Robinson said exactly this in a now-deleted tweet.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/tweet-by-nick-robinson-26-february-2019
In fact, what Ms Walker said was this: “Oh yes — and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both — on all sides as I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews… and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator”.
BBC finally retracted Mr Robinson’s accusation, describing it as ‘insufficiently accurate’, and Mr Robinson was required to delete his tweet, though in so doing, regrettably, made the further smear against Mr Williamson above.
He’s prolific.
Verdict: False
Analysis
Jackie Walker is a former Vice-Chair of Momentum whose case exemplified the institutionalisation of antisemitism in the Labour Party. She was initially suspended by Labour for repeating the Louis Farrakhan-inspired hoax that Jews were the “chief financiers of the slave trade”. That suspension was lifted in secrecy and without public explanation, with that mysterious exoneration being swiftly celebrated with a public embrace from the Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn. She went on to be suspended a second time for comments misrepresenting the inclusivity of Holocaust Memorial Day and for challenging the need for security at Jewish schools. After being suspended for over two and a half years, she was finally expelled in early 2019.
She has persistently claimed that complaints of antisemitism are part of a plot to destabilise Mr Corbyn’s leadership and has rejected the International Definition of Antisemitism. While contentiously claiming to be Jewish herself, she nevertheless alleged that Jews claim privileges at the expense of black people, at one point reportedly referring to Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge as “someone from the white millionaire elite” whom she accused of “black Jew baiting”.
She created a bizarre “Lynching” show, in which she claimed to be the victim of a “witch-hunt”, and toured it around the country – to applause, incidentally, from Chris Williamson. Meanwhile, leaders of the Party such as John McDonnell MP, then the Shadow Chancellor, have defended her. She was Chair of the antisemitism-denial group, Labour Against the Witchhunt, which was eventually proscribed by the Party.
Mr Maginn has again chosen to focus on a tweet by Nick Robinson, perhaps because the BBC’s admission that the tweet lacked sufficient context might mislead a reader of his document into thinking that portrayals of Ms Walker as an antisemite are without foundation. But the BBC’s assessment of Mr Robinson’s tweet does not in any way detract from Ms Walker’s record.
Ms Walker’s leading position in grassroots Labour groups, the Party’s reversal of her suspension and failure to expel her for several years, and her enduring popularity and influence among the far-left grassroots of the Party and even among some MPs on the far-left wing of the Party, all underscore her exemplification of Labour’s antisemitism scandal.
Verdict: Not “false”.
8: Irony.
Claim: Jeremy Corbyn said ‘Jews [or sometimes Zionists] don’t understand English irony.’
In fact what he said was this.
‘…the other evening we had a meeting in Parliament in which Manuel [the Palestinian Ambassador Manuel Hassassian] made an incredibly powerful and passionate and effective speech about the history of Palestine, the rights of the Palestinian people. This was dutifully recorded by the, thankfully silent, Zionists who were in the audience on that occasion [my emphasis]; and then came up and berated him afterwards for what he had said.
They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either. Manuel does understand English irony and uses it very very effectively. So I think they needed two lessons which we can perhaps help them with.’
You will note the (habitually) careful language: ‘the Zionists who were in the audience on that occasion.’ Unless you were one of the named self-identifying Zionist protesters who had disrupted the meeting in question, Mr Corbyn’s remarks about irony obviously do not apply to you. Indeed, one of the protesters, Richard Millett, is currently suing Mr Corbyn for libel — his entire case is that he is identifiable as one of the people Corbyn called ‘disruptive’ at the meeting. So unless you’re him, this isn’t about you. Or ‘Jews’. Or ‘Zionists’.
Transcript here: https://labourbriefing.org/blog/2018/8/29/full-texxt-of-that-speech-by-jeremy-on-zionists-and-a-sense-of-irony
Verdict: False.
Analysis
As research by Campaign Against Antisemitism has shown,Jeremy Corbyn has a long record of antisemitic incidents and associations with those who promote antisemitic conspiracy theories or intend harm to Jewish people. This background was increasingly known to the wider public when the historic comments quoted by Mr Maginn surfaced in the summer of 2018, which was also a time when the Labour Party was resisting adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism.
Mr Corbyn originally made the quoted remarks in a speech to a conference at the House of Commons in 2013, while he was still a backbench MP. Mr Maginn’s claim is that Mr Corbyn’s reference to “Zionists” was specific to certain individuals in the audience and was not a wider reference to British Jews more generally. The reason that it may plausibly be construed as having this wider meaning is because the term “Zionists” is often used as a dog whistle by antisemites to refer to Jews. Indeed, even Mr Corbyn recognises this, saying in his defence when these remarks came to light in 2018 that “I am now more careful with how I might use the term ‘Zionist’ because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by antisemites as code for Jews.”
Mr Maginn claims that it is clear that Mr Corbyn was referring to specific audience members because one of them went on to sue Mr Corbyn for libel, which would indicate that that claimant must have been identifiable as the person to whom Mr Corbyn was referring. Mr Maginn is incorrect; that claimant was suing Mr Corbyn for libel in relation to comments that Mr Corbyn made on The Andrew Marr Show in September 2018, not based on Mr Corbyn’s remarks in 2013.
Mr Corbyn’s remarks were widely viewed in the Jewish community as referring to British Jews in general, accusing them of not being fully British because they did not understand English language and humour. The remarks were therefore reasonably interpreted as being scandalously racist and antisemitic. But this is equally true if the remarks were directed simply at people who identify as Zionists, and even if the comments were directed solely at the specific audience members. This is because the comments are “othering” and represent a xenophobic manner of addressing people. The comments imply that, despite living in the UK all of their lives, the people in question (be they Jews, “Zionists” or the specific audience members) were still somehow not fully English. The implication was that this foreignness was connected to their Zionist views or identity, which also happens to be an identity shared by the overwhelming majority of Jewish people. Given that centuries of antisemitic persecution have been built on the premise that Jewish people are different from the rest of the population and have different or dual loyalties, with their principal allegiance being to the Jewish people – or the Jewish state – rather than their countries of citizenship, it is understandable that Jewish people are very sensitive to any suggestion that they are not fully English.
If there was any ambiguity in the remarks, as Mr Maginn suggests, in view of Mr Corbyn’s long history of antisemitic incidents and associations the presumption was against him. Indeed, after making the remarks quoted here, Mr Corbyn was immediately followed onstage by the disgraced Rev. Dr Stephen Sizer, whom Mr Corbyn has defended despite Rev. Dr Sizer’s infamy for having promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Rev. Dr Sizer was eventually handed a twelve-year ban by the Church of England after having been found to have “engaged in antisemitic activity” by a tribunal of the Church of England.
Mr Corbyn’s failure even to apologise for the possibility of an interpretation contrary to whatever it was that he claimed to have meant in these 2013 remarks was further evidence that he had little sympathy for those who maintained that they had been victimised by his statement.
Following this incident, the former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks made his first intervention on Labour’s antisemitism crisis. Lord Sacks said that the comments were “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.” He described Mr Corbyn as “an antisemite”.
Verdict: Not “false”.
7: The Wreath.
Claim: Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath at the cemetery in Tunisia where the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorists were buried.
In fact, the wreath was laid at the Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia, which has a memorial to the victims of the universally condemned 1985 Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters, many of whom were civilians.
The Munich terrorists are buried in another country, Libya.
Corbyn was in the wrong country.
Operation Wooden Leg – Wikipedia
Operation “Wooden Leg” ( Hebrew: מבצע רגל עץ, Mivtza Regel Etz) was an attack by Israel on the Palestine Liberation…
en.wikipedia.org
Verdict: False.
Analysis
On 10th August 2018, the Daily Mail published photographs taken from the Facebook page of the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic mission to Tunisia, which showed Jeremy Corbyn laying a wreath at the Hamman Chott Cemetery in Tunis in 2014.
The Daily Mail alleged that one of the pictures showed Mr Corbyn with a memorial wreath in his hand standing feet “from the graves of terror leaders linked to the Munich Massacre”. The article went on to say: “The picture was among a number taken during a service to honour Palestinian ‘martyrs’. Buried in the cemetery in Tunisia are members of Black September, the terror group which massacred eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.”
The article proceeded to report that “sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted he was at the service in 2014 to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) base in 1985. But on a visit to the cemetery this week, the Daily Mail discovered that the monument to the air strike victims is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the complex. Instead he was in front of a plaque that lies beside the graves of Black September members.
“The plaque honours three dead men: Salah Khalaf, who founded Black September; his key aide Fakhri al-Omari; and Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO Chief of Security. Adjacent to their graves is that of [Atef] Bseiso [PLO Head of Intelligence]. All were assassinated either by the Israeli secret service Mossad or rival Palestinian factions.”
In an article for the Morning Star newspaper a few days after his visit to Tunis, Mr Corbyn wrote about his trip, recounting how “wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died [in the 1985 Israeli airstrike] and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991.”
When the Daily Mail story broke, Mr Corbyn reiterated what he had written in the Morning Star several years prior: “A wreath was indeed laid by some of those who attended the conference to those that were killed in Paris in 1992. I was present when it was laid. I don’t think I was actually involved in it. I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere because we have to end it.”
A few hours later, Mr Corbyn’s office unequivocally denied that Mr Corbyn had laid a wreath at the graves of those linked to the Munich Massacre.
However, the reference to Paris indicated that Mr Corbyn was indeed involved in a commemoration at the cemetery for Atef Bseiso, who was killed outside a Paris hotel in 1992, either by a rival faction or by Israeli security services.
Mr Maginn is correct to insist that Mr Corbyn was not present at the graves of the Munich terrorists, but that was not the Daily Mail’s claim; the newspaper reported that he was at a commemoration for “terror leaders linked to the Munich Massacre”. Given that Atef Bseiso was PLO Head of Intelligence and generally believed to have been behind the Munich terror attack, the newspaper’s contention appears reasonable, as did the conclusions drawn by its readership and the Jewish community.
In the days following the Daily Mail’s report, the Labour Party made a formal complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) against the Daily Mail, The Times, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and the Metro, apparently for misrepresenting the event that Mr Corbyn had attended. But the Labour Party eventually withdrew its complaint, blaming leaked communications that it claimed had compromised IPSO’s investigation.
Mr Corbyn was also referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over a potential failure to declare the trip to Tunisia, especially given that guests were alleged to have stayed at a five-star hotel. E-mails from the time were leaked, suggesting that Mr Corbyn had sought to keep the costs below the reporting threshold so that he would not have to refer to the trip in Parliamentary debates. Mr Corbyn’s office eventually estimated that the trip had cost £4 less than the £660 threshold, and hence did not need to be reported.
Verdict: Not “false”.
6: Baddiel’s Leaflet
Claim: There was a leaflet at a Labour Party Conference about the Holocaust that didn’t mention Jews.
TV celebrity David Baddiel claimed in a TV promo for his book ‘Jews Don’t Count’ that he had been informed by ‘someone on the NEC’ [Labour National Executive Committee] that there had been a leaflet circulated at a Labour Conference about the Holocaust that didn’t mention Jews.
What he seems to be referring to in garbled form here is a petition by the SWP (Socialist Workers Party) in 2008 at a far-right rally in Derbyshire, which, by some unaccountable error, lists the other victims of the Holocaust but omits ‘six million Jews’. It has never been repeated, and SWP have never denied or minimised the Holocaust in any way. Ironically, the petition was specifically about remembering the victims of the Holocaust, in the face of far-right Holocaust denial.
Nothing to do with the Labour Party. Nothing to do with a Labour Conference. Nothing whatsoever to do with Jeremy Corbyn.
Mr Baddiel has never, to my knowledge, been challenged on his claim, nor has he been required to show any evidence that what he claims happened ever happened at all.
Has the SWP Discovered a “Jew-Free” Holocaust?
He makes the claim here, at 55.00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_3g4UGVcNQ&t=1s
Verdict: False.*
* A previous version of this said Baddiel had said it was a ‘Labour Party leaflet’. This has been challenged, and I have been unable to verify that he did in fact use those words, so I have deleted them. The substance of his claim remains unchanged: that it was a leaflet ‘circulated at a Labour Party Conference’. No evidence of this has ever been produced, or even asked for.
Analysis
This item is drawn from a Zoom interview of the comedian and author David Baddiel, in conversation with the Jewish former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth organised by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, on 5th March 2021.
This is the full transcript of the segment:
David Baddiel (DB): “When someone says “antisemitism” [in scare quotes], I presume that’s a Labour person, who is someone who thinks it’s all smears, and it never existed or whatever. I mean one of the things that is really annoying about that is, I notice, what they tend to do, those people, is they’ll say it was all smears and, you know, it was all weaponised by the Tories or whatever, and then they’ll say ‘and it diminishes the struggle against real antisemitism’. And I always wanna say, at what point, by the way, would you recognise real antisemitism? Cause there’s all this stuff that Jews are saying that they’re unhappy with, but you’re dismissing all that as ‘smears’. So I’d like to know what you thik antisemitism, is it just genocide? Is that the only thing that counts? You know, because it’s a really extraordinary thing. They always bring it up: it’s like, the ‘real’, what’s real antisemitism. And I always thing, who’s defining that?”
Ruth Smeeth [RS]: “Yeh they think Nazis. They mean the far-right and Nazis.”
DB: “They just mean that. Yeh okay.”
RS: “I think one of the most shocking testimonies that went through, there was far-right material that was distributed at a Labour Party event, and it had been, it was a BNP leaflet, as fact. Like, a really old school proper Nazi, Jews-run-the-world stuff. And, I mean, how the Labour Party dealt with it was appalling. They asked the Jewish person who’d seen it why she’d be offended by it as part of the evidence testimony. But it just showed the circle that we’d gone on, that certain members of the Labour Party thought it was appropriate, that there was valid messaging in a far-right leaflet.”
DB: “Yeh. That is appalling. A guy called Joel Braunold, who’s on twitter, who’s a Labour Party person, or he was, told me that he was at an NEC meeting a few years ago, and this wasn’t a right-wing thing, that there had been an information or educational leaflet going around conference or whatever about the Holocaust, and it mentioned all the groups –
RS: “Yeh”
DB: – that were targeted by the Holocaust, and it included gays, and Roma, and disabled people and communists and trade unionists, and it didn’t mention Jews, right?”
RS: “It was a trade union leaflet.”
DB: “Huh?”
RS: “It was a trade union leaflet.”
DB: “Yeh. And what is incredible about that is, I am prepared to accept that the people doing that are not just straightforward antisemites. That they think they’re doing something worthwhile. Because I think they think ‘well I think it’s important to draw attention to the other people who were killed.’ Obviously it is. But not if you miss out the primary target. Then you’re doing something that’s really weird, and vile, and whatever.”
For Mr Maginn to believe that a comment made in passing in 2021 – a year after Jeremy Corbyn stepped down as leader of the Labour Party – by one commentator towards the close of an hour-long interview on Zoom that has been viewed (at time of writing) by fewer than 1,000 people and was not covered by the media, is somehow a significant milestone in the story of Labour’s antisemitism scandal is nonsensical. It is a good example of strawmanning.
Mr Baddiel does not suggest that the leaflet in question circulated during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Party; in fact, the personalities whom he references suggest an earlier time frame. Even Mr Maginn is not able to identify the incident to which Mr Baddiel is referring. But even if Mr Baddiel had been mistaken, this item is so inconsequential that no significance could possibly be attributed to it.
What is clear is that the trend of omitting or minimising the targeting of Jews in the Holocaust is not an isolated occurrence but distressingly commonplace, including on the far-left, where, for example, calls to dilute or cancel Holocaust Memorial Day recur annually. Indeed in 2011, Jeremy Corbyn himself proposed a motion in Parliament to rename Holocaust Memorial Day. During the years of his leadership of the Party, there have been plenty of concerning spectacles at Labour conferences. At Labour’s 2017 Party conference, for example, a packed fringe event heard from American-Israeli activist Miko Peled that people should be free to ask “Holocaust, yes or no” because “there should be no limits on the discussion”, for which he was cheered.
Why Mr Maginn chose not to address an episode such as that, which took place during the Corbyn era and actually contributed to Labour’s antisemitism scandal, as opposed to a wholly unimportant comment made in passing years later at the end of a long Zoom conversation that received minimal public attention, is telling.
Verdict: Who cares?
5: The IHRA definition.
Claim: Corbyn’s Labour Party was antisemitic because of its initial reluctance to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism and all its examples.
The new head of the EHRC, Baroness Falkner, recently said the definition is ’extremely poorly worded and probably unactionable in law’ while it ‘directly conflicts with the duty to protect free speech’
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/new-chair-of-equalities-watchdog-is-against-call-for-unis-to-adopt-ihra
The Labour party have been forced to publish details of a ‘secret code’ in operation, which was an attempt to make the IHRA definition legally actionable. Corbyn was condemned for this code, which Starmer has been forced to admit he is still using.
https://skwawkbox.org/2021/04/09/court-ordered-release-shows-labour-still-using-corbyns-incendiary-code-of-conduct-despite-howls-of-outrage-against-corbyn-silence-now
Verdict: False.
Analysis
The International Definition of Antisemitism, also known as the IHRA Definition, is the globally-recognised definition of anti-Jewish racism. It was the product of years of international collaboration and careful composition. It has support from Jewish communities around the world, and has been adopted by the British Government and numerous national governments and public bodies worldwide. It is opposed only by a minute fringe of Jews and by activists, many of whom routinely breach the Definition or support those who do.
In the summer of 2018, the Labour Party became embroiled in a scandal relating to whether it would adopt the Definition in full. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the Party resisted for several months before eventually relenting and adopting the Definition.
During this controversy, in July 2018, it was revealed that the Party had adopted a “code of conduct” relating to antisemitism that took a pick-and-choose approach to anti-Jewish racism. Effectively, the Labour Party was saying that it knew better than the Jewish community how to define antisemitism.
Specifically, the code of conduct excluded four of the eleven examples of antisemitism incorporated in the Definition; namely, accusing Jews of dual loyalty, denying the Jews’ right to self-determination, comparing Israel to Nazis, and applying double standards to Israel.
These self-evidently racist positions seem obviously omitted for one reason: the Labour Party was trying to protect its then-dominant far-left contingent, including its leader, from being held to account for past comments and activity that might breach these aspects of the Definition. After all, the best way to prevent someone being exposed as an antisemite is to change the definition of antisemitism. Whether or not such a policy is antisemitic in itself – and Mr Maginn has not provided any citations for those saying that it was – it is certainly an attempt to provide institutional protection to racists.
Verdict: Not “false”.
4: The EHRC report.
Claim: The EHRC found the Labour party ‘institutionally antisemitic’.
The EHRC report, entitled ‘Investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party’, is 130 pages long. A search of the document itself (Ctrl F) using the words ‘institutionally antisemitic’ turns up only one result, on page 127. This section is annex 7, ‘How we carried out the investigation’, and it cites a report by Professor Alan Johnson (BICOM), ‘Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour Party’ (March 2019). It is used as a reference for the EHRC report, and is not part of the content.
The claim is not made anywhere in the EHRC report itself. It simply doesn’t say it. Read it.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/investigation-antisemitism-labour-party
Verdict: False
[This section has been edited for clarity. Thanks to Dangerous Globe for their input.]
Analysis
After the Labour Party repeatedly refused to investigate our complaints against Jeremy Corbyn relating to antisemitism, we referred the Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in 2018. The EHRC is an independent commission that was set up by the previous Labour Government.
At the EHRC’s request, Campaign Against Antisemitism submitted detailed legal arguments. We continued to provide additional legal arguments to the EHRC in relation to subsequent developments. Thereafter, the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Against Antisemitism Ltd made further submissions, which supported our referral.
In 2019, the EHRC announced that it was starting pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party. After the Party failed to satisfy the EHRC that it could be trusted to address the antisemitism issue itself, Campaign Against Antisemitism asked the EHRC to open a statutory investigation under section 20 of the Equality Act 2006 into antisemitic discrimination and victimisation in the Labour Party. The Equality Act was legislation that had been introduced by the previous Labour Government.
On 28th May 2019, the EHRC announced a full statutory investigation, which enabled it to use its enforcement powers.
The only previous statutory investigation ever conducted by the EHRC was an investigation into unlawful harassment, discrimination and victimisation within the Metropolitan Police Service. The only other political party to have been subject to action by the EHRC was the British National Party, but that was not a statutory investigation.
The launch of a full statutory investigation by the EHRC into the Labour Party was an unprecedented development, resulting from the EHRC’s acknowledgement that the legal arguments made by Campaign Against Antisemitism were sufficiently compelling to merit investigating whether the Labour Party had committed unlawful acts.
In October 2020, the EHRC published its report into Labour antisemitism.
The EHRC did not set out to make a finding of “institutional antisemitism”, nor could it have done so, as this is not a legal category or designation. Instead, the EHRC’s objective was “to determine whether the Labour Party committed a breach of the Equality Act 2010, related to Jewish ethnicity or Judaism, against its members, associates or guests, through the actions of its employees or agents.”
The EHRC found that the Labour Party had breached the Equality Act 2010, and in its report “concluded that there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination [against Jewish people] for which the Labour Party is responsible.” In other words, Labour’s racist treatment of Jewish people had become so serious that it had broken the law.
The EHRC found, for the first time ever in relation to a political party, that the Labour Party was in breach of the Equality Act 2010 due to serious failings in the Party’s disciplinary procedures, including political interference in antisemitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints, serious errors within the complaints system, inappropriate applications of sanctions, unclear policy for antisemitism on social media and an overall failure of Party leadership in relation to antisemitism.
The 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’s report, commonly known as the Macpherson Report, defined institutional racism as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin”.
In view of the fact that the EHRC found that Labour, as an institution, was so racist that it had broken the law, it is reasonable to describe the Party as having become institutionally antisemitic. Although it was not within the EHRC’s terms of reference to make such a finding in those terms, institutional antisemitism is in essence what its report was describing.
Verdict: Strawman.
3: The Friends.
Claim: Corbyn referred to representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘our friends’.
This is so. What is missing here is context. Corbyn habitually refers to anyone at a meeting as ‘friends’. It is a boilerplate diplomatic courtesy attempting to establish a positive atmosphere to a hopefully productive meeting. It does not mean he agrees with everything every one of them has ever said and done, because that isn’t how meetings work. If it were, he would, logically, also have to agree with everything said and done by the opposing side, as well as holding all the positions of everyone he’s ever met, and I think a moment’s consideration shows this idea to be obviously absurd.
Corbyn has explicitly condemned Hamas in parliament, for instance: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/37443
Verdict: True but grossly misleading because of context-stripping.
Analysis
The groups referred to here are Hamas and Hizballah. Both are antisemitic, Islamist genocidal terrorist organisations sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, and which have persistently targeted Jewish people in Israel and around the world, murdering them in their hundreds.
In a meeting in Parliament in 2009, Jeremy Corbyn made the following remarks: “I want to first of all say thank you to everyone for being here tonight, and to say that tomorrow evening it will be my pleasure and my honour to host an event in Parliament where our friends from Hizballah will be speaking. I also invited our friends from Hamas to come and speak as well. Unfortunately, the Israelis would not allow them to travel here, so it’s going to be only friends from Hizballah. So far as I’m concerned, that is absolutely the right function of using Parliamentary facilities to invite people from other parts of the world…[applause] so that we can promote that peace, that understanding, and that dialogue. And the idea that an organisation that is dedicated towards the good of the Palestinian people and bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice in the whole region should be labelled as a terrorist organisation by the British Government is really a big big historical mistake, and I would invite the Government to reconsider its position on this matter and start talking directly to Hamas and Hizballah.”
That is the fuller context, which Mr Maginn claims has been “stripped” by Mr Corbyn’s critics.
To interpret these quoted remarks as emanating from someone with a neutral position in relation to Hamas and Hizballah, and who was only using “diplomatic” language to be inclusive – language that, incidentally, was not extended to “the Israelis” – is laughable. Mr Corbyn described these murderous, racist, terror groups as organisations that are “dedicated towards…bringing about long-term peace and social justice and political justice”. This is a politician who clearly sounded sympathetic to the aims of these organisations.
Worse still, at the time that Mr Corbyn made his remarks, the British Government (then a Labour Government) had only proscribed what it considered to be the “military wings” of Hamas and Hizballah, and not their so-called “political wings”. Mr Corbyn’s wider point was therefore a criticism of the British Government’s oppositional stance toward the expressly violent elements of these organisations. This is a politician who clearly sounded sympathetic not only to the aims of these organisations, but also to their methods.
In 2015, during the Labour leadership primary, Mr Corbyn was pressed on these past remarks. He explained: “I’m saying that people I talk to, I use it in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk. Does it mean I agree with Hamas and what it does? No. Does it mean I agree with Hizballah and what they do? No. What it means is that I think to bring about a peace process, you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree.”
In 2016, when asked by the Home Affairs Committee about the “friends” description, Mr Corbyn said: “It was inclusive language I used which with hindsight I would rather not have used. I regret using those words, of course.”
This was not the only occasion in which Mr Corbyn used “inclusive” language to describe Islamist terrorists. Another was in 2012, when, on a programme on the Iranian propaganda channel Press TV, Mr Corbyn described hundreds of Hamas terrorists as “brothers”. Among Mr Corbyn’s “brothers” was Abdul Aziz Umar, who had been given seven life sentences after he helped in the preparation of a suicide vest which was detonated at a restaurant in Jerusalem in 2003. Seven civilians were murdered.
Verdict: Not “false”.
2: Ruth Smeeth/Marc Wadsworth
Claim: Marc Wadsworth used an antisemitic trope to Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth.
At the launch of the Chakrabarti report on antisemitism in April 2016, black rights activist Marc Wadsworth was reported as saying to (then Labour MP) Ruth Smeeth, who is Jewish, ‘Look who’s working hand in hand with the media’.
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHv3D7g4RH4
Verdict: False
Analysis
In 2016, with mounting pressure over antisemitism and two internal Labour Party investigations already quashed by the leadership, Jeremy Corbyn appointed the human rights barrister Shami Chakrabarti to lead yet another inquiry, this time not only into anti-Jewish racism, which was the trigger for the investigation, but, controversially, into the broader category of “antisemitism and other forms of racism, including Islamophobia”. Although the inquiry was billed as being independent, on the same day as her appointment, Ms Chakrabarti joined the Labour Party, and explained in her “independent” report that “my inquiry would be conducted, and any recommendations made, in the Party’s best interests.”
In April 2016, the ostensibly independent report was presented by not only Ms Chakrabarti but also, inexplicably, by Mr Corbyn. The presentation took place at a press conference. Present were numerous journalists; MPs, including Ruth Smeeth; and Labour activists, including Marc Wadsworth, to help fill the room. The activists cheered Mr Corbyn and booed the journalists in what became a small political rally instead of the sober introspection that the event had called for.
In his opening remarks launching a report about antisemitism, Mr Corbyn compared Israel to ISIS by saying “our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.”
Mr Wadsworth, a longtime associate of Mr Corbyn’s who had reportedly been handing out leaflets against “traitors” earlier on, used the event’s question-and-answer segment to accuse Ms Smeeth – a female Labour MP and one of the Party’s best-known Jewish MPs, who is active in its Jewish affiliate and more widely on Jewish affairs – sitting just a few seats away from him, of working “hand in hand” with The Daily Telegraph, which he dubbed the “Torygraph”. Those in the room interpreted his remarks as suggesting that she, a Jew, was treacherously working with Labour’s rivals to undermine Mr Corbyn’s leadership. In the context of the event, the further insinuation was that the concerns about antisemitism that this event was ostensibly meant to address were part of that effort to sabotage Mr Corbyn. Mr Wadsworth was briefly drowned out by cries of “how dare you!”
He then went on to complain that there were too few “African, Caribbean, and Asian people” in the room, implying that the Labour Party’s more immediate problem was not with Jews but with other minorities. One journalist, sitting near Ms Smeeth, commented under his breath: “antisemitism at the launch of an antisemitism report.” Ms Smeeth fled the room in tears. Mr Corbyn, standing at a podium that read “Standing Up Not Standing By”, stood by as Ms Smeeth left the room, and proceeded to answer Mr Wadsworth’s question.
When the event was over, Mr Wadsworth and Mr Corbyn had a good laugh together, with Mr Corbyn telling him that he had sent Mr Wadsworth a text message, and Mr Wadsworth boasting that he had “outed” Ms Smeeth, “bloody talking to the Torygraph!”
Shortly thereafter, Ms Chakrabarti was awarded a peerage, despite Mr Corbyn’s previous pledge not to appoint members to the House of Lords, and she was then appointed to his cabinet.
Mr Wadsworth claimed that he did not know that Ms Smeeth is Jewish. In 2018, he was expelled from the Labour Party in connection with this incident.
Ms Smeeth wrote after the event: “It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on antisemitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people, which were ironically highlighted as such in Ms Chakrabarti’s report, while the leader of my own party stood by and did absolutely nothing. People like this have no place in our party or our movement and must be opposed.”
In the months following the event, Ms Smeeth experienced some 25,000 incidents of abuse, much of it racial. One of her abusers had authored a 1,000-word document describing how he would murder her. She assumed that it was a far-right individual. It turned out that he was a supporter of Mr Corbyn’s.
Verdict: Not “false”.
1: The Mural.
Image by Donahue Rogers
Claim: Corbyn approved of an antisemitic mural, which shows ‘big-nosed Jewish bankers’ exploiting the masses.
Everyone’s favourite.
That’s literally the whole thing.
Verdict: False.
Analysis
The mural in question was titled Freedom for Humanity and was created by the American artist Kalen Ockerman, known as Mear One. It was a temporary mural painted on a wall on Hanbury Street in Tower Hamlets in London in 2012. The mural, pictured in full below, depicts older, white-appearing men in suits seated alongside one another playing a Monopoly-like board game resting on the backs of dark-skinned, bald, naked men. Behind the players is the Eye of Providence and scenes of chimneys billowing smoke and images of protest. The players are supposedly dictating the “New World Order”, and the mural plays on notions of freemasonry, the Illuminati and other conspiracy theories, many of which are often bound up with anti-capitalist and anti-establishment antisemitism on both the far-left and the far-right.
The players are claimed to represent actual figures, two of whom are Jewish. The two Jewish figures, Lord Rothschild and Paul Warburg, have exaggerated noses, a classic antisemitic motif. The other figures have alternative exaggerated features.
At the time that the mural was displayed, it provoked negative reactions from local politicians, who sought to have it removed. The Mayor of Tower Hamlets, for example, said: “The images of the bankers perpetuate antisemitic propaganda about conspiratorial Jewish domination of financial and political institutions.”
The artist defended the mural, saying: “I came to paint a mural that depicted the elite banker cartel known as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, the ruling class elite few, the Wizards of Oz. They would be playing a board game of monopoly on the backs of the working class. The symbol of the Freemason Pyramid rises behind this group and behind that is a polluted world of coal burning and nuclear reactors. I was creating this piece to inspire critical thought and spark conversation. A group of conservatives do not like my mural and are playing a race card with me. My mural is about class and privilege. The banker group is made up of Jewish and white Anglos. For some reason they are saying I am antisemitic. This I am most definitely not…What I am against is class.”
He is also reported to have said that “some of the older white Jewish folk in the local community had an issue with me portraying their beloved #Rothschild or #Warburg etc as the demons they are.”
The artist posted on Facebook that there were calls to remove the mural. Jeremy Corbyn commented on the post, which featured a full picture of the mural, asking: “Why? You are in good company. Rockerfeller [sic] destroyed Diego Viera’s mural because it includes a picture of Lenin.”
In 2018, the mural controversy resurfaced, including Mr Corbyn’s comment. The Jewish then-Labour MP, Luciana Berger, asked his office to explain his historic comment. Mr Corbyn’s office issued a statement: “In 2012, Jeremy was responding to concerns about the removal of public art on grounds of freedom of speech. However, the mural was offensive, used antisemitic imagery, which has no place in our society, and it is right that it was removed.”
This statement is a non-sequitur. Did Mr Corbyn accept at the time that the mural was antisemitic, but believed that it should remain on the grounds of freedom of speech? Or did he not accept that it was antisemitic at the time, but now, as leader, recognised that it was expedient to admit that it was?
Alternatively, perhaps Mr Corbyn never noticed that it was antisemitic. This was the charitable interpretation that many drew, acknowledging that it also meant that he was not able to recognise antisemitic tropes when they appeared on the far-left. This blindness could, at best, be said to characterise Mr Corbyn’s entire approach to Labour’s antisemitism scandal. At worst, in view of his long record of utterances and activity, he is himself an antisemite.
Regarding the mural, Mr Maginn claims that it was not antisemitic, except for where it was. He also claims that Jeremy Corbyn could not have been expected to have seen the mural properly, but that when it was later explained to him, Mr Corbyn agreed that it was right to remove the mural – because it was antisemitic. Yet Mr Maginn still claims, pace Mr Corbyn, that the mural was not in fact antisemitic. In other words, even incidents that Mr Corbyn is prepared to accept are antisemitic, Mr Maginn is not.
Verdict: Not “false”.
#ItWasAScam is a scam
Police officer who shared pro-Hamas material sentenced but avoids custody order
A police officer who admitted to sharing pro-Hamas images and was convicted of terrorism offences, was sentenced yesterday to a community order.
Mohammed Adil, 26, from Bradford, was a district student officer with West Yorkshire Police in the process of training.
Last month, Mr Adil pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court to two charges of publishing images which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that he was supporting Hamas, a proscribed antisemitic genocidal terror group.
Mr Adil’s offences were committed shortly after Hamas carried out barbaric attacks in Israel on 7th October, murdering over 1,200 Israelis and taking some 250 people hostage.
He posted several videos, including one, which he posted on WhatsApp. On 20th October, showing images of Saddam Hussein and rockets being launched with the caption “rockets to Israel”.
In another video, posted on the 28th, a man speaking in Arabic with English subtitles referenced purifying the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem from “the abomination of the Jews” and the “aggressive Zionists”.
Another video was found from 31st October on his WhatsApp, which referred to Yemeni groups attacking “positions of the Zionist Israeli regime”.
On the same day, Mr Adil’s colleague saw that he also posted a further image, which showed two men wearing headbands displaying the logo of the military wing of Hamas. The caption on the image, attributed to a senior Hamas commander, read: “Today is the time for the Palestinian people to rise, set their path straight, and establish an independent Palestinian state.”
In November, Mr Adil posted a video showing a man wearing a headscarf and headband emblazoned with a Hamas logo. The caption, attributed to a Hamas spokesperson, read: “We will hold accountable all those who occupied our lands, and Allah will hold accountable all those who remained silent against this occupation and oppression.”
In the same month, another post featured a man speaking in Arabic with English subtitles saying: “Until Muslims fight the Jews, Muslims who are people of creed, people of faith, will kill them.”
Following the series of posts, Mr Adil, who was reported by two of his colleagues, was suspended whilst under investigation by Counter-Terrorism Policing North East.
A list of companies to boycott for supposedly supporting Israel was discovered on his phone, along with memes that said: “Israel to the Arab world is like a cancer to the human body. Arabs should unite to uproot it.”
Another video on his phone showed a speech by someone suggesting that Israel carried out the 7th October attacks.
On 1st May, Mr Adil was charged and he pleaded guilty the next day at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
Following his plea, Mr Adil was sentenced to an eighteen-month community order, which includes a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 35 days, 160 hours of unpaid work, forfeiture or destruction of phone, £85 costs and £114 victim surcharge to be paid within 28 days.
Notwithstanding the terror convictions, he was not given a custodial sentence.
This is not the first time that this judge – the Chief Magistrate, Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring – has courted controversy in relation to antisemitic terror. Two years ago he was disciplined by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office following a complaint by a member of Campaign Against Antisemitism for “giving the impression that he endorsed” a “contentious political cause” when judging a case of a man who wore Hamas and Islamic Jihad t-shirts in Golders Green. His conduct had “fallen below the standards expected”.
The Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor “took into account that, with hindsight, the judge had accepted his remarks were capable of giving such an impression and had expressed regret”.
This is also not the first time that he avoided giving a convicted defendant a custodial order. In 2022, Judge Goldspring sentenced the then-youngest person to be convicted of terror offences to a “high-intensity” referral order for twelve months. He believed that a custody order could undo the “rehabilitative” progress that the child, who had learning difficulties, had made.
The same year, a sixteen-year-old boy, who reportedly wrote online, “I am a domestic terror threat. I will bomb a synagogue,” and appeared to begin trying to realise this ambition, avoided a custodial sentence in a case on which Mr Goldspring was the presiding judge.
Of that offence, Judge Goldspring said: “It is the scale, scope and nature of your hatred for fellow men and women. In fact, my heart sank when I read the case papers for the first time.”
However, Judge Goldspring reportedly opined that it would be inappropriate to impose a custodial punishment and that this could jeopardise the positive rehabilitative steps that the boy had apparently made. Judge Goldspring said: “I’m of the view, albeit I struggled greatly with making the decision, that a non-custodial sentence would be in the public interest.”
In yet another case, in 2021, Judge Goldspring changed his mind when sentencing a neo-Nazi teenager from giving him a custodial sentence to handing him a twelve-month referral order.
Of his decision, he said: “My initial view was to send you into custody for twelve months, I have taken a step back, I am satisfied I don’t need to do that…it is really important that you take this opportunity to pause and think. I have to be honest there will be almost no way out if I see you in court again.”
He added: “You clearly work very hard in school and are obviously very, very intelligent. Although, I don’t want anyone to get the impression that someone less intelligent should be treated less well.”
Victims of antisemitism speak out
As part of our work making the voices of British Jews heard, we have begun publishing a unique series of powerful testimonials by members of the Jewish community and allies, detailing how they have been affected by the events of the past several months.
In the first of our testimonials, Lysa reveals the precautions that she feels that she must take to maintain her safety as a Jew in Britain.
When nearly 70% of British Jews say that they are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism right now, this is what that looks like.
The second testimonial features Anatole, a Jewish student at University of Leeds. There are so many students who, like him, do not feel safe right now.
With so little being done by the universities about the intimidation on campus and antisemitic chanting by students and lecturers alike, can you blame them? As Anatole rightly says, this inaction by universities is a betrayal of their Jewish students.
Campaign Against Antisemitism stands up for Jewish students
We are continuing to monitor incidents on campuses across the country, including recently at Newcastle University and Central Saint Martins.
As a community, we can no longer tolerate how vulnerable Jewish students are feeling on campus. That is why we have produced an open letter for students to hold their universities accountable for the rise in hostility and intimidation exacerbated by the campus encampments.
As it is fashionable to make demands of university administrations these days, Jewish students make the following demands of their own in the letter:
We are thrilled by how many students have signed the letter so far and had their voices finally heard. Students can sign at antisemitism.org/studentletter.
We have also visited campuses over the past several weeks, speaking directly to students and offering support. On our trip to UCL, we spoke directly with students and showed Jewish students that they are not alone. You can watch the video here.
If you like the t-shirts that the Jewish students in the video are wearing, you too can make a statement with our ‘Quite Openly Jewish’ and ‘Quite Openly Standing With Jews’ t-shirts. Some people also wore them at the march for the release of the hostages yesterday, which Campaign Against Antisemitism was proud to support.
Join the movement, wear the message, and stand proudly with us. Together, we can combat antisemitism.
Available now at antisemitism.org/shop.
Check out the latest episodes of Podcast Against Antisemitism
In our latest episodes, we spoke to two of the Jewish community’s best non-Jewish friends, the former MP Mike Freer and Rev. Hayley Ace.
Mike Freer announced his decision not to stand for re-election citing the “intolerable stress” that he and his family have been enduring from the several serious threats that he has received to his personal safety, including a recent arson attack on his constituency office. You can listen to our discussion about the impact of these threats and his decision.
Reverend Hayley Ace is the co-founder of the grassroots movement, Christian Action Against Antisemitism, along with her husband Timothy Gutmann. Both Hayley and Timothy have been standing firmly alongside the British Jewish community against antisemitism, using their perspective as Christians to educate people on racism against Jews. You can learn more about their work by listening to our conversation.
You can subscribe to the podcasts wherever you get your podcasts, or receive the podcast straight to your inbox by subscribing here.
With the General Election campaign now in full swing, we are working hard to expose candidates whose records concern us and calling attention to parties who are failing to act. We will have more on this in due course.
Whoever forms the next Government, they must be left in no doubt about what British Jews think and need right now. That is why it is so important that as many of you as possible complete the surveys above, so that we can convey your wishes and concerns to our lawmakers.
Once you have made your voice heard to us, we will stop at nothing to make sure that everybody else hears it too.
Jeremy Corbyn expelled from Labour Party
Today, it was announced that Jeremy Corbyn has been expelled from the Labour Party, and will be running as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election.
In 2020, the Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment of Jews under the leadership of the Mr Corbyn. The report followed the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party in which Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence and legal argument. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the report a “day of shame” for the Labour Party.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Good riddance. In the end, Jeremy Corbyn has been thrown out of the Labour Party not for his role in staining UK politics with antisemitism, but for standing as a candidate against the Party. This day should have come much sooner, and it should have been brought about due to his racism rather than party political reasons, but at last it is done.
“Almost four years after the Equality and Human Rights Commission vindicated our complaint against Labour by finding the Party to have unlawfully discriminated against, harassed and victimised Jews, the man responsible for that horrendous period has finally been shown the door. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the EHRC’s report a ‘day of shame’ for the Party. Today that era finally comes to an end and marks the new start for Labour that British Jews have long awaited. The man who made the Jewish community feel so unwelcome in Labour has finally been told that he is unwelcome in the Party he once led.”
Will policing of antisemitism finally change?
Under the leadership of Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Service’s policing of the anti-Israel protests and campaigns has been an expensive shambles.
Practically nothing has been done to curtail them, with marchers being given two-mile routes though the centre of our capital. For over seven months, Sir Mark has claimed that he requires additional legal powers to curtail the marches even though the law already plainly gives him the powers he needs.
To break the deadlock, we have provided Home Secretary James Cleverly and Minister of State for Crime and Policing Chris Philp concrete measures that will give the Met nowhere to hide:
These measures do not require any new laws to be passed, and if they are adopted, they will have an immediate and profound impact on the policing of processions and public assemblies.
No more excuses instead of arrests. No more ‘contextualising’ offences away instead of enforcing the law.
The proposals have been positively received by the Home Office, which said in a statement: “The right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy, but there are clear concerns about the cumulative impact protests are having on some of our communities which we are looking at.
“All communities should be able to go about their daily lives without fear. We have been clear with the police that they must use all the powers available to them to police protests appropriately and will always have our backing in doing so.
“We thank the Campaign Against Antisemitism for their proposals and we will be looking closely at them alongside Lord Walney’s recommendations which will be published this week.”
Our proposals were then echoed in a major report published today by Lord Walney, the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, titled “Protecting our Democracy from Coercion”.
Lord Walney’s review of antisemitism within the current anti-Israel protests represents a damning assessment of the police and Crown Prosecution Service for failing to apply their existing powers and politicising their response. The report lays bare how far our branches of law enforcement have fallen behind these extremist groups and the expectations of the British public, which abhors extremism and the use of illegal or intimidatory tactics to accomplish goals that cannot be secured at the ballot box.
One only has to look at the footage recorded by our Demonstration and Events Monitoring Unit from this past weekend’s march or the previous march, when a masked protester shouted “Go back to Poland!” at a Christian reverend whom he mistook for a Jew.
Where will this all end? In Manchester, three men have appeared in court, charged with planning an ISIS-style attack against Jews on British soil, while in Stamford Hill in North London, a woman allegedly brandishing a knife at Jews in the street was stopped by police and Shomrim.
She allegedly told a Jewish man that he is a “provocation” before specifying “you people, you Jewish…all the trouble you’re creating in the world.” When asked what she meant, she allegedly replied: “Who do you think started the Second World War? You, the Jewish, started the Second World War.”
These events do not occur in a vacuum. Policing in the UK must change course now, before it is too late.
Those who ignore the lessons of history
For a recent anti-Israel weekly march passing nearby, the Royal Parks covered up the Holocaust memorial in Hyde Park, a new low. At every turn, the authorities seem to be trying to keep Jews and anything Jewish out of sight to appease these mobs.
Concerns over the safety of the memorial are not, however, unfounded. Since 7th October, Holocaust memorials and museums around the world have been vandalised, blockaded, covered up or otherwise targeted in some way. Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Drancy…the list goes on and on.
Then, on Yom HaShoah, anti-Israel demonstrators wore yellow stars – akin to the sort that Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust – and picketed outside Auschwitz concentration camp.
Whether by tearing down posters of the hostages or targeting Holocaust memorials, the supporters of Hamas not only support the antisemitic slaughter of Jews but they also oppose any remembrance for the victims. They want them forgotten. But we will not forget.
Campaign Against Antisemitism funds another successful appeal for Iranian dissident
For the second time this year, we have funded a successful appeal by Iranian dissident Niyak Ghorbani against excessive bail conditions imposed by the Metropolitan Police.
This time, the police wished to restrict Mr Ghorbani from attending or participating in “any protest demonstration related to the Palestinian cause or events occurring in Gaza”, and force him to refrain from any “behaviour aimed at inciting or disturbing participants of any protest demonstration in support of the Palestinian cause or against events in Gaza”, and from entering Camden or the City of Westminster for anything but medical or legal appointments.
However, following a successful appeal that was funded by Campaign Against Antisemitism, the court has rejected the Met’s conditions, with a judge saying that “they are not necessary let alone proportionate.” Mr Ghorbani is now free again to continue pointing out the legal fact that Hamas is a terrorist organisation and expressing his right to protest and counter-protest.
You may recall that we created t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the same message that Hamas are terrorists, which we have made available for sale. Many of you have already bought them, wearing them to protests and posting pictures on social media.
Supporting Jewish students in hostile campus environments
Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen anti-Israel thugs swarm university campuses with calls for intifada, the eradication of the State of Israel, and references to Hamas as “freedom fighters”. The growing number of encampments comes against a backdrop of escalating antisemitism, with Jewish students facing verbal abuse, receiving death threats and enduring physical violence.
We have met with the Department for Education and been on the forefront of exposing these incidents on campuses across the country, including in University College London, SOAS, University of Leeds, The University of Manchester, Newcastle University and elsewhere.
The hostile environment for Jews that has been created on British campuses challenges the very foundations of academia. Bastions of inclusivity and diversity operating in pursuit of truth are becoming cesspits of racist hate and intimidation.
We are assisting students around the country who are facing antisemitism where they live and study. Any student or faculty member can e-mail us in confidence at [email protected].
The Prime Minister has recently made it clear that antisemitism has no place in our universities. We thank the Prime Minister for doing so. It is now up to vice-chancellors to show that they agree. If they do not, we will do everything that we can to hold them and their institutions to account.
Podcast Against Antisemitism is back!
Season Five of our podcast is now streaming.
In the first episode, marking Yom HaShoah, we spoke to Mervyn Kersh, a distinguished WWII veteran. Now 99 years old, he joined the army in 1943 at the age of eighteen, and you can listen or watch as we discuss his conversations with survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just days after its liberation.
Our guest in episode two was Elad Poterman, who, along with his baby daughter and wife Maria, are survivors of the Kibbutz Nahal Oz massacre on 7th October. Nahal Oz sits just 800 metres from the Gaza border and was one of the first targets in the early hours of the Hamas terrorist attacks. Listen or watch as Elad takes us through how he and his family spent seventeen hours in the safe room of his home hiding from Hamas terrorists.
For our third episode we interviewed the acclaimed actor, writer, and comedian Brett Gelman, known for his roles in BBC’s “Fleabag,” FX’s “Married” and Netflix’s “Stranger Things”. Brett is not only known for his impressive performances but also for his outspoken stance against antisemitism. You can listen or watch Brett dive into his Jewish identity and speaking on the silencing of Jewish voices.
You can subscribe to the podcasts wherever you get your podcasts, or receive the podcast straight to your inbox by subscribing here.
Some of our additional recent work includes:
The Met’s policing of the anti-Israel protests and campaigns has been an expensive shambles, supposedly because the force needs additional legal powers. We have now provided a blueprint for moving forward. Our criminal justice system must be brought into line, and the laws on which it operates must be brought up to date. For the Jewish community, action cannot come soon enough.
It is time for Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to go
Last Saturday, our Chief Executive went to synagogue and then went for a walkabout in London with a few others.
Just over six months ago, as law-abiding Londoners, that would not have been a problem. Supposedly it still isn’t.
They were openly Jewish but had no badges or placards, were not shouting anything, did not say or do anything political and did not seek to engage with any protesters or join any counter-protest.
They sought to walk through London, wherever they wanted, as Jews.
But they were not able to.
We then announced that, this coming Saturday 27th April, we will be going for a walk through London, openly as Jews and allies, wherever we want. There is more information on the walk below.
In response to our video recounting the incident on 13th April and announcing that we will go for another walk on 27th April, the Metropolitan Police Service released a statement.
The Met Police’s response included an offer to “meet and discuss with anyone who wishes to organise a march or protest ahead of 27th April”.
That is kind of them, but they are missing the point.
We have no intention of starting or joining any protest or counter-protest. Being Jewish in London is not a ‘cause’ that we should need to ‘march’ for. It is a right.
The Met released a number of statements, including one in which an Assistant Commissioner, one of the most senior officers on the force, appeared to double down on the suggestion that an “openly Jewish” person present near these marches could be “provocative”. The statement was an appalling example of victim-blaming, and the Met withdrew the statement and apologised.
The story has received national media coverage, including three front pages this weekend and another three on Monday morning. Campaign Against Antisemitism spokespeople have also featured numerous times across BBC television and radio, ITV, Sky News, LBC and more.
There was also a full interview in The Sunday Times, and on Sunday evening, Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive held a one-hour phone-in with Rachel Johnson on LBC, explaining how these marches and the failed policing around them is affecting the Jewish community.
The incident on 13th April and the back-and-forth with the Met just confirm what we know: that it is dangerous to be a Jew in London when these marches are taking place, and the blame for that lies squarely with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley.
What happened last weekend was the inevitable conclusion of six months of inertia and contextualising crimes away by a Met that has curtailed the rights of law-abiding Londoners in order to appease mobs rife with anti-Jewish racists and terrorist sympathisers.
It has been six months of this now, and enough is enough. Britain is a country of tolerance and decency. Jewish people and other law-abiding Londoners should not be intimidated against walking the streets of the cities we live in.
That is why it is time for Sir Mark Rowley to go.
Sir Mark has the distinction of presiding over the worst surge in antisemitic criminality in our capital city since records began. We are in a time when 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid the centre of town when an anti-Israel protest is taking place. Those protests have made our city centres into no-go zones for Jews every weekend for six months now, and as the recent incident showed, that no-go zone is enforced by the Met.
Please join the thousands who have already signed the petition calling on Sir Mark to go.
Walk with us
On Saturday 27th April — the next major anti-Israel march — we are asking you, Jewish or not, to stand up for the tolerance and decency of which this country is so rightly proud, simply by going for a walk.
For those who want to walk together on the 27th, we will suggest a time and location where people can meet, which we will post on our social media accounts on the 26th.
If you would like to be notified of the suggested meeting place and time by e-mail instead, please sign up.
For those who wish to walk with us, please note that we have no intention of starting or joining any protest or counter-protest. We will not have placards or flags, we will not be chanting, we will not be wearing stickers. Those are not things one does when one goes for a walk.
We are not looking for a confrontation. We will simply be walking around our capital city as Jews and law-abiding Londoners, wherever we want. It is our right.
Time to finally proscribe the IRGC and the Houthis
Last weekend, the Islamic Republic of Iran flaunted its true colours and escalated its war against Israel with an unprecedented direct attack in its latest attempt to extinguish the Jewish state.
This is an antisemitic theocracy that means harm to Jews worldwide, Britain and its interests and the West. It is finally time to clamp down on Iran, its proxies and its supporters in the UK.
We have again called on the Home Secretary and the British Government to swiftly proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Houthis — as well as all of the terrorist groups in Gaza that were actively involved in the Hamas-led 7th October attack — and clamp down on the documented threats that they pose to our national security and empower the police to arrest those praising attacks on British shipping every week on our streets.
It makes no sense for Britain to engage this foe abroad while giving its supporters free rein here at home. For months, Britain has been generous with protesters in our own country who support our enemies. The time has come to take the gloves off.
Campaign Against Antisemitism funds successful appeal for Iranian activist’s right to call Hamas terrorists
A judge has rejected an attempt by the Metropolitan Police to prevent Iranian dissident Niyak Ghorbani from attending anti-Israel protests to display his sign calling Hamas terrorists.
Under draconian bail conditions imposed by the police, Mr Ghorbani, who has been arrested and de-arrested several times, would have been prohibited from approaching any demonstrations relating to Israel and Gaza in London.
However, following a successful appeal that was funded by Campaign Against Antisemitism, the court has rejected the Met’s conditions, ruling that they were neither proportionate nor necessary.
All Mr Ghorbani wants to do is point out to anti-Israel marchers that Hamas is a terrorist organisation under UK law.
If only the police were half as concerned with the marchers as with people like Mr Ghorbani. How did British policing get so topsy-turvy?
You may recall that we created t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the same message, which we have made available for sale. Many of you have already bought them, wearing them to protests and posting pictures on social media.
These achievements are only possible thanks to our dedicated staff, extraordinary volunteers and your support. Thank you to all of you who support our work.
Passover, which begins this Monday evening, is also known as the Festival of Spring. It is a time of birth and rebirth — of the Jewish people, of the nature all around us — and a time of optimism.
This is not an easy time to celebrate or be optimistic, as hostages remain in captivity, uncertainties abound in the Middle East, antisemitism surges around the world, including here at home in the UK, and policing in London is in shambles.
But let us choose, at this time of rebirth, to remake the environment that we live in. We will start with something simple. We will start with a walk.
Wishing those celebrating a happy Passover!
Six months.
This weekend marked the six-month anniversary of the 7th October atrocity, the bloodiest day in Israel’s history and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
In the wake of the attack, as Israelis and Jewish communities worldwide grappled with the trauma, a distressing contrast emerged: while grief and shock engulfed many, expressions of support for Hamas erupted in various forms of jubilation and celebration across the globe, some within hours of the massacre.
Some chose to turn a blind eye to the atrocities.
Others attempted to rationalise the unjustifiable.
And, shockingly, some even found inspiration in this heinous act.
For the Jewish people, with hostages still in captivity and justification, glorification and celebration of antisemitic terrorism still ongoing around the world, October 7 is 24/7.
Al Quds Day: a tale of two cities
Every year, on the last Friday of Ramadan, the Al Quds Day march takes place in cities around the world, including in London. Since it was established in Iran in 1979, following the Islamic Revolution, Al Quds Day marches are displays of support for the antisemitic Islamist theocracy that rules Iran, kills its opponents and supports Jew-hating terrorist groups across the world, and for its terror proxies.
In the UK, for example, participants in the marches used to fly Hizballah flags and hold placards stating “We are all Hizballah”, until we and others secured the proscription of Hizballah.
In the days prior to this year’s march, which took place on Friday, the organisers had the audacity to complain about occasional arrests at recent anti-Israel marches in London notwithstanding that their own march was in support of a foreign regime that murders protesters.
Our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit was present at the march on Friday. What they saw was predictably despicable, including a woman screaming “Zio-Nazis” at people, flyers emblazoned with Hitler’s face, and more.
As the march proceeded, what became clear was that London on Al Quds Day was a tale of two cities: the hateful marchers in one tale, and, in the other, our digital van displaying the images of hostages and peaceful counter-protesters, some of whom were wearing our “Hamas are terrorists” hoodies.
The Met Police posted on social media that they had identified particular placards that appeared to incite violence in a vehicle that they had proactively stopped near the starting point of the march. “As a result,” they triumphantly declared, “we don’t believe they have been distributed.” Still, they were firm: “Should they be displayed in the crowd, action will be taken.”
But after so many months of policing-by-tweet, it should come as no surprise that our volunteers observed plenty of these placards on display during the march, very often within the sight of police officers. To our knowledge, no action appeared to be taken. This was just the latest example of questionable policing.
The week before, during the anti-Israel demonstration on Easter weekend, a woman reported a placard featuring a swastika to a police officer, who appeared to try to explain that the meaning of a swastika would depend on the context, in echoes of Met Police policy on other antisemitic rhetoric.
Apparently the context of an anti-Israel demonstration rife with analogies of Israel to Nazis and other antisemitic signs, calls for violent intifada, support for Houthi attacks on British vessels and glorification of Hamas terrorism, was not clear enough context of what a swastika might portend.
The Met claimed that it arrested someone in relation to this incident. If so, it raises even more questions about why the police reflexively make excuses instead of taking action in real time.
Extremism in the UK: we want to hear from you
If you could poll the British public on antisemitism or extremism, what questions would you ask?
Click here to let us know.
It is time for Sir Alan Duncan to be expelled
Sir Alan Duncan, the former Conservative MP and Minister, and a particularly unpopular figure in the Jewish community, suggested in an interview on LBC that certain peers in the House of Lords are working for Israel, invoking classic tropes of Jewish power and disloyalty. He later went on to victim-blame Israel for the 7th October Hamas attack.
This is not the first time that he has made accusations of parliamentarians being controlled by Israel. But we believe that it should be the last time that he does so as a member of the Conservative Party.
We called on the Party to investigate, which they have announced that they are now doing. He is not the only Conservative figure that we have been following recently.
We also called for the whip finally to be withdrawn from Baroness Warsi, after she spoke at a Muslim Council of Britain event with Ghada Karmi. The MCB is a controversial group, and Dr Karmi has previously said: “What you saw on October 7th was breaking out from the cage of Gaza by a resistance movement.” Dr Karmi also previously told George Galloway on Al Mayadeen television: “It’s wonderful really and admirable that the Hamas fighters exploded this whole rotten structure.”
We called in addition for the suspension by the Labour Party of another attendee, Afzal Khan MP, of “mass murdering Rothschilds Israeli mafia criminal liars” infamy.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Azmat Husain, the Chairman of the Salford Conservative Federation and the Conservative candidate for Eccles in Salford in the May elections, has withdrawn his candidacy after a Facebook post emerged in which he appears to have written “Jew pigs”. He had claimed that the post was fake.
This is not the first time that there have been serious concerns relating to antisemitism within local Conservative associations in Manchester. The Party has yet to investigate transparently.
We also exposed the social media history of the independent MP, Angus MacNeil, who used to sit with the SNP.
Furthermore, we called out the crossbench peer Lord Bird for saying in a debate in the House of Lords that “The amount of antisemitism you see around the world is because of the fact that Israel is not thinking about the next five or ten years but is only thinking immediately.”
No, Lord Bird, the amount of antisemitism that we are seeing is not because of the Jews or their state. It is because there are antisemites.
The effect of antisemitism on British Jews
Our two-week nationwide billboard campaign spotlighting what it is like to be Jewish in Britain today has concluded. On the billboards, online and on our digital van, we highlighted a number of scenarios to give viewers pause, including:
Thank you to all of you who have got in touch about the campaign. To quote just one response from Glasgow: “I saw an ad about your campaign in Glasgow today at Finnieston Quay and I wanted to get in touch to say that it really spoke to me. I have been appalled by what I have been reading about antisemitism in the UK. The words on the billboard about guards at nurseries and abuse at a football stadium were really powerful. I hope it helps to make a difference.”
So do we.
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Last December we began discussions with Great Ormond Street Hospital, at the initiative of members of their staff, about providing antisemitism training. This is the same training that we have delivered for years to other NHS trusts, police forces, industry regulators, academic institutions, local authorities and others.
Discussions were proceeding smoothly until approximately six weeks ago, when we were informed that the Hospital’s Muslim Network had expressed concerns about Campaign Against Antisemitism as a provider. We addressed in writing the issues that were raised and offered to meet with the relevant members of staff, with a view to hearing and allaying any concerns.
Unfortunately, the offer was ignored and, apparently without regard for the views of its Jewish staff, the Hospital decided that the Muslim Network should have a veto in relation to antisemitism training, and withdrew from the discussions.
The Hospital assured us that it will still be arranging the provision of antisemitism training, but with a different provider. We replied to the Hospital to say that that is acceptable to us, provided that it uses a reputable trainer that will not compromise on the material to appease anyone at the Hospital who may be ideologically opposed to learning about certain contemporary manifestations of antisemitism.
The Hospital not only failed to provide us with this assurance, but has not responded to us at all for several weeks.
We continued to await contact from the Hospital, but in view of the length of time since our last correspondence, we had no choice but to make this public last week.
If non-Jewish staff at institutions are given a veto over the delivery or content of antisemitism training, such an institution simply cannot be said to be upholding its commitment to equality and diversity. Jewish people and the racism that they suffer cannot be ignored. That is itself antisemitic.
After we revealed the incident, the Hospital released a statement that was wholly unsatisfactory, and we have submitted a Freedom of Information request in order to release more information.
In addition to the victims whom we are assisting and other incidents that we are responding to, here are some of our other high-profile recent cases:
It has been six months.
Six months of war. Six months of hostages in captivity. Six months of weekly anti-Israel protests and antisemitic rhetoric on our streets. Six months of surging antisemitism — on campuses and online, in workplaces and in our public life. Six months of police failures.
But we are resolute, and we will continue to fight for justice for the Jewish community, no matter how many more months or years it takes.
What is the real everyday impact of antisemitism on British Jews?
Following 7th October, the Metropolitan Police Service reported a 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people. This statistic is incredibly alarming, but on its own it does not paint the full picture of what the effect of this surge in antisemitism is on British Jews.
That is why Campaign Against Antisemitism has today launched a nationwide billboard campaign spotlighting what it is like to be Jewish in Britain right now, and showing how the impact of that antisemitism penetrates the daily life of British Jews of all ages.
Kindergartens with guards, Jewish schools discouraging their pupils from wearing blazers with a Jewish school crest, university students afraid to reveal their religion, football stadiums full of people invoking the Nazi gas chambers, and intimidation outside synagogues.
We have chosen a sample of the real-life everyday effects of antisemitism on British Jews.
At a time when 69% of British Jews say that they are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism, it is important now, more than ever, that the British public is informed about the extent of the scandal of antisemitism in Britain.
Let everyone know that Hamas are terrorists
On 9th March, Niyak Ghorbani held a sign condemning Hamas as a terror organisation next to an anti-Israel demonstration in London. Footage appears to show that he was abused by protesters and potentially assaulted.
The police did not arrest those who were furious that he was pointing out that Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Instead, a phalanx of officers pulled him to the ground and violently arrested him, as he shouted “shame on you!” Police snatched, scrunched up and confiscated his accurate and perfectly legal sign which, from the footage, appears to be exactly what the protesters had sought to do. Mr Ghorbani was injured and required hospital treatment for a wound.
We provided Mr Ghorbani with assistance, including arranging legal representation, and we are pleased to announce that the outrageous charges brought against him have been dropped and the case is now closed.
The police are now, rightly, seeking the man who is on video appearing to assault Mr Ghorbani. If you have any information, please contact us at [email protected].
In the meantime, our lawyers are continuing to examine legal options in relation to the unacceptable police response to Mr Ghorbani’s lawful exercise of his free speech rights.
Policing of these weekly anti-Israel demonstrations is a shambles. Mr Ghorbani’s case – where an innocent man was arrested while potential criminals continued on their way – is a scandal. We will do everything in our power to force the Met Police to change course and finally start punishing criminality and extremism.
Mr Ghorbani was accosted and then arrested, all because he was trying to point out that, under UK law, Hamas is a terrorist organisation. So when the police censored him, we decided to amplify his message.
We created t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the same message, which we have made available for sale. Many of you have already bought them, wearing them to protests and posting pictures on social media.
We also enlisted our digital van to help spread the message, driving it to the very location where Mr Ghorbani was wrongly arrested.
It is a sad reflection of the times we live in when it has become controversial to promulgate the simple moral and legal truth that Hamas are terrorists.
Broadcasters must call Hamas terrorists too
This week, the BBC called the terror attack in Moscow, for which ISIS took responsibility, a “terror attack”. Perhaps realising that this might mean that the broadcaster would also have to call the Hamas terror attack, which was the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, a “terror attack”, the description of the Moscow attack was quickly deleted. This is not the first time that the BBC has done this.
The broadcaster’s refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists – and its increasingly comical efforts not to be called out for hypocrisy by calling other terrorist groups by their name – is, at best, a failure to live up to its own principles of accuracy, impartiality and fairness. That is why it is so important to have our voices heard.
Our Parliamentary Petition calling for terrorism legislation to be amended to require all broadcasters regulated by Ofcom to describe all terrorist organisations proscribed in the UK and their operatives as “terrorists” and not by any other descriptor, has been signed by over 10,000 of your so far, from almost every constituency in the UK. That means that the Government must now consider and respond to the proposal.
With 100,000 signatures, the topic will be considered for debate in Parliament. Please help us to right this wrong and urge lawmakers to act to ensure that television and radio audiences get the real facts in the news that they consume.
How many people in Britain sympathise with Hamas?
New polling has found that there are over 2.5 million Hamas sympathisers currently in Britain (4% of the British population). Almost a further 17 million (26%) “don’t know” if they sympathise with Hamas.
The figures are worst amongst the young. For example, one in ten of those aged 18-24 say that they hold a favourable view of Hamas.
The polling also shows that over three million Britons (5%) want all Jewish presence in the Middle East eliminated through mass expulsion, and the same number say that the 7th October atrocity was “justified”.
Terrorists pose a threat not only to British Jews, but to the entirety of British society. The approaches tried so far by our Government and police forces have not worked. The radicalisation of our country, and particularly our youth, poses a grave danger to the whole United Kingdom.
We hope that those celebrating had a joyous Purim
With antisemitism surging in the UK, war in Israel and hostages still trapped in Gaza, the story of Purim and the power to overcome genocidal hatred of Jews is as relevant as ever.
We hope that, circumstances notwithstanding, those who were celebrating this Jewish holiday had a joyous weekend.
Those protesting on our streets and our national broadcasters must be reminded that Hamas are terrorists — and they cannot be allowed to hide away from that fact. Whether by exposing the failures and hypocrisies of our public institutions, making apparel available, or by changing the law, we will continue to find innovative and effective ways to spread that vital message.
Imagine it’s your first day of university, and you’re praying nobody finds out your religion: CAA launches national billboard campaign
Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism has launched a nationwide billboard campaign spotlighting what it is like to be Jewish in Britain today.
Following 7th October, the Metropolitan Police Service reported a 1,350% increase in hate crimes against Jewish people. This statistic is incredibly alarming, but on its own it does not paint the full picture of what the effect of this surge in antisemitism is on British Jews.
Whereas our campaign last year – the first ever national billboard campaign about antisemitism – raised awareness of antisemitism and showcased the diversity of the Jewish community, this year we have sought to show how the impact of that antisemitism penetrates the daily life of British Jews of all ages.
Kindergartens with guards, Jewish schools discouraging their pupils from wearing blazers with a Jewish school crest, university students afraid to reveal their religion, football stadiums full of people invoking the Nazi gas chambers, and intimidation outside synagogues: these are just a sample of the real-life effects of antisemitism on British Jews.
At a time when 69% of British Jews say that they are less likely to show visible signs of their Judaism, it is important now, more than ever, that the British public is informed about the extent of the scandal of antisemitism in Britain.
Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “People are often presented with statistics and studies when trying to understand the experience of the Jewish community, and we have been conducting polling on antisemitism in recent months. But such data only goes so far. What is the real effect of surging antisemitism on the everyday lives of British Jews, from infants to the elderly, at schools, university and at cultural and sporting events? Routines are disrupted and fear infects daily lives, which is why the community must take so many security precautions. That impact is the message that this billboard campaign is trying to deliver to the British public up and down the country.”
Police arrest suspect who made “allegedly antisemitic comments” when being detained in connection with alleged arson attack in Hackney
Police have arrested a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a house in Hackney.
The suspect made “allegedly antisemitic comments” when being detained in connection with the fire on Newick Road in London. Police were called to the scene shortly before 12.45 this afternoon.
The police believe that the blaze was started deliberately.
It is understood that the ground floor and first floor of the three-story house have been destroyed by the fire, with four victims injured. They have been taken to hospital but are not in a life-threatening condition, according to reports.
A suspect – a man in his 60s – also reportedly suffered minor injuries from the fire and is being treated in hospital. He has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.
The London Fire Brigade said that eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters helped to bring the fire under control.
Detective Chief Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police, James Conway, said: “On his arrest the man made a number of threatening comments, some of which were allegedly antisemitic. We take instances of antisemitism extremely seriously and for this reason we’re investigating the incident as a potential hate crime. Undoubtedly this will be extremely concerning news for our Jewish communities in Hackney and beyond.” He added: “Whilst the investigation will continue to explore the motivation for this offence, we believe at this stage that this was centred on a localised housing-related issue. We have no indication, at this very early stage, that the motivation was connected with any specific local or global events.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Over the past few months, we have seen an extremely worrying surge in antisemitic violence, from beatings to knife-wielding. This suspected arson attack, if it had an antisemitic motivation, takes our society to a whole new level of hate. Was it not enough that Jews may, judging from the evidence, have been burned alive by Hamas on 7th October? We cannot sit by as that grotesque violence is potentially mimicked by Jew-haters in the UK. We thank the first-responders and medical practitioners for bringing the fire under control and treating the wounded, and commend the police for a swift arrest. Justice must now be done.”
Image credit: London Fire Brigade
Former barrister Ian Millard given shockingly lenient sentence after being convicted of five communications offences
After over seven years of action by Campaign Against Antisemitism, the former barrister Ian Millard has been handed a shockingly lenient sentence at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
In November last year, Mr Millard was convicted of five offences contrary to section 127(1)(a) Communications Act 2003 in relation to the posting of grossly offensive material relating to his assertions regarding the Jewish race on his blog.
However, Mr Millard was only prosecuted following seven years of work by Campaign Against Antisemitism, due to a reluctance to prosecute on the part of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The charges related to five blog entries dated between May 2021 and April 2022, which Mr Millard had posted on his website.
In one post on 10th May 2021, Mr Millard wrote: “Where Jews exist in any but very small numbers, non-Jews will always be exploited, and can never be free. That is as true in Europe (and including the UK) as it is in the Middle East.”
On 15th May 2021, Mr Millard wrote: “I lived on and off in the USA, mostly in the early 1990s though I did also spend time there in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Many Americans are fine people, but the mass media there is almost, not quite, 100% owned and operated by Jews. TV, radio, film, newspapers, magazines, book publishing. Americans have little choice but to see the world largely through the Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli lens. Fact. They are also brainwashed from childhood with ‘holocaust’ propaganda and fake history.”
In another, dated 20th November 2021, Mr Millard posted an image of an arm — which had a Star of David emblazoned on the sleeve — holding a hammer above a computer with the words “free speech” on it. Above the image, text read: “Wherever Jews have power, non-Jews eventually become victims or slaves. Look at history. The ridiculous thing is that, in the UK, many of those who oppose Jewish supremacism in Israel or occupied Palestine, effectively support the Jewish lobby in Europe, eg in the UK itself; they pay lip-service to the ‘holocaust farrago’, in particular, and applaud the Zionist efforts to destroy free speech.”
Defending himself in court, Mr Millard admitted to ownership and editorial control of the blog, but did not admit to posting the offending posts. He did, however, state that he agreed with all the sentiments expressed in the posts.
During the course of his time on the stand, Mr Millard attempted to portray himself as the victim of a Jewish plot to crush free speech, telling the court that the CPS had been able to highlight only five blog posts out of more than 1,600 that he had published. A cursory glance at his blog reveals that it is strewn throughout with antisemitic conspiracy theories and imagery glorifying Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.
He went on to brag about how he had visitors to his blog from all over the world.
When confronted with the opinions expressed in his posts, he maintained that they were “perfectly acceptable”.
Attempting to defend his Holocaust-denial, he said: “There’s history and there are views of history and people are entitled to adopt whichever view they want.”
He further professed that there were “a great number of hoaxes” around the Holocaust, going on to lament: “It’s the only history that’s acceptable and I disagree with that.”
Mr Millard told the court that “Jewish control of media is pervasive.”
He also made the claim that British politics is controlled by Zionists, citing as evidence of this the fact that the Star of David — the flag of Israel — had been projected onto 10 Downing Street as a display of solidarity with the Israeli public following the 7th October Hamas terror attacks.
Parroting the far-right antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory, he asserted during his cross-examination that “They [Jews] are trying to get more immigrants into the country and the truth is coming out.”
While insisting that he could not recall if he had written any of the posts, owing to the fact that he allegedly blogs daily, he also said: “It’s not about whether I’m right or wrong. It’s about freedom of expression.”
He maintained that he had never set out with an intent to offend and that while some of the posts were “shocking”, they were not against the law and in fact merely satirical.
Despite the alarming number of inflammatory comments made by Mr Millard during proceedings, and the CPS referring in its own online post-sentencing report to Mr Millard’s “continuous barrage of offensive material”, it failed to challenge his asserted mitigation that, out of approximately 1,800 blog posts, the CPS could find only five that were grossly offensive.
At neither the trial nor the sentencing hearing did the CPS tell the court that Mr Millard’s blog is in fact awash with Nazi imagery, adoring photos of Hitler, the fetishisation of Aryan supremacy and extracts from Nazi texts, such as the SS doctrine.
During sentencing, Mr Millard was only given a nine-month community order and a costs order of £734, despite the severity of his offences.
Despite being told that, since his conviction, Mr Millard had continued to post material similar to that which had led to his prosecution,the court also denied a criminal behaviour order, which was requested by the CPS in order to tackle this persistent offending behaviour.
The police have confirmed that they are assessing new evidence supplied by Campaign Against Antisemitism, in relation to alleged further offending by Mr Millard in the period between his conviction and sentencing.
CAA reacts to Government’s new Extremism definition
Today, the Government has announced a new definition of “Extremism”.
The new definition, announced by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, updates the previous definition “to respond to increased extremist threat since the 7th October terror attacks in Israel,” provides “new engagement principles to ensure that Government does not legitimise extremist groups,” and “follows the Prime Minister’s commitment to stamp out extremism to ensure we keep our citizens safe and our country secure.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Today’s announcement is a very belated admission by the Government that it has engaged with and even funded extremists over the years, and that it will no longer do so. That is welcome, but that is as far as this announcement goes. It proposes no sanction whatsoever for extremists caught by the new definition other than a loss of state support that they should never have had in the first place, and far too many extremists will not be caught under this definition at all.
“It is particularly ironic that the definition draws on the work of Sir Mark Rowley, who has become one of the country’s foremost enablers of extremism by his refusal to use his existing powers in relation to the weekly marches that are threatening the fabric of our society. Ultimately, today’s move by the Government amounts to yet more words at a time when firm action is already decades late.”
Making antisemitism front page news
This week, Campaign Against Antisemitism brought antisemitism to the forefront of our nation’s mainstream media coverage.
Many of you will have seen the Evening Standard’s front page on Tuesday, titled, “London’s antisemitism shame”.
As our Chief Executive told the newspaper: “It’s the biggest untold story, the impact mass intimidation is having on Jewish families. The cumulative effect is pretty devastating…This is not the tolerant Britain that we cherish — it is a Britain succumbing to a racist mob.”
Now more than ever, antisemitism is at the forefront of our minds in the Jewish community. This is why we are working tirelessly to ensure that victims’ stories are told and that the British public comes to understand how antisemitism is not just a Jewish issue, but a national one. With our streets taken over by a mob every week, our politicians threatened and inept police leadership, our country is in crisis.
Reacting fast to injustice
Yesterday, a man was violently arrested by police in London for carrying a sign stating that under UK law, Hamas is considered to be a terrorist organisation. We are reviewing all of the footage available in relation to this incident.
The police response appears to have been not only outrageous and disproportionate but potentially legally actionable.
For a phalanx of police officers to violently arrest a man who was verbally and physically attacked for observing that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist group while taking no action against his assailants is a breathtaking inversion of the law.
Not only are the police failing to enforce the law but they appear to be punishing those who are daring to point out what the law is. We are in touch with the victim and our lawyers are examining options.
What is the law?
Over the last ten days, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has stated in no uncertain terms that he believes that calling for violent Jihad or the eradication of the Jewish state, or projecting antisemitic tropes like “From the River to the Sea” onto Big Ben are unacceptable criminal offences.
It was a categorical rebuke of how the Metropolitan Police has approached the regular anti-Israel protests, making excuses instead of arrests. Yesterday was yet another example.
That is why only 16% of British Jews believe that the police treat antisemitic hate crime like other forms of hate crime.
In response, Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, rejected the Prime Minister’s assertions, doubling down on the excuses that he has made for police inaction for almost half a year now. The result is a lack of clarity on the law of the land. The Government says one thing, and the police say another.
Accordingly, we have written to Sir Mark, observing that “You have the distinction of presiding over the worst surge in antisemitic criminality in our capital city since records began,” and calling for clarity: “It is vital that the conflicting publicly stated positions of the British Government and the Metropolitan Police are reconciled.”
Jewish journalists resign from National Union of Journalists
On Tuesday, we broke the news that in recent months six Jewish journalists have resigned from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the largest trade unions for journalists in Britain, owing to its alleged bias against the Jewish state and the impact that that is having on its Jewish members.
Those who spoke to us have told us that there is a culture in the NUJ that leaves its Jewish members feeling ostracised.
Jewish former NUJ members have told us of rhetoric in official e-mails from the union to its members, the sorts of events being held by the union and comments from other members.
One of the journalists who left told us that they don’t “feel safe being in a union which takes no interest in the concerns of Jewish journalists.”
Another journalist said: “They’ve created a divide. It’s like them versus us.”
When one of the largest trade unions for journalists is endorsing people who have engaged in antisemitism-denial and made comparisons between the Nazis and Israel, what message is this sending its Jewish members?
The NUJ has clearly failed its Jewish members and must urgently explain how it will regain their trust.
We are offering free legal representation to any NUJ members affected by anti-Jewish racism. Anyone affected can contact us at [email protected].
The need for our work is more urgent than ever before
The 7th October massacre changed everything, and it’s clear that the fight against antisemitism is more urgent than ever before.
We have been working tirelessly to combat antisemitism in all its forms, but we can’t do it without you.
If you are one of our supporters who already have a direct debit with us or donate regularly to support our work, thank you.
Here is just a small, varied selection of some of the work that your support has already enabled us to do in recent months:
We can only continue to do this vital work with your support.
By signing up for a direct debit today, you can ensure that we have the reliable funding needed to bring antisemitism to the forefront of British media. Direct debits offer a stable and efficient way for donors to support our cause, allowing more of your donation to directly fund our programmes and initiatives.
“It’s like them versus us”: Six Jewish members resign from National Union of Journalists citing intimidation and anti-Israel bias
Campaign Against Antisemitism has spoken to Jewish members who have resigned from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), one of the largest trade unions for journalists in Britain, in recent months owing to its alleged anti-Israel bias.
We are aware of at least six Jewish members who have handed in their NUJ cards since 7th October. Those who spoke to us have told us that there is an anti-Israel bias in the Union, leading to a culture that leaves its Jewish members feeling ostracised.
Jewish former NUJ members have told us that the environment at the Union is influenced by rhetoric in official e-mails from the Union to its members, the nature of events held by the Union, and comments from other members.
In an e-mail sent to members on 20th November, the Union urged members to donate to a campaign to help journalists in Gaza, fronted by Nasser Abu Bakr, President of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. This came to the dismay of Rebecca (the names of those who spoke to us have been changed to protect their anonymity), a Jewish former NUJ member, owing to the fact that Mr Abu Bakr was fired by the French press agency Agence France-Presse due to a conflict of interest arising from his work as an activist for the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah Party. The Party has reportedly bragged about taking part in the 7th October terrorist atrocities, but there is no indication that Mr Abu Bakr backed the atrocities.
Mr Abu Bakr is also reported to have made comparisons between the Nazis to the State of Israel. In an interview, he said: “We asked Arab media people to intensify their effort to expose the Nazi and racist crimes of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people and to bring back the Palestinian cause to the center [sic] of the Arab media’s attention.”
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.
Rebecca told us that when she replied to the e-mail enquiring as to what help was being offered to journalists in Israel, the Union replied in a way that she felt was one-sided.
“I don’t think they care enough to look at the whole picture,” she told us.
Rebecca, who had been a Union member for three decades before resigning in January, said that she felt the NUJ had become “overly political”. She had tried to speak with the NUJ about how concerns were making her feel about her membership, but told us that the Union had not responded to her for two months.
“At best, they don’t respect or consider their Jewish members, whether that’s deliberate antisemitism or ingrained, I don’t know. What I do think is they wouldn’t dare do that if I was perceived to be a minority due to my gender or colour or sex…maybe it’s an unconscious bias,” she said.
Rebecca added that she doesn’t “feel safe being in a Union which takes no interest in the concerns of Jewish journalists.”
A near-unanimous 97% of British Jews feel personally connected to events happening in Israel, according to our polling.
Another Jewish former member, Lucy’s testimony, seemed to echo those of Rebecca’s.
Lucy told us that the “whole Union became too politicised,” which has made Jewish journalists feel “unwelcome”.
“They’ve created a divide. It’s like them versus us,” she said. Asked who she meant by “us”, she clarified: “The Jewish journalists.”
“There was not one concern for any journalist inside Israel under constant rocket attack with terrorists on the loose,” she said. “They’ve clearly taken a side…they ostracised Jewish journalists.”
Numerous posts from the private NUJ Facebook group, in which only Union members are allowed to post, accuse Israel of committing genocide. The group is supposedly moderated by admins. However, one comment by journalist Tony Gosling which, at the time of writing has been allowed to remain, referred to “the coming WWIII being cooked up between China and the Anglo-Zionist Empire”.
In 2019, Mr Gosling’s radio programme was reported to Ofcom for antisemitic conspiracy theories, although the complaint was not upheld. Mr Gosling has also appeared as a guest on PressTV, an Iranian state-owned news network whose British broadcasting licence was revoked by Ofcom in 2012.
Concerningly, Mr Gosling reportedly “spent a year on the National Executive of the NUJ and eight years as Secretary, then Vice-Chair of the Bristol branch of the [NUJ] until the 2009 AGM when he resigned from the Bristol executive”. Between 2021 and 2023, he was elected to sit on NUJ’s Appeals Tribunal and Professional Training Committee.
Susanna, another Jewish former member, told us how she had raised concerns to senior officials at the Union about the social media activity of Donnacha DeLong, a former NUJ President. Mr DeLong has made numerous tweets referring to “Zionist scumbags” and “Zionist racists”.
Upon reporting one of Mr Delong’s posts to the senior official, in which Mr DeLong wrote “F*** Zionism,” the official responded that the Union is unable to take responsibility for the “inevitably conflicting positions taken by our members on a wide range of issues” and that they cannot be expected to monitor the social media activity of its members.
Recent polling revealed that only six percent of British Jews do not consider themselves to be Zionists.
Susanna informed the Union that she felt as though it had taken an unbalanced approach to the war between Israel and Hamas, leading to the Union to allow “a very vocal pro-Palestinian — and often veering into antisemitic — element to dominate”.
Susanna had also raised the fact that in November, the NUJ London Freelance branch branch hosted a webinar arranged by the group Jewish Network for Palestine which comprised three speakers; journalist Tim Llewellyn, outspoken activist Ghada Karmi and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, one of the founders of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation.
Mr Llewellyn, who for ten years served as the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, said in 2012 that “pro-Israel Zionists” are “scattered at strategic points throughout the British establishment, throughout British business and among the people whose voices are respected”.
In 2020, Campaign Against Antisemitism wrote to the University of Exeter calling for Dr Karmi to be removed from her position, and to the General Medical Council which regulates doctors, after she published an article in which she suggested that the Israeli embassy played an outsized role in British politics and that the Jewish groups calling out the Labour Party’s anti-Jewish racism at the time were doing Israel’s bidding.
In 2021, Dr Karmi accused Sir Keir Starmer of using the “label of antisemitism as a weapon”. She further described allegations of antisemitism as a “smear accusation” which was being used as a “weapon” to suspend and expel members of the Labour Party.
Ms Wimborne-Idrissi was expelled from the Labour Party, apparently in relation to her involvement with the far-left “Resist Movement”, “Labour in Exile Network” and antisemitism-denial group “Labour Against the Witchhunt”.
However, in the response she received from the senior NUJ official, Susanna was told that as the event was hosted at the NUJ’s London Freelance branch, no action from senior members could be taken due to the branches’ “high degree of autonomy” under the NUJ rule book, and that any complaints should be directed to the branch itself.
A spokesperson for the NUJ said: “The NUJ has been consistent and robust in its denunciation of the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7th, and in our call for the release of all hostages. We have also condemned the targeting of women and appalling sexual violence that it is clear took place during those attacks, and the rise in antisemitic attacks that has happened in its aftermath.
“The NUJ strives to be inclusive and opposes all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and racism. We take any member’s resignation seriously, and in the cases referenced the most senior officers of the union intervened to address the concerns being raised. In a democratic union, with an established branch and workplace structure, events and activities take place that are outwith [sic] of the union’s central operations. However, all members have a duty to uphold the union’s Code of Conduct and abide by our rulebook, and all members have rights in relation to formalising complaints under those rules.
“We have been vocal during this conflict in our appeals for the Israeli government to allow access to international journalists, and for the rights of journalists to be upheld. For now, it is only via the efforts of journalists in Gaza that reporting and coverage is taking place, and this is work that is being carried out under unimaginable privations. Many journalists have been killed or injured during this conflict. Peer to peer solidarity and support, from journalists to journalists, has always been a cornerstone of the NUJ’s international work. Campaigning for all journalists to be able to work freely, without interference, and in safety will always remain an NUJ priority. That is why the NUJ encourages its members throughout the UK and Ireland to support the Safety Fund established by the International Federation of Journalists, which offers a lifeline to journalists in need around the world. In recent months and years that has included support for journalists in Afghanistan and Ukraine, as it has more recently in Palestine.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “When one of the largest trade unions for journalists is endorsing people who have engaged in antisemitism denial and made comparisons between the Nazis and Israel, what message is this sending its Jewish members? The NUJ is in dereliction of its duty to its Jewish members and must urgently explain how it will regain their trust.
“We are offering free legal representation to all NUJ members affected by anti-Jewish racism. Anyone affected can contact [email protected].”
Prime Minister tells police to do their job, but that demand needs to be backed by action
On Friday evening, the Prime Minister made a speech responding to the surge in antisemitism and extremism in our country.
His comments were nothing short of a rebuke of the Metropolitan Police Service’s well-honed practice of making excuses for extremism instead of arrests, and putting their frontline officers in impossible situations. He has demanded in no uncertain terms that the weekly anti-Israel marches no longer be merely managed, but actually policed.
In other words: it is time for the police to do their job.
Following this important intervention, we now look to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to announce concrete solutions to address this dire situation, which leaves the Jewish community in fear for its safety and our democracy in peril.
We welcome the Prime Minister’s call for police to do better when policing protests, and for protesters to think twice about the consequences of their actions, but for months, we have heard protesters and protest organisers tell us that they will continue on their current path and that they feel that they are under no obligation to deviate from it.
The true test of the effectiveness of the Prime Minister’s national address will come when we see what happens at the mass demonstration next Saturday, and in the weeks to come as these marches continue.
While the words were welcome, firm action is long overdue.
Extremists are not simply hijacking protests: they are organising them. The Prime Minister condemned the anti-Jewish genocidal “From the River to the Sea…” slogan projected onto Big Ben, but we have heard march organisers testify to MPs that they actively promote that language.
Yesterday, the statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square and the Cenotaph on Whitehall once again required lines of police officers to stand guard over them. This has been necessary countless times since 7th October.
Over the past few weeks we have seen the extremism on our streets penetrate our politics. Now it has entered Parliament. We know, as the Prime Minister does, that nothing is likely to change without firm action from his Government and the authorities.
That action must materialise urgently.
We look forward to learning what measures will be introduced. We have made clear recommendations to the Government and the police.
In recent weeks, our democracy has faced a grave assault by anti-Israel protesters
Anti-Israel protesters have not hesitated in using intimidation to get their message across, brazenly threatening our elected representatives and launching direct attacks on the very foundation of our democratic institutions.
We are offering free legal representation to MPs who have been subjected to antisemitic threats or intimidation, including obtaining court orders to unmask the authors of anonymous comments made online.
Enough is enough.
Inaction against these marches has led to a feeling amongst many extremists and antisemites that they can get away with brazen acts of racism against Jews, and too often they are right.
On Thursday, we reported on an incident that occurred on the London Underground where an identifiably Jewish man noticed a fellow passenger staring aggressively at him. The passenger then proceeded to tell the man: “Your religion kills Muslims.”
British Transport Police is investigating and we are continuing to support the victim.
The incident occurred between Camden Town and Chalk Farm on a Northern Line train to Edgware at approximately 19:45 in carriage number 52585.
If you have information, please contact British Transport Police with crime reference number 2400026154 or e-mail [email protected].
It is shocking to see how this man was treated for daring to be Jewish in public, but perhaps it is not that surprising in these dark times.
Too little too late
On Tuesday, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee released its report on the policing of protests.
Last year, our Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, gave evidence before the Committee, which was included in the report, as well as our written evidence.
The report fails to address the increasingly urgent need to restore the confidence of the British public and ensure the safety of Britain’s Jews.
Staggeringly, it appears that the only concrete recommendation from the Committee for the protests is that the organisers should give more notice to the police, which would not change the actual nature of these marches and therefore solves nothing other than timesheet planning for our overstretched police forces.
After months of intimidatory marches, the report offers no concrete recommendations for the here and now, just a long-term policy discussion about workforce planning and new laws that will take years to agree.
Read our full statement here.
We need action urgently.
Protest-organisers should be made to follow the March Against Antisemitism as an example of good practice.
The police seem to think so too. In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, one officer told the presenter that the march was a good example of how a protest can be “done well and respectfully”.
Why can the same not be said for the weekly anti-Israel protests on our streets?
Britain’s newest MP
On Thursday, the constituents of Rochdale voted in the by-election. After weeks of turmoil in Rochdale leading up to the parliamentary by-election, George Galloway is once again an MP.
Mr Galloway has an atrocious record of baiting the Jewish community.
He has previously and infamously declared Bradford an “Israel-free zone”. He said of his previous election loss that “the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating”. He described David Baddiel, a Jewish comic who is well-known for not closely associating himself with Israel, as a “vile Israel-fanatic”. He claimed that the institutional antisemitism within the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was really “a disgraceful campaign of Goebbelsian fiction”, in reference to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist. He was sacked by TalkRadio despite his protestations, over an incident in which Tottenham Hotspur accused him of “blatant antisemitism” for a remark about keeping “Israeli flags” off the cup.
More recently, he has described the atrocity carried out by Hamas on 7th October as a “concentration camp breakout” and referred to Hamas terrorists as “fighters”.
Now, Mr Galloway has been chosen by the voters of Rochdale. Given his historic rhetoric and the current situation faced by the Jewish community in this country, we are extremely concerned by how he might use the platform of the House of Commons.
Is Charlotte Church tone deaf?
Earlier this week, we led the media outrage after singer Charlotte Church led a choir, which included children, singing, “From the River to the Sea…”.
The genocidal chant “From the River to the Sea…” refers to the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, and only makes sense as a call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state — and its replacement with a Palestinian state. It is a call for the annihilation of half the world’s Jews, who live in Israel.
Since 7th October, when Hamas committed their barbaric terrorist acts, we have heard this chant on the streets of Britain during anti-Israel marches, accompanied by all manner of anti-Jewish racism.
Singing “From the River to the Sea…” is not standing up for human rights. At best Charlotte Church has been tone deaf, but at worst she is using the voice for which she is so well known to fan the flames of hatred.
You cannot stoop lower than using your stardom to teach kids to sing extremist lyrics in a village hall.
We are writing to the Charity Commission to ask them to investigate how this was allowed to take place on a charity’s premises.
Five years since Hizballah was banned in the UK
Five years ago this week, following a gruelling effort over several years by Campaign Against Antisemitism and our allies, Hizballah was proscribed as a terrorist group in the United Kingdom.
Hizballah is a violent, genocidal and dangerous antisemitic organisation whose leaders have praised the 7th October Hamas terrorist atrocities as “heroic”.
Hizballah is suspected to have been involved in terrorist attacks targeting Jews from Burgas to Buenas Aires, where they bombed a Jewish community centre in 1994, killing 85 people. They continue to make their violent, murderous intentions towards Jews clear to this day.
As people continue to glorify the axis of violence to which they belong on our streets, their legal designation as a terrorist organisation, like their allies Hamas, has never been more important for the safety of Jews in Britain.
Recent arrests
Earlier this year, three Jews were physically attacked by ten men in Leicester Square, which resulted in serious injuries. No bystanders helped and police only showed up after half an hour, after the perpetrators had fled the scene.
One of the suspects involved in the alleged assault has now been arrested.
We are continuing to assist the victims during this time.
There are still more arrests to be made. If anyone has any further information, they should contact the Metropolitan Police.
On Monday evening, protesters were seen walking down Upper Street in Angel, London, chanting, “from London to Gaza, long live the intifada.”
An arrest was made shortly after a member of the public informed the police. We commend the Met for its swift action in this incident.
An individual believed to be involved with a violent attack in December has also been arrested.
The alleged assault was on a group of Jewish people in North West London on the bridge between Chalk Farm and Primrose Hill.
The group of five were putting up posters showing the faces of people taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. One of the members was an identifiably Jewish woman who wore a Star of David.
If you have any further information, please inform the Metropolitan Police.
Whilst the news of these arrests is welcome, prosecutions are few and far between, and the events of this week show serious weaknesses in our democracy. This is extremely alarming. We will continue to expose where our institutions fail to protect us from anti-Jewish hatred. We must demand better.
What is happening to our democracy?
On Wednesday, as MPs gathered in Parliament to vote, antisemitic genocidal language was projected onto Big Ben, the symbol of our democracy and often of our nation. Inside Parliament, the Speaker of the House of Commons broke with convention over a ceasefire vote, apparently due to threats against MPs.
Today, the Prime Minister described the intimidation as “toxic for our society and our politics”.
Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, encouraged thousands of protestors to “ramp up pressure on MPs” and flood into Parliament “so that they would have to lock the doors of Parliament itself”.
Then, on Saturday, they shut down Tower Bridge.
When will this count as sufficient “disruption to the life of the community” for Sir Mark Rowley to invoke his powers to ban this?
These scenes come just after Mike Freer, an MP for one of the most heavily-Jewish constituencies, decided to quit politics due, in no small part, to antisemitism and violence directed at him and his office.
We are offering free legal representation to MPs who have been subjected to antisemitic threats or intimidation, including obtaining court orders to unmask the authors of anonymous comments made online.
If our laws are now being made through the medium of threat and violence, our democracy itself is under attack, and those responsible for safeguarding it are in dereliction of their duty.
We have been raising the issue on television, radio, newspapers and social media, making clear our views on this important national debate. The events of this week must serve as a wake-up call.
Wiley Stripped of MBE
The Honours Forfeiture Committee has announced that is that it has stripped the antisemitic grime rapper Richard Kylea Cowie, known as Wiley, of his MBE, following calls to do so by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
In 2020, we wrote to the Honours Forfeiture Committee, which confirmed that, on our recommendation, it had opened a case against the artist, with a view to stripping Wiley of his honour, which he received in 2018. The case was opened following his antisemitic tirade in 2020.
It has taken nearly four years of perserverance and we have worked tirelessly to ensure that Wiley faces the full consequences of his unhinged antisemitic tirade.
Antisemitism has no place in the arts, and antisemites should not hold honours. We commend the Honours Forfeiture Committee for using its powers to hold Wiley to account. In doing so, it is declaring that anti-Jewish racists cannot be role models in our society.
This decision sets a precedent, which we hope will encourage more stringent scrutiny of individuals who are awarded our nation’s highest honours.
We continue to pursue legal action in relation to Wiley.
Home office contractor defaces Jewish birth certificate
A father received a copy of his six-month-old baby girl’s birth certificate back from the Home Office with his place of birth scribbled out and the paper torn. His place of birth was Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.
James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, swiftly responded to our call for an investigation, confirming that he has directed the Home Office to investigate and apologising on behalf of the Department.
It is understood that a major Home Office contractor, Sopra Steria, has suspended a number of staff members and is conducting an investigation.
This incident represents gross misconduct, and the company must remove the individuals responsible.
Throughout this ordeal, we have been supporting the family. The last thing any parent should have to worry about is their child’s birth certificate being vandalised just because their parent’s place of birth is the Jewish state.
Solicitor struck off and doctor who appeared on The Apprentice suspended
Farrukh Najeeb Husain, an immigration and employment solicitor, has been struck off.
A number of Mr Husain’s tweets were found to be antisemitic and offensive by a tribunal, following a case brought by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA).
The SRA claimed that Mr Husain’s conduct online was “offensive” and, in some cases, antisemitic. Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, gave expert witness testimony to assist the SRA in its case.
Meanwhile, Asif Munaf, a doctor who appeared on the current series of “The Apprentice” on the BBC has been suspended by the General Medical Council, following a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
His online rhetoric has included “slimy Zionist PR machine”, “odiously ogre-like Zionists”, “weaponising the Holocaust” and more.
These days, it seems that some people need reminding that supporting terrorist groups is a crime
Many of our supporters will be familiar with our digital vans, which we have previously used to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages held by Hamas.
This week, we decided to remind those who needed reminding that expressing support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are proscribed terrorist organisations, is illegal under UK law.
After months of seeing expressions of support for these groups at weekly anti-Israel protests, we thought that we should make the message as plain and simple as possible. When we drove past one of these protests outside the Houses of Parliament, our van was attacked. It seems that not everyone was happy to be reminded.
Extreme advice
This week, there have been red faces at both the Met and the Ministry of Justice over taking advice from people with extreme views.
The Met has had to cut ties with Mohammed Kozbar, a member of an advisory body which helps to “shape police policy” over a year after an official extremism report found that he had described the founder of Hamas as “the master of the martyrs of resistance”.
We are enquiring quite how it took the Met so long to act, and what input the individual had on police policy, especially since the surge in antisemitic crime in the UK since 7th October.
Over at the Ministry of Justice, it turns out that for “World Hijab Day”, they invited Shreen Mahmood to speak. Her social media posts included saying that “Jews need to get in the queue behind Muslims” when a Jewish man complained about antisemitism, and reposting another account which had said n the wake of 7th October that Palestinians had “every right to defend” themselves, well before Israel had responded militarily to the mass rapes, murders and hostage-taking.
When exposed, she explained that Palestinians have the right to “struggle…by all available means” and that she would not want to “upset my valued brothers and sisters from the Jewish community”.
The Ministry of Justice plays an integral part of ensuring that the rule of law is maintained in our democracy, so why is it hosting someone who posted such views? We are writing to the Ministry to demand an investigation into how this was allowed to happen.
The events of this week have been extremely concerning for the health of our democracy. They must be a wake up call for us all. We will continue to do everything we can to draw attention to the threats that the Jewish community – and our country – is facing.
Wiley stripped of Honours following CAA action
The Honours Forfeiture Committee has announced today that it is stripping the antisemitic grime rapper Richard Kylea Cowie, known as Wiley, of his MBE, following calls to do so by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
In July 2020, Wiley went on an antisemitic tirade on social media, in which he compared Jews to the Ku Klux Klan; called on “black people” to go to “war” with Jews; and claimed that Jews had him and were “snakes”.
Consequently, Wiley was banned from X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube after using the platforms to incite racial hatred against Jews, following tireless pressure from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which included projecting antisemitic tweets on X’s London headquarters and joining a 48-hour walkout on the platform.
Despite our efforts, Wiley evaded immediate legal consequences by being out of the UK. Nonetheless, CAA initiated legal proceedings, filing a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands, where Wiley was residing.
Campaign Against Antisemitism also wrote to the Ivors Academy calling for Wiley’s 2019 Ivors Inspiration Award to be rescinded.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s advocacy extended to venues scheduled to host Wiley, leading to multiple cancellations of his performances, including Village Underground, which swiftly dropped him from their event.
Following sustained pressure, the Honours Forfeiture Committee, acting on Campaign Against Antisemitism’s recommendation, commenced an investigation into Wiley’s conduct, with a view to stripping Wiley of his honour, which he received in 2018. The case was opened following his antisemitic tirade in 2020.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Today’s decision marks the culmination of nearly four years of dogged perseverance. We have worked tirelessly to ensure that Wiley faces ruinous consequences for his unhinged antisemitic tirade, for which he has shown no remorse.
“Antisemitism has no place in the arts, and is unbecoming of anyone holding an honour. We commend the Honours Forfeiture Committee for using its powers to hold Wiley to account. In doing so, it is declaring that anti-Jewish racists cannot be role models in our society.
“Due to technical reasons, including legal action that we are pursuing against Wiley, the forfeiture was delayed. We are grateful to the Honours Forfeiture Committee for its work on this matter.”
Solicitor Farrukh Najeeb Husain struck off after tribunal finds his tweets antisemitic and offensive in case where CAA provided expert opinion
The Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has today struck off solicitor Farrukh Najeeb Husain after finding a number of his social media posts to be antisemitic and offensive.
The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) investigated Mr Husain, an immigration and employment solicitor, following complaints regarding his conduct on X, which was reported to the regulator by Bevan Brittan, a law firm that employed him at the time.
The SRA claimed that Mr Hussain’s conduct online was “offensive” and, in some cases, antisemitic. Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, gave expert witness testimony to assist the SRA in its case.
Mr Husain represented himself over the course of the hearings, which began in September last year.
The tweets in question were directed at Simon Myerson KC, a barrister, and Hugo Rifkind, a journalist. Among the tweets were characterisations of Mr Rifkind as a “Zionist pig”, references to Mr Rifkind’s “eastern European kin” and the claim that Mr Myerson “wreaks of white privilege”.
Throughout the case, Mr Husain made several accusations against the SRA and Capsticks, a law firm that was representing the SRA at the tribunal. He claimed that the SRA was “weaponising new antisemitism” and subverting the International Definition of Antisemitism, and even accused the regulator of being “in bed” with Campaign Against Antisemitism. He also claimed that the solicitor acting on behalf of the SRA was an “imperialist” and asserted that she “bang[ed] on about the Holocaust because [she] wants to hide [her] country’s own crimes,” apparently referring to her British heritage.
During her cross-examination of Mr Husain, he said: “Mr Myerson is a fascist.”
Mr Husain extended his accusations also towards Mr Silverman during cross-examination and said: “It is you who are engaging in the antisemitic trope that there is a collection of Jews who are self-haters, who have turned against their nation and who are spouting conspiracy theories.”
Mr Silverman then asked the defendant if he was calling him an antisemite, to which Mr Husain responded: “Yes.”
Mr Husain also baselessly and conspiratorially accused Campaign Against Antisemitism of being set up and funded by a former Israeli diplomat.
Throughout the proceedings, Mr Husain was repeatedly reminded by the chairperson to conduct himself in an appropriate manner. In one instance, the tribunal panel addressed the defendant directly and accused him of “bordering on being abusive to Mr Silverman at times.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “This is the right sanction. Farrukh Najeeb Husain’s rhetoric online was vile, and there was no evidence of any regard or remorse for the hurt and disgust that he caused. The SRA was right to bring this case to restore confidence in the legal profession, and we were pleased to be able to contribute expert opinion at the hearing in order to inform the panel and bring about this week’s decision and today’s sanction. The SDT has shown that there is no place for antisemitism in English law.”
Solicitor’s tweets found to be antisemitic by tribunal in case where CAA provided expert opinion
A solicitor’s tweets were found to be antisemitic and offensive today by a tribunal.
The Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has found a number of social media posts by the solicitor Farrukh Najeeb Husain to be antisemitic and offensive.
The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA) investigated Mr Husain, an immigration and employment solicitor, following complaints regarding his conduct on X, which was reported to the regulator by Bevan Brittan, a law firm that employed him at the time.
The SRA claimed that Mr Hussain’s conduct online was “offensive” and, in some cases, antisemitic. Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, gave expert witness testimony to assist the SRA in its case.
Mr Husain represented himself over the course of the hearings, which began in September last year.
The tweets in question were directed at Simon Myerson KC, a barrister, and Hugo Rifkind, a journalist. Among the tweets were characterisations of Mr Rifkind as a “Zionist pig”, references to Mr Rifkind’s “eastern European kin” and the claim that Mr Myerson “wreaks of white privilege”.
Throughout the case, Mr Husain made several accusations against the SRA and Capsticks, a law firm that was representing the SRA at the tribunal. He claimed that the SRA was “weaponising new antisemitism” and subverting the International Definition of Antisemitism, and even accused the regulator of being “in bed” with Campaign Against Antisemitism. He also claimed that the barrister acting on behalf of the SRA was an “imperialist” and asserted that she “bang[ed] on about the Holocaust because [she] wants to hide [her] country’s own crimes,” apparently referring to her British heritage.
During her cross-examination of Mr Husain, he said: “Mr Myerson is a fascist.”
Mr Husain extended his accusations also towards Mr Silverman during cross-examination and said: “It is you who are engaging in the antisemitic trope that there is a collection of Jews who are self-haters, who have turned against their nation and who are spouting conspiracy theories.”
Mr Silverman then asked the defendant if he was calling him an antisemite, to which Mr Husain responded: “Yes.”
Mr Husain also baselessly and conspiratorially accused Campaign Against Antisemitism of being set up and funded by a former Israeli diplomat.
Throughout the proceedings, Mr Husain was repeatedly reminded by the chairperson to conduct himself in an appropriate manner. In one instance, the tribunal panel addressed the defendant directly and accused him of “bordering on being abusive to Mr Silverman at times.”
The SDT is expected to issue a more substantial judgment in due course, with any sanctions or penalties expected to be announced by the tribunal on Friday.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We welcome this judgment. Farrukh Najeeb Husain’s rhetoric online was vile, and there was no evidence of any regard or remorse for the hurt and disgust that he caused. The SRA was right to bring this case to restore confidence in the legal profession, and we were pleased to be able to contribute expert opinion at the hearing in order to inform the panel and bring about today’s decision. We expect the SDT to apply the appropriate penalties on Mr Husain to show that there is no place for antisemitism in English law.”
To contact Campaign Against Antisemitism in relation to providing expert opinion or training, please e-mail [email protected].
Discrimination against Jews is no laughing matter
Since last weekend, we have been assisting Jewish guests who were reportedly hounded out of the Soho Theatre in London after comedian Paul Currie allegedly led his audience in targeted chanting.
According to a statement provided to us by one Jewish attendee, who wished to remain anonymous, the incident occurred last Saturday during the one-hour “Shtoom” show, attended by over 100 people.
Towards the end of the performance, Mr Currie introduced two props – a Ukrainian flag and a Palestinian Authority flag – and urged everyone to stand and applaud, apparently in support of the causes with which those flags have become associated, creating discomfort among some attendees in relation to the Palestinian Authority flag.
“When we all sat down again, [Mr Currie] looked towards a young man sitting in the second row and said ‘You didn’t stand, why? Didn’t you enjoy my show?’,” recounted the attendee. “The young man, who we discovered soon after was Israeli, replied ‘I enjoyed your show until you brought out the Palestinian Authority flag.’”
According to the attendee, the comedian then yelled at the young man: “Get out of my show. Get the f*** out of here. F*** off, get the f*** out of here.” This instantaneously escalated into the audience shouting “Get out” and “Free Palestine” until the young man left.
We publicised the story and worked with the victims to secure national media coverage of the incident. We are also dealing with the theatre, which has engaged with us positively and swiftly and issued an apology. It has banned Mr Currie, who has also reportedly been dropped by two Australian venues so far as well.
Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but hounding Jews out of theatres is reminiscent of humanity’s darkest days, and must have no place in central London in 2024. We are working with the victims and our lawyers to ensure that those who instigated and enabled it are held to account.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any further information is asked to contact us in confidence on +44 (0)330 822 0321 (option 2) or at [email protected].
In Rochdale, Labour gets it wrong before getting it right
The Labour Party’s candidate in the Rochdale by-election, Azhar Ali, was revealed to have suggested that Israel may have enabled the 7th October Hamas massacre in order to justify an incursion into Gaza. He was recorded making the remarks in a meeting in late October 2023.
But even as it became clear that this man, who had effectively propagated a blood libel, does not belong in a major political party, let alone in Parliament, the Labour Party, incredibly, continued to back his candidacy after a quick apology, wheeling out numerous figures to defend him.
It was then revealed that, at the same meeting, he blamed Labour’s suspension of Andy McDonald MP on “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters”. Labour then dropped its support for him.
It then emerged that Graham Jones, a former Labour MP who is also seeking a return to the Commons, was also recorded at the same meeting apparently making reference to “f***ing Israel” and saying (wrongly) that it is illegal for British Jews to join fighting against Hamas terrorists and that those who do so “should be locked up”. Labour immediately suspended him.
Sir Keir Starmer blotted an otherwise fairly admirable copy book by delaying the withdrawal of support from Mr Ali. Rather than appearing as a principled decision, it ended up looking as expedient as the failed attempt to defend him in the first place. However, in the case of Mr Jones, Labour did the right thing, and did it swiftly.
Now, Labour must reveal which other MPs, candidates and councillors were at that same October meeting and why they said nothing about the remarks that were made, and indeed if more such remarks were made. Labour must continue to put a line in the sand and declare that it will not tolerate extremist views. It is the least that we should be able to expect from all our political parties.
Throughout the week, as more and more revelations emerged, we led the media commentary, appearing in every major newspaper and on all the major radio and television broadcasters.
The Conservatives this week expelled the Mayor of Salisbury following reportedly “offensive and inappropriate comments” about Jewish people.
It is disappointing to see so many of these cases in our politics, but we commend parties for acting swiftly when they arise.
Police ask man hide Jewishness in Edinburgh
In Edinburgh, we are working with a Jewish man who was urged by police to hide his Star of David due to the proximity of an anti-Israel protest, to avoid “triggering” the protesters. The police officer was clearly worried that he and his colleagues were heavily outnumbered and that these protesters could pose a threat to Jews, but his response was effectively to stop a passing Jewish man and ask him to hide his identity before continuing on his way.
Watch the video, and ask yourself whose rights are actually being protected here, those of law-abiding people or those of mobs of extremists who might be “triggered” by people being Jewish in public?
The police have apologised to the individual, but an apology somewhat misses the point. If the officer believed that there was a potential threat to this Jewish individual, he should have focused on the threat.
What if arrests are made, but the courts fail us?
Our Demonstration and Events Monitoring Unit collected evidence from a protest outside Downing Street this week, in which antisemitic signs were on display.
The police acted in response to one of the pictures that we posted, announcing that they had arrested a woman on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.
However, an arrest is only the first stage in the criminal justice system. There must also be prosecutions and then trials in court, with appropriate sentences for those who are convicted.
On that score, the system has failed us this week.
You may recall that, in one of the first major anti-Israel protests in the wake of 7th October, three women were seen displaying images of a paraglider, a symbol that had come to be associated with the Hamas attack. They were identified and arrested, and have been convicted of terrorism offences.
However, Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram “decided not to punish” the trio. The court thereby sent the worst possible signal to the Jewish community at a time of surging antisemitism.
We then shared fresh evidence with the media that may suggest possible bias on the Judge’s part. We shared this with the media, and have written to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office. A full and proper investigation must follow. The Jewish community deserves to be able to trust our legal system to act impartially and with zero-tolerance enforcement of the law.
This weekend’s anti-Israel march
We are continuing to monitor the weekly anti-Israel protests. This week, we publicised concerns from local Jewish community leaders in central London about the route and persistence of these marches. The Met Police tried to ensure that the marches would start at 13:30 on Saturday after synagogue services had finished, but the protesters gathered at midday anyway. The police bolstered security outside synagogues in the area and we have heard from parents who were afraid to walk home with their children.
Not only are the organisers of these marches refusing to respect local communities and the police, but neither are the protesters. Met Police officers who, rightly, were arresting a woman holding a sign that read “Long Live the Intifada” were confronted by angry demonstrators chanting “Shame on you”. The reason that these protests are so hard to police is because it is not just the overt criminals who cause disruption, but it is the criminals who walk alongside them and attack the police when they move in. This means dozens of police — who are considerably outnumbered to begin with — are required to effect one arrest.
Sir Mark Rowley has accepted that there is a threat to synagogues and Jewish people but has still not banned the marches or placed meaningful restrictions on them. He has sent 1,500 officers to police tens of thousands of people and they are getting beaten up doing their jobs.
For shame.
The above is just a sample of our work over the past week. We have also written to the University of Leeds over a spate of incidents in and around its campus; we have called out the BBC over a contestant on “The Apprentice” with a history of inflammatory rhetoric about Jews and offered assistance to BBC employees who are reportedly frightened at work; we are referring the General Medical Council to the Professional Standards Authority over a pitiful sanction for a doctor who has been found to be “quite comfortable with using discriminatory language” about Jews; we are assisting a Jewish nightclub owner in East London who has been forced to step down as a director following threats against him and his family; and more.
We are fighting antisemitism on every front – on the streets and on campuses, on television and in politics, in business and online, in our regulated professions and in our cultural institutions – and we are fighting it nationwide. We are only able to do so with your continued support.
New report shows alarming surge in antisemitic incidents
A new report shows an alarming surge in antisemitic incidents in the UK, particularly since the Hamas attack of 7th October 2023.
According to the report by CST, more than 4,000 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2023, marking a significant increase from previous years. This spike in hatred has been attributed to the sheer volume of antisemitism following the Hamas attack of 7th October 2023.
Mark Gardner, Chief Executive of CST, described the situation as “an absolute disgrace”, emphasising the resilience of British Jews in the face of this surge in hatred. He stated: “British Jews are strong and resilient, but the explosion in hatred against our community is deeply concerning. It occurs in schools, universities, workplaces, on the streets, and all over social media.”
The report outlined a range of disturbing incidents, including 3,328 cases of abusive behaviour, 266 incidents of assault, 305 threats and 182 instances of damage and desecration. Alarmingly, almost a fifth of the recorded incidents involved perpetrators under the age of eighteen, highlighting the urgent need for education and intervention.
Furthermore, the report observed that, for the first time, at least one antisemitic incident was recorded in every single police region in the UK in the course of one year, demonstrating how widespread the problem has become.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The CST’s figures reveal the explosion in antisemitic hate crime that the Jewish community has experienced in the past several months. It is particularly notable that the surge in anti-Jewish racism began in the immediate wake of 7th October, indisputably demonstrating that antisemites in the UK were emboldened by Hamas’s massacre of Jews, and that is why we are seeing what we are seeing on our streets and campuses, in workplaces and cultural institutions and online. There is a sickness in our country, and the sclerotic and overly-generous reaction of our criminal justice system shows that our institutions have utterly failed to grasp the gravity of the threat that our society faces right now.”
Social media activity of Judge in paraglider case suggests possible bias
The social media activity of the judge in case of three women who displayed images of a paraglider in an anti-Israel protest may suggests possible bias.
Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, were given twelve-month conditional discharges at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday after being convicted of terrorism offences.
Ms Alhayek and Ms Ankunda attached images of paragliders to their backs; Ms Olayinka attached such an image to the handle of a placard.
They were arrested and charged with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of the proscribed antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation, Hamas.
Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram reportedly said that there was nothing to suggest the group were supporters of Hamas, but, he added, “seven days earlier, Hamas went into Israel with what was described by the media as paragliders. A reasonable person would have seen and read that. I do not find a reasonable person would interpret the image merely as a symbol of freedom. You’ve not hidden the fact you were carrying these images. You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue. Your lesson has been well learnt. I do not find you were seeking to show any support for Hamas.” He concluded that he had “decided not to punish” the trio.
Campaign Against Antisemitism can reveal that Judge Ikram’s social media activity may suggest bias (see picture below), and we are exploring legal options.
We are also looking at submitting a complaint to the Bar Standards Board in relation to barrister and political candidate Sham Uddin, over his social media output.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram’s social media activity suggests to us that there may be grounds to set aside his ruling in the case in which he decided ‘not to punish’ three women found guilty of terrorism offences, on the basis of actual or apparent bias. We are sharing our findings with the Crown Prosecution Service, which may wish to appeal the verdict, and we are considering various legal options. We are also submitting a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.”
Three women who displayed paraglider images at anti-Israel protest have been convicted of terrorism offences
Heba Alhayek, 29, Pauline Ankunda, 26, and Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, have been given twelve-month conditional discharges at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today after being convicted of terrorism offences.
Ms Alhayek and Ms Ankunda attached images of paragliders to their backs; Ms Olayinka attached such an image to the handle of a placard.
They were arrested and charged with carrying or displaying an article to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of the proscribed antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation, Hamas.
Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram reportedly said that there was nothing to suggest the group were supporters of Hamas, but, he added, “seven days earlier, Hamas went into Israel with what was described by the media as paragliders. A reasonable person would have seen and read that. I do not find a reasonable person would interpret the image merely as a symbol of freedom. You’ve not hidden the fact you were carrying these images. You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue. Your lesson has been well learnt. I do not find you were seeking to show any support for Hamas.” He concluded that he had “decided not to punish” the trio.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is right that these three women, who displayed an image of a paraglider – a symbol that immediately came to be associated with the Hamas attack of 7th October – at an anti-Israel protest, have been convicted of terrorism offences. What is inexplicable is that Deputy Senior District Judge Tan Ikram has seen fit ‘not to punish’ them. The court has thereby sent the worst possible signal to the Jewish community at a time of surging antisemitism and glorification of terror, and we fully expect the CPS to now bring an appeal against this unduly lenient sentence.”
Jewish guests hounded out of Soho Theatre as comedian Paul Currie allegedly leads audience in discriminatory chanting
Campaign Against Antisemitism is assisting Jewish guests who were reportedly hounded out of the Soho Theatre in London.
We are reviewing legal options after comedian Paul Currie allegedly led his audience in discriminatory chanting.
According to a statement provided to Campaign Against Antisemitism by one Jewish attendee, who wished to remain anonymous, the incident occurred on Saturday during the one-hour “Shtoom” show, attended by approximately 200 people.
Towards the end of the performance, Mr Currie introduced two props – a Ukrainian flag and a Palestinian Authority flag – and urged everyone to stand and applaud, apparently in support of the causes with which those flags have become associated, creating discomfort among some attendees in relation to the Palestinian Authority flag.
The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to terrorists and the families of terrorists who succeed in killing Jews, distributes antisemitic teaching materials, and was widely involved in celebration of the 7th October atrocity, which was the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust.
“When we all sat down again, [Mr Currie] looked towards a young man sitting in the second row and said ‘You didn’t stand, why? Didn’t you enjoy my show?’,” recounted the attendee.
“The young man, who we discovered soon after was Israeli, replied ‘I enjoyed your show until you brought out the Palestinian Authority flag’’,” they continued.
According to the attendee, the comedian then yelled at the young man: “Get out of my show. Get the f*** out of here. F*** off, get the f*** out of here.”
This instantaneously escalated into the audience shouting “Get out” and “Free Palestine” until the young man left.
The attendee described feeling a sense of considerable discomfort as the situation unfolded, particularly as Mr Currie’s interactions with the Israeli audience member became increasingly confrontational. The attendee decided to leave the theatre too, along with their friends.
Shaken, they approached a front-of-house manager to report what had happened. However, the staff member was said to be unhelpful and distracted with her other tasks. She allegedly told them to “back off and stand further away from her” and that they “support free speech at Soho Theatre” and urged them to send the theatre an e-mail.
As they exited the theatre, they encountered a tense atmosphere among some audience members, further reinforcing their sense of marginalisation and ostracisation.
“Our friends later received a message from someone they knew who had also been at the show, saying that after we left, the situation became even more inflamed,” they reported. “The chanting carried on for quite some time. Currie turned to the audience and said: ‘I may get into trouble for this. Can you ensure you write some positive stuff about me on social media?’”
The attendee told us: “Leaving the theatre, I felt threatened. I didn’t know if I was going to get physically assaulted. We were all shaken. We were extremely upset and anxious.”
He also said that his initial reaction after the alleged incident was: “I don’t want to go into central London anymore.
“It felt like we were welcome in the theatre as long as our identities of Jews weren’t known, and the minute our identities were known, we felt threatened.”
The Soho Theatre released a statement today on Twitter in which they said: “We are sorry and saddened by an incident that took place at our venue at the end of a performance of Paul Currie: Shtoom on Saturday 10 February which has caused upset and hurt to members of audience attending and others.
“We take this very seriously and are looking into the detail of what happened as thoroughly, as sensitively, and as quickly as we can. It is important to us that Soho Theatre is a welcoming and inclusive place for all.”
We have contacted Paul Currie for comment.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “What the Jewish audience-members have recounted is atrocious, and we are working with them and our lawyers to ensure that those who instigated and enabled it are held to account. These allegations are of deeply disturbing discriminatory abuse against Jews. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but hounding Jews out of theatres is reminiscent of humanity’s darkest days, and must have no place in central London in 2024.”
Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any further information is asked to contact us in confidence on +44 (0)330 822 0321 (option 2) or at [email protected].
UK government rebuked anti-Israel protesters with new laws
This week, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, announced several proposed amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, in a clear and targeted rebuke to anti-Israel marchers deliberately causing disruption in London and around the country and outraging the public over behaviour at war memorials and launching fireworks at police.
Mr Cleverly has proposed the following changes to the Criminal Justice Bill:
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit has for months observed protesters causing severe disruption to the public during their weekly anti-Israel demonstrations, including launching fireworks at police officers; desecrating war memorials; and preventing members of the public from travelling.
A further effect of these weekly protests is that a staggering 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid travelling to a city centre if a major anti-Israel demonstration was taking place there.
With protesters using rhetoric like, “Zionists are like Nazis, and if that’s antisemitic then f*** it. I don’t care” in last week’s protests, that sentiment is not surprising.
You can watch interviews, captured by our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit and Communications team, here.
For months now, we have been asking for tougher restrictions to be placed on these protests, which have made our urban centres no-go zones for Jews. While the police have failed the Jewish community and law-abiding Londoners, the Government, to its credit, is listening.
These new laws will help address the mob mentality that we have observed in these protests. There is no justification for such scenes, and now, there will be no legal defence.
The people of this country expect the lawlessness on our streets to be brought firmly under control, and with these changes there are now even fewer excuses for police inaction.
The Prime Minister recently explained how the weekly protests prompted the Government to act.
What is happening on British campuses?
In the past week, Jewish students at Birmingham had to face signs reading “Zionists off our campus”.
Our most recent polling shows that only 6% of Jews do not consider themselves to be Zionists. The University of Birmingham claims that it offers a “welcoming and supportive environment”. It doesn’t look that way.
At the University of Leeds, the synagogue and Hillel Jewish student centre was vandalised with graffiti reading “IDF off campus” and “Free Palestine”, and there are reports that the Jewish chaplain has received death threats.
Less than a day later, students on the same campus voiced support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen at an anti-Israel protest. The motto of the Houthis is: “Allah is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam.”
When support for an organisation that openly parades its antisemitism goes unchallenged on a university campus, what message is this sending to its Jewish students? What message does it send when they chant “There are many, many more of us than you”?
This is not some sort of social justice movement. It is an attempt by thugs to intimidate Jews and drive them out of our universities. The reaction of the universities must be swift and severe.
What does the David Miller judgment mean?
The Bristol Employment Tribunal has published its judgment in the case of the University of Bristol’s termination of Prof. David Miller.
David Miller, a disgraced academic obsessed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, was fired by the University of Bristol in 2021 following a Jewish communal outcry and one month after Campaign Against Antisemitism commenced a lawsuit on behalf of students against the institution.
Prof. Miller has a long record of inflammatory statements about the Jewish community. He now regularly appears on the Iranian state propaganda channel, Press TV.
Prof. Miller later sued the University, and the Bristol Employment Tribunal has now handed down its judgment.
Until this case, the exact reasons for Prof. Miller’s sacking by the University of Bristol were kept from the public. It is now clear that, despite its adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism, Bristol’s failure to recognise that Prof. Miller’s comments constituted antisemitism, as well as its failure to consider some of his most egregious comments, opened the way for this judgment.
But even so, the tribunal found that Prof. Miller’s misconduct was “extraordinary and ill-judged” and deserving of disciplinary action, albeit that it did not warrant dismissal. He was found to be “culpable and blameworthy”, and, if he had been fired for the right reasons, the result at the tribunal may have been different.
Importantly, the tribunal drastically slashed Prof. Miller’s compensation, including due to his behaviour since being dismissed, which the tribunal found led to a ‘realistic chance that the claimant would have been dismissed’ anyway.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is deeply concerned by the way in which the University of Bristol has handled this matter over the course of years. We hope and expect that Bristol will appeal this decision. We are considering the matter with our lawyers.
To understand better what this judgment does and does not mean, watch this explainer here.
In the wake of the judgment, Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities, told the House of Commons: “It is important to underline that this ruling does not change the fact that, while academics have the right to express views, they cannot behave in a way that amounts to harassment of Jewish students. Disguising this as discourse about Israel would be no more lawful than any other form of antisemitism.”
British universities cannot become places where students or academics attempt to intimidate Jews and drive them off campus. We will continue to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening and hold the thugs accountable.
If you are a student, academic, member of staff or chaplain at a university — or you know somebody who is and needs assistance — please contact us at [email protected].
In rebuke to anti-Israel marchers, Home Secretary proposes criminalising desecration of war memorials and taking pyrotechnics to protests
Today, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, has announced several proposed amendments to the Criminal Justice Bill, in a clear and targeted rebuke to anti-Israel marchers deliberately causing disruption in London and outraging the public over behaviour at war memorials and launching fireworks at police.
Mr Cleverly has proposed the following changes to the Criminal Justice Bill:
Our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit has for months observed protesters causing severe disruption to the public during their weekly anti-Israel demonstrations, including launching fireworks at police officers; desecrating war memorials; and preventing members of the public from travelling.
A further effect of these weekly protests is that a staggering 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid travelling to a city centre if a major anti-Israel demonstration was taking place there. Our urban centres have become no-go zones for Jews.
In December, Campaign Against Antisemitism gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee regarding the policing of protests. During the hearing, Chief Executive Gideon Falter pointed out that there is no freedom to intimidate others, glorify terrorism or commit acts of hatred under the law, and contrasted how police at the March Against Antisemitism in November were there to protect marchers from criminality, whereas at the weekly anti-Israel marches they are there to protect the public from criminals among the marchers.
James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said: “Recent protests have seen a small minority dedicated to causing damage and intimidating the law-abiding majority. The right to protest is paramount in our county, but taking flares to marches to cause damage and disruption is not protest, it is dangerous. That is why we are giving police the powers to prevent any of this criminality on our streets.”
National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Public Order, Chief Constable BJ Harrington, said: “We welcome the proposal to create new offences relating to war memorials and flares, as well as making it clear that covering your face at a protest to conceal identity is not acceptable.
“These changes are in-line with conversations that we have had with the Home Office to ensure that we have the powers that we need to get balance right between the rights of those who wish to protest, and those impacted by them.
“Thankfully, the use of flares and pyrotechnics at public order events is rare, but they are still extremely dangerous. Safety is our number one concern when policing these events, and the effective banning of these items during protests can only help in our mission to ensure that they take place without anyone coming to any harm.
“As with all policing powers, these new powers will be used when appropriate, proportionate, and necessary to achieve policing objectives. Policing is not anti-protest, but there is a difference between protest and criminal activism, and we are committed to responding quickly and effectively to activists who deliberately disrupt people’s lives with reckless and criminal acts.”
Andy Marsch, Chief Constable at the College of Policing, said: “I welcome the new offences this legislation will provide the officers who are policing protests and working hard, in complex environments, to keep people safe.
“The safety of both those protesting and others nearby trying to go about their business is the top priority and our training and guidance focuses on balancing the rights of those protesting with the rights of those affected. The new legislation is now clear that protest is not an excuse for serious disruption.
“As with previous changes the College of Policing will work quickly to provide practical advice, training and support for policing to utilise these new powers.”
Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “For months now, we have been asking for tougher restrictions to be placed on these protests, which have made our urban centres no-go zones for Jews. While the police have failed the Jewish community and law-abiding Londoners, the Government, to its credit, is listening. These new laws will help address the mob mentality that we have observed in these protests, including the use of fireworks against police officers, desecration of war memorials and severe disruption to travel. There is no justification for such scenes, and now, there will be no legal defence. The people of this country expect the lawlessness on our streets to be brought firmly under control, and with these changes there are now even fewer excuses for police inaction.”
CAA reacts to judgment of Employment Tribunal in David Miller case
Today, the Bristol Employment Tribunal has published its judgment in the case of the University of Bristol’s termination of Prof. David Miller.
David Miller, an academic obsessed with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, was fired by the University of Bristol in 2021 one month after Campaign Against Antisemitism commenced a lawsuit on behalf of students against the institution.
Prof. Miller later sued the University, and the Bristol Employment Tribunal has today handed down its judgment.
Our lawsuit related to Prof. Miller’s speech on a Zoom webinar in which he said that the “Zionist Movement” is “the enemy” that must be engaged, that it is “the enemy of world peace,” and that those associated with Zionism, including Jewish students on Bristol campus, “must be directly targeted”.
Taken together, the implication of Prof. Miller’s remarks is that all decent people who support “world peace” should view Bristol Jewish Society and the Union of Jewish Students, and Jewish people, including those who identify with those bodies, and the vast majority of Jewish students as an “enemy” that must be “directly targeted”.
He also said that interfaith work between Jewish and Muslim groups is “a trojan horse for normalising Zionism in the Muslim community”. He also claimed that Jewish students, by virtue of being Zionist, “encourage Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism”.
Prof. Miller has a long record of inflammatory statements about the Jewish community.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Until this case, the exact reasons for Prof. David Miller’s sacking by the University of Bristol were kept from the public. It is now clear that, despite its adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism, Bristol’s failure to recognise that Prof. Miller’s comments constituted antisemitism, as well as its failure to consider some of his most egregious comments, opened the way for today’s judgment. But even so, the tribunal found that Prof. Miller’s misconduct was ‘extraordinary and ill-judged’ and deserving of disciplinary action, albeit that it did not warrant dismissal. He was found to be ‘culpable and blameworthy’, and, if he had been fired for the right reasons, the result today may have been different.
“Importantly, the tribunal drastically slashed Prof. Miller’s compensation , including due to his behaviour since being dismissed, which the tribunal found led to a ‘realistic chance that the claimant would have been dismissed’ anyway.
“We are deeply concerned by the way in which the University of Bristol has handled this matter over the course of years. We hope and expect that Bristol will appeal this decision. We are considering the matter with our lawyers.”
If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].
Enough, it turns out, is not in fact enough
After weeks of resisting calls to impose restrictions on the weekly anti-Israel marches coursing through London, this week the Metropolitan Police Service finally agreed that enough is enough, and ordered protesters not to pass through Whitehall.
Then, under pressure, the Met reversed its decision, deciding that enough is not, in fact, enough, and that the protesters could march down Whitehall after all.
So, among the other rhetoric and signage, a flag, popular with Islamists, once again passed through the UK’s seat of government.
This is a humiliation for the Met and its Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, and serves as a reminder to the rest of us just how far our top police officers are willing to go to appease the mob.
To understand better the powers available to the Commissioner of the Met, the Mayor of London and the Home Secretary, watch this video here.
For one MP, enough is enough
The news this week that a senior MP and Government Minister is stepping down out of fear marks a dark time for democracy and the rule of law in Britain.
While the motivation behind the recent arson attack on Mike Freer’s constituency office is not yet clear, what is known is that the MP, who represents one of the country’s largest Jewish communities, has long been violently targeted by Islamist radicals and other extremists over his views on matters of Jewish interest, so much so that he has now announced his retirement, observing that “there is an underlying antisemitic part of the attacks.”
Regardless of political views, it should be deeply alarming to all people who care about our democracy that such fears are not only valid but can reach the point of driving elected MPs like Mr Freer out of public service.
We wish to thank Mr Freer for his longstanding and continuing support for the Jewish community, the fight against antisemitism, and Campaign Against Antisemitism, of which he has served as an Honorary Patron.
Alleged knife attack in Golders Green
Mike Freer’s announcement came just days after an alleged knife attack in his constituency.
On Monday, brave staff members of a kosher supermarket in Golders Green defended themselves against a man said to be wielding a knife in an alleged antisemitic incident.
We spoke with a member of staff involved, who told us that the suspect – appearing from footage to be a male dressed in a grey hoodie and grey tracksuit bottoms – entered the shop demanding to know the staff’s feelings on what was happening “in Palestine”.
One staff member refused to engage, explaining that he did not wish to discuss politics. He and another staff member then escorted the suspect out of the shop.
The suspect, shortly after, allegedly attempted to grab at one of the staff members’ neck. Defending himself with Krav Maga moves he remembered learning as a youth, the staff member tried to restrain him before hearing people around him yell “knife, knife”.
At this point, the staff member quickly backed away, and the suspect began moving towards him.
Thinking quickly, he grabbed a nearby shopping trolley, pushing it into the body of the suspect in order to create distance.
The staff member told us that he retreated into the shop, where the suspect then followed, before leaving and making his way across the road into a building.
He is alleged to have then left that building approximately five minutes later in a change of clothes, apparently wearing traditional Muslim garb, and began walking up the road.
One of the staff members then ran ahead of him so that he could view his face to confirm that this was the same man from minutes earlier.
Shortly thereafter, the suspect was apprehended by Shomrim North West London and the Metropolitan Police, and arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage and racially-aggravated affray.
He was then taken into custody, and has been charged.
We are continuing to support the victims and follow the matter closely.
Roger Waters dropped by record label following CAA exposé
It has been revealed that the music rights company BMG dropped the controversial rockstar Roger Waters shortly after we published our exposé on the musician, where we revealed that Mr Waters wanted to put “Dirty k***” on an inflatable pig and impersonated a Holocaust victim, among other allegations.
The decision, taken by BMG in the closing months of last year, was not accompanied by an explanation at the time.
The company, which is based in Germany, signed a publishing agreement with Mr Waters in 2016 and was scheduled to release a newly recorded version of Pink Floyd’s 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon last year, but withdrew and the re-recording was instead released by the UK-based record label Cooking Vinyl.
The split is reported to be unusual for a major publishing deal, and comes as Mr Waters’ reputation is in tatters following the release of our documentary. You can watch the film here.
The full documentary can be viewed at antisemitism.org/rogerwaters.
Vincent Reynouard to be extradited to France after action by CAA
Vincent Reynouard, a French Holocaust-denier, will be extradited from the UK after his application for leave to appeal was rejected.
Mr Reynouard, 54, a convicted Holocaust-denier, was awaiting a decision on his appeal after a court in Scotland granted an extradition request from France. Mr Reynouard was a fugitive in the UK who was caught following appeals from Campaign Against Antisemitism and our Honorary Patron, Lord Austin.
Mr Reynouard is a despicable Holocaust-denier who has repeatedly been convicted by French courts. For him to have evaded justice, only to settle in the UK as a private tutor teaching children, is intolerable, which is why we worked with French Jewish organisations to secure his extradition so that he faces the consequences of his abhorrent incitement.
We are delighted that those efforts have borne fruit, with the court granting the request to extradite Mr Reynouard and refusing his application for permission to appeal, so that he can face justice in France. This is not only the right judgement for the Jewish community, but also for the justice system. The UK cannot become a haven for those seeking to evade justice elsewhere. For antisemites in particular, the message is clear: you are not welcome in Britain.
Music label BMG drops Roger Waters following CAA exposé and controversial comments
Germany-based music rights company BMG has reportedly ended its relationship with the former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters. The move comes shortly after an exposé published by Campaign Against Antisemitism went viral in the autumn.
It is understood that the contract between BMG and Mr Waters was originally signed in 2016. The musician was due to re-record and release a newer version of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon in 2023. The contract, however, was cancelled and Mr Waters subsequently released the album with Cooking Vinyl, a UK-based label.
According to Mr Waters, the contract was cancelled due to alleged ‘pro-Israel pressures’ on BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann.
In September last year, Campaign Against Antisemitism published The Dark Side of Roger Waters, a documentary which reveals disturbing e-mails that were gathered during an investigation into allegations of antisemitism against the rockstar, as well as interviews with his former associates.
Mr Waters’ views on Jews have long been of concern to the Jewish community, with a number of well-documented controversies.
Mr Waters has always insisted that he is not an antisemite, but our investigation revealed e-mails from Mr Waters in which he proposed writing “Dirty k***” on the inflatable pig habitually floated above his concerts and suggested “bombing” audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas, Stars of David, dollar signs and other symbols.
The documentary also includes interviews with Norbert Statchel, Mr Waters’ former saxophonist, and legendary music producer Bob Ezrin, who produced The Wall, as well as hits for talent from U2 to Kiss to Taylor Swift.
Among various incidents, Mr Stachel says that Mr Waters lost his temper over vegetarian food at a restaurant and demanded that waiters “Take away the Jew food”, that Mr Waters mocked Mr Stachel’s grandmother who was murdered in the Holocaust, and that a colleague warned him not to react if he wanted to keep his job.
Mr Ezrin recounts an incident in which Mr Waters sung him an impromptu ditty about then agent Bryan Morrison, the last couplet of which ended with words to the effect of “Cos Morri is a f***ing Jew”.
Following the initial release of the documentary, we heard from Marc Brickman, a lighting director and former associate of Mr Waters.
We interviewed Mr Brickman, in which explained the conversations around the “dirty k*ke” e-mail and how he demanded to know why, if the purpose was to confront hateful phrases, it was only a racist epithet that targets Jews that was due to be included on the pig and no other offensive terms.
In the interview, he also reveals that the reason that the swastika confetti idea never materialised was only because nobody would make it, and that he was called out by Mr Waters for expressing his reservations.
These incidents and others that he recounts – including the proposed inclusion of an image of “a menacing Hasidic Jewish boy” alongside “an angelic Palestinian girl” – drew Mr Brickman to the conclusion that Mr Waters’ “definition of antisemitism is totally different than anyone else’s”.
Mr Waters was due to perform at the London Palladium on 8th and 9th October last year. Leading up to the performances, we orchestrated a number of activities to protest these performances, including delivering thousands of letters from members of the public to the theatre, parking an advertisement outside the theatre to raise awareness of Mr Waters’ record, driving a van around London drawing attention to the controversy, and picketing the venue.
The documentary’s investigation was led by John Ware, the BBC Panorama veteran and one of the UK’s foremost television investigative journalists, who has worked on exposés whose focus has ranged from IRA terrorism to antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.
The full documentary, and the follow-up film, can be viewed at antisemitism.org/rogerwaters.
What Holocaust Memorial Day Is, And What It Is Not
Around the world, International Holocaust Memorial Day was marked with dignity and respect. But not everywhere.
Some, like Labour MP Kate Osamor, used the occasion to imply in a message to constituents that what is happening in Gaza is comparable to the Holocaust and, by strong implication, that Israel acts like the Nazis, a breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism.
Her apology rang hollow, as if she was unaware of the meaning of her own remarks. Clearly, her understanding of antisemitism is deficient and not in accordance with that of her Party, which has adopted the Definition.
We have called on the Labour Party to suspend her, and she must be required to undertake antisemitism training by a reputable provider.
Meanwhile, at anti-Israel demonstrations in the UK, protesters desecrated the solemnity of the day, not only by equating Israel to Nazis as well, but also in providing a masterclass in how a phenomenon like Holocaust-denial begins, as they cast doubt on, played down or outright denied the Hamas atrocities of 7th October.
Leicester Square attack
Not only are the police failing to police the weekly anti-Israel demonstrations adequately, but they are also failing individual Jews under attack.
Last weekend, in the early hours of the morning, three Jews were physically assaulted by ten men in Leicester Square, resulting in serious injuries. Incredibly, not a single bystanders assisted.
Although the victims called the police while the attack was underway, and notwithstanding that it was taking place in the heart of London, police officers only showed up after half an hour, by which time the perpetrators had fled the scene.
The Metropolitan Police must identify and arrest the attackers. The victims are also calling on the police to apologise for failing them when they needed them most.
Watch the victims speak out here.
“Generation hate”: frightening new polling published
Campaign Against Antisemitism commissioned King’s College London to survey British adults’ attitudes towards Jews, using YouGov.
The polling has revealed worrying levels of anti-Jewish prejudice among the British public, with particularly frightening rates among young people aged between 18 and 24.
Published in the week of Holocaust Memorial Day, the polling raises serious questions about whether lessons about the antisemitism that motivated the Nazis have really been learned by British young adults.
Other findings from the survey:
The rhetoric that we are seeing online, on television and on our streets is radicalising the British public, but it is the rates of antisemitism that we have discovered among 18-24 year olds that are most frightening. This is generation hate.
On the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, our country needs an urgent rethink about how we teach about antisemitism. If young people cannot see the relationship between the genocidal antisemitism of the Nazis and the genocidal antisemitism of Hamas, and, as a society, we refuse to talk about how our attitudes towards Israel and its supporters are influenced by antisemitic prejudice, then we are clearly not talking about antisemitism properly.
Our education is failing the next generation, and our society is suffering as a result. It is British Jews who are paying the price.
The YouGov survey was designed and analysed by experts at KCL on behalf of Campaign Against Antisemitism. Total sample size was 2,084 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 8th-11th December 2023 by YouGov plc. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+). The full results, background information and methodology can be found here.
This weekend saw the memory of the Holocaust appropriated to abuse the Jewish community. What would the British soldiers who liberated the Nazi death camps make of Britain today?
Success for CAA as Holocaust-denier Vincent Reynouard loses extradition appeal
Vincent Reynouard, a French Holocaust-denier, will be extradited from the UK after his application for leave to appeal was rejected on Friday.
Mr Reynouard, 54, a convicted Holocaust-denier, was awaiting a decision from the court on the appeal after a court in Scotland granted an extradition request from France. Mr Reynouard was a fugitive in the UK who was caught following appeals from Campaign Against Antisemitism.
His extradition hearing followed several preliminary hearings and false starts to allow time for the content of videos, which were alleged to have been made by Mr Reynouard, to be translated into English, as well as other delays due to ill health on his legal team.
Mr Reynouard continued to post updates on his far-right blog, Sans Concession, despite being incarcerated as he awaited his extradition hearing.
The extradition request was granted after the court considered that the postings for which Mr Reynouard was found guilty in France would also be crimes in the UK under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
In a different case in 2018, Campaign Against Antisemitism secured a legal precedent that Holocaust-denial is “grossly offensive” and therefore illegal when used as a means by which to hound Jews. When it is delivered via a medium of communication, it can fall within the purview of the Communications Act. That English precedent has effectively been replicated in Scottish law in this case now as well.
Mr Reynouard was sentenced to jail for four months on 25th November 2020 by a court in Paris and again in January 2021 for six months, in addition to fines. His latest conviction is in relation to a series of antisemitic postings on Facebook and Twitter and a 2018 YouTube video for which fellow French Holocaust denier, Hervé Ryssen (also known as Hervé Lalin), received a seventeen-month-jail term earlier that year.
However, Mr Reynouard fled the country before serving his sentence and settled in the UK, where he reportedly worked as a private tutor teaching children mathematics, physics and chemistry. Private tutors are not required to undergo background checks.
In November 2022, he was finally arrested near Edinburgh. In the intervening months, Campaign Against Antisemitism has been cooperating with French Jewish groups seeking Mr Reynouard’s extradition to France. Along with Lord Austin, an Honorary Patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, we corresponded with police forces and prosecutors in the UK and Interpol in an effort to locate Mr Reynouard and bring him to justice.
Scottish police arrested him at an address near the Scottish capital, where he was apparently living under a false identity. He was brought before a judge on the same day and refused to consent to his extradition to France.
Early last year, Mr Reynouard appeared in court where he was served with a second arrest warrant, as the French authorities had allegedly made an error in their application for the initial arrest warrant. Paul Dunne, Mr Reynouard’s lawyer, said of Mr Reynouard: “He does not consent to his extradition to France.”
Mr Reynouard faces a sentence of almost two years in a French prison, in addition to any further sentence in relation to other ongoing proceedings. It is possible that his time in prison in the UK may reduce the length of his custodial sentence in France.
The Office Central de Lutte Contre les Crimes Contre l’Humanité, les Génocides et les Crimes de Guerre (OCLCH) — the arm of the French gendarmerie that specialises in hate crime and war crimes — has been leading the investigation.
Mr Reynouard’s first Holocaust denial conviction was in 1991 for distributing leaflets denying the existence of the gas chambers at concentration camps. Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in France since 1990. He has been convicted on numerous occasions and his subsequent sentences include multiple prison terms and a €10,000 fine.
Mr Reynouard is alleged to have ties to Catholic fundamentalist groups that deny the Holocaust. In a recent analysis of the French far-right, the newspaper Liberation claimed that Mr Reynouard and Mr Ryssen are key members of a network of propagandists dedicated to the denial and distortion of the Holocaust.
Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Vincent Reynouard is a despicable Holocaust-denier who has repeatedly been convicted by French courts. For him to have evaded justice, only to settle in the UK as a private tutor teaching children, is intolerable, which is why we worked with French Jewish organisations to secure his extradition so that he faces the consequences of his abhorrent incitement.
“We are delighted that those efforts have borne fruit, with the court granting the request to extradite Mr Reynouard, and refusing his application for permission to appeal, so that he can face justice in France. This is not only the right judgement for the Jewish community, but also for the justice system. The UK cannot become a haven for those seeking to evade justice elsewhere. For antisemites in particular, the message is clear: you are not welcome in Britain. Good riddance, Mr Reynouard.”
Hundred Handers far-right leader found guilty of racial hatred
The leader of a far-right group behind numerous stickering campaigns had been found guilty of racial hatred.
Sam Melia, 34, of Pudsey in West Yorkshire, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court of intending to stir up racial hatred through the distribution of the stickers and encouraging racially aggravated criminal damage.
Mr Melia, a professional sign-maker, was unmasked in 2020 as the leader of Hundred Handers, an anonymous network of activists who have carried out far-right stickering campaigns across the country and worldwide.
The stickers, which feature far-right slogans and imagery and antisemitic tropes, were seen in cities in Britain, Europe, the United States and Australia.
It was discovered that Mr Melia set up a Telegram group, which had over 3,500 subscribers, for Hundred Handers, where members could download stickers for printing.
The stickers featured text such as “there is a war on whites,” “they seek conquest, not asylum” and “intolerance is a virtue” alongside the group’s logo.
Police arrested Mr Melia in Farsley, Leeds in April 2021. Upon his arrest, stickers bearing nationalist text were discovered in his wallet.
At his home, police found a poster of Adolf Hitler, an emblem of an eagle with a swastika and a copy of a book by Sir Oswald Mosley, who was the founder of the British Union of Fascists.
Police also discovered digital archives of over 200 Hundred Handers stickers and evidence of the stickers being posted around the UK. They also found evidence that he encouraged members of the Telegram group to place stickers in public areas and proof that he carried out similar activities.
Mr Melia was also found to have told others to use anonymous e-mail providers and a VPN for any communication relating to Hundred Handers’ activities.
After police searched his home, the defendant and his wife discussed the raid online, which attracted almost 3,000 viewers and raised nearly £1,500 in one hour.
During the hearing, Mr Melia argued that, while his stickers could be offensive to some, any offence caused would be a “subjective reaction”.
When Mr Melia raised the issue of free speech, prosecutor Tom Storey dismissed the notion and stated that the case against the defendant was not to “punish someone for their political views.”
Mr Storey reminded the court that the charges brought against Mr Melia were based on his actions stirring up racial hatred.
In court, Mr Melia was joined by his wife, Laura Tyrie, who also goes by “Laura Towler” and is reportedly the Deputy Leader of Patriotic Alternative (PA). Ms Tyrie, who was in the public gallery, sat with Mark Collett, the leader of PA.
Mr Melia is also a regional organiser for PA, a UK-based group headed by the former leader of the youth wing of the BNP, Mr Collett. Mr Collett is reported to have dabbled in Holocaust denial, is regularly heard as a guest on the radio show of the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, and has described the Holocaust as “an instrument of white guilt”.
PA is known for its efforts to recruit youth to its white nationalist ideology. Previously, the far-right group published an online “alternative” homeschool curriculum condemned as “poison” and “hateful” and attempted to recruit children as young as twelve through live-streaming events on YouTube, according to The Times.
Mr Melia is due to be sentenced in March later this year.
This is the second conviction of a PA member. Last year, Kristofer Thomas Kearney, who said that Adolf Hitler did “nothing wrong” was jailed.
Nick Price, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: “Melia was perfectly aware that the stickers he published on his Telegram channel were being downloaded and then stuck up in public places around the country. He also knew full well the impact these racially inflammatory stickers were having, and by attempting to remain anonymous, sought to protect himself and others from investigation.
“He was very deliberate in the manner he wanted to spread his messages of racial hatred, and online messages recovered made it clear that he knew these stickers were being displayed in public and causing damage to public property. It is illegal to publish such material intending to stir up racial hatred towards others, and the CPS will not hesitate to bring prosecutions against those who break the law in this way.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism closely monitors the far-right, which remains a dangerous threat to the Jewish community and other minority groups.
“Generation hate”: new polling commissioned by CAA shows frightening rates of antisemitism among young people
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) commissioned King’s College London to survey British adults’ attitudes towards Jews, using YouGov.
The polling has revealed worrying levels of anti-Jewish prejudice among the British public, with particularly frightening rates among young people aged between 18 and 24.
Coming on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, the polling raises serious questions about whether lessons about the antisemitism that motivated the Nazis have really been learned by British young adults.
Other findings from the survey:
The YouGov survey was designed and analysed by experts at KCL on behalf of CAA.
Total sample size was 2,084 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 8th-11th December 2023 by YouGov plc. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The rhetoric that we are seeing online, on television and on our streets is radicalising the British public, but it is the rates of antisemitism that we have discovered among 18-24 year olds that are most frightening. This is generation hate.
“On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, our country needs an urgent rethink about how we teach about antisemitism. If young people cannot see the relationship between the genocidal antisemitism of the Nazis and the genocidal antisemitism of Hamas, and, worse still, refuse to talk about how our attitudes towards Israel and its supporters are influenced by antisemitic prejudice, then we are clearly not talking about antisemitism properly.
“Our education is failing the next generation, and our society is suffering as a result. It is British Jews who are paying the price.”
Full results
Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business.
Only three quarters of British people believe that Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business.
Jewish people are just as loyal to Britain as other British people.
Compared to the general population (one in twenty), double the proportion of 18-24s (almost one in ten) do not believe that Jewish people are just as loyal to Britain as other British people.
I am just as open to having Jewish friends as I am to having friends from other sections of British society.
Compared to the general population (2%), more than double the proportion of 18-24 year olds (5%) are not as open to having Jewish friends as they are to having friends from other sections of British society.
Compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media.
More than one in ten Britons believe that, compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media.
Jewish people talk about the Holocaust just to further their political agenda.
More than one in ten 18-24 year olds believe that Jewish people talk about the Holocaust just to further their political agenda.
Jewish people chase money more than other people do.
More than one in ten British people believe that Jewish people chase money more than other people do.
I am comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel
14% of British people are not comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel. Among 18-24 year olds, that figure rises to 21% – more than one fifth of the young population.
Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people
More than one in ten young Britons do not believe that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people.
Israel is right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it
Seven percent of Britons, and fourteen percent of young Britons, do not believe that Israel is right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it.
Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on our democracy
Over one quarter of young people believe that Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on our democracy, compared to almost one fifth of the wider British public.
Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media
Almost one fifth of the British public believes that Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media. Among young people, it is more than a quarter.
Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews
A quarter of British people over 64 believe that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews. Among 18-24 year olds, it is over a third.
Background and Methodology
The twelve statements – which include six relating to Judeophobic antisemitism and six relating to anti-Zionist antisemitism – together comprise the Generalised Antisemitism Scale.
The Generalised Antisemitism Scale was devised by Dr Daniel Allington of King’s College London, Dr David Hirsh of Goldsmiths, and Dr Louise Katz (then) of the University of Derby. The research behind the Generalised Antisemitism Scale has been peer reviewed.
In particular, in developing the Generalised Antisemitism Scale, they were guided by the International Definition of Antisemitism, which Campaign Against Antisemitism, together with other Jewish communal institutions from around the world, has long campaigned to be widely adopted. Further background on the Generalised Antisemitism Scale can be found here.
Our survey of British adults were conducted by YouGov Plc. The surveys were administered online to members of YouGov’s panel of over 1,000,000 British adults who have agreed to take part in surveys. E-mails were sent to adult panellists who fulfilled the requirements of the sample, inviting them to take part in the surveys, and providing a link to the survey. YouGov normally achieves a response rate of between 35% and 50% to surveys however this does vary depending on the subject matter, complexity and length of the questionnaire.
Total sample size was 2,084 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 8th-11th December 2023 by YouGov plc. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).
YouGov ensured that there were no duplicate responses and that all respondents were adults living in Great Britain.
The responding sample was weighted according to age and gender, social grade, political attention level, education, and region, in addition to past voting behaviour, to provide a representative reporting sample. The profile is derived from the Census as well as the mid-year population estimates and Annual Population Survey published by the Office for National Statistics.
How do we remember the Holocaust?
This week we approach Holocaust Memorial Day, which marks the Allied liberation of Auschwitz and commemorates the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. But how should we remember the Holocaust – the event for which the term “genocide” was coined?
From graffiti in Glasgow to a library in Tower Hamlets, we are all seeing comparisons of Israel to Nazis everywhere, in a clear breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism. At yesterday’s weekly anti-Israel protest, leaflets were distributed in London purporting to explain the “Zionist Holocaust, backed by the West, aping Hitler.” Across the channel in the Hague, the Jewish state is being accused of implementing a genocide.
The brutality of the antisemitic genocidal terror group Hamas has quickly been forgotten, and reminders of its barbarism – such as pictures of baby Kfir, who this past week turned one year old in Hamas’s clutches – are torn from walls.
Evidently, the enemies of the Jewish people view the Holocaust and its legacy very differently from the rest of us. This week will be an opportunity to ask ourselves why we continue to remember the Holocaust, and what lessons it is supposed to teach.
If you are organising or attending a Holocaust Memorial Day event, make sure that the right lessons are being taught. If they are not, please let us know.
Manchester marches against antisemitism
Weekly anti-Israel rallies featuring antisemitic rhetoric and genocidal chanting have made our urban centres no-go zones for Jews. It is intolerable.
Today, Campaign Against Antisemitism was proud to join Jews and allies in Manchester to march against antisemitism!
“Filthy animals and Zionist control”
Our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit, together with our communications team, went out to a recent anti-Israel rally and asked protesters why they were demonstrating.
Their repugnant responses were so voluminous that we couldn’t fit them all into one video. Here is Part One:
You can also watch Part Two and Part Three.
Are the police doing enough?
Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, appeared on LBC to defend policing of the weekly anti-Israel protests. Challenged by a caller, he claimed: “We’re determined to do everything we can do within the law to create the frameworks around protest to make sure that we balance the rights of protesters with not having the centre of London as a place where people such as yourself are afraid to come into.”
Given that our polling shows that 90% of British Jews say that they would avoid travelling to a city centre if a major anti-Israel demonstration was taking place there, we question Sir Mark’s satisfaction that the right “balance” has been struck.
Pressed on whether his officers are being robust enough with demonstrators who hold antisemitic signs and presented with the claim that, when protestors shout the genocidal chant “From the River to the Sea”, his officers just stand and watch, he insisted: “That’s not true.”
You can judge for yourself here.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has been at the forefront of holding the Met to account, and we will continue to do so in the weeks to come.
Proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir
While the Met Police may not be listening, the Government showed that it is. This week, Home Secretary James Cleverly announced that the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
When we discovered that Hizb ut-Tahrir had appeared to praise the Hamas attack of 7th October, we wrote to the Met to prevent the group from holding its demonstrations on the streets of London. The Met took no action and the rallies went ahead, in which there were calls for the armies of Muhammed to wage Jihad. Still, the Met refused to take action, making excuses to defend this rhetoric instead.
We therefore wrote to the Home Secretary calling for the controversial Islamist group to be proscribed.
We commend the Home Secretary for this significant announcement. for which we have called over the past few weeks and with which, according to our polling, 90% of British Jews agree.
It is absolutely the right step, and shows that the Government is listening. The Met should take note.
This week, as we approach Holocaust Memorial Day, we must ensure that the right lessons are being learned. We owe it to the past, and we owe it to the present and the future.
Home Secretary announces Hizb ut-Tahrir to be proscribed
The Home Secretary, James Cleverly, has announced that the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir is to be proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000, following calls to do so by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Islamist party which is actively operating in over 40 countries worldwide. It has been banned in a number of countries and is particularly active in the UK.
There have previously been considerations as to whether Hizb ut-Tahrir should be proscribed. Concerns were raised on those occasions in light of the fact that Hizb ut-Tahrir presents itself as a non-violent party (although members have been linked to violent acts in multiple countries).
On 17th October 2023 Hizb ut-Tahrir published on its website a call to the public to attend a national demonstration on 21st October 2023 at both the Egyptian Embassy and the Turkish Embassy.
The call-to-demonstrate post specified that the demonstrations were “in light of the heroic feats carried out by the heroic Mujahideen in the Blessed Land – Palestine under the slogan Al-Aqsa Flood against the usurping Jewish entity…” a reference to the Hamas attack of 7th October.
The post went on to clarify that the demonstration was organised “to call on the Muslim armies to break the shackles that the Ruwaibidah rulers have placed on them in their barracks and move immediately to trample the traitorous rulers and give victory to the Mujahideen in the Blessed Land – Palestine and liberate the blessed Masjid Al-Aqsa from the clutches of the occupying Jews”.
These published statements were explicit calls for serious violence.
Although Campaign Against Antisemitism immediately brought this information to the attention of the Metropolitan Police Service, no action was taken and the demonstrations proceeded. In view of this failure by the Met to act, we wrote to the then-Home Secretary calling for a proscription.
We also polled the Jewish community, 90% of which believes that the British Government should proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir.
We are pleased that the Government has listened and is proscribing the organisation.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “When we discovered that Hizb ut-Tahrir had appeared to praise the Hamas attack of 7th October, we wrote to the Metropolitan Police Service to prevent the group from holding its demonstrations on the streets of London. The Met took no action and the rallies went ahead, in which there were calls for the armies of Muhammed to wage Jihad. Still, the Met refused to take action, making excuses to defend this rhetoric instead.
“We therefore wrote to the Home Secretary calling for the controversial Islamist group to be proscribed. Our polling of the Jewish community showed overwhelming support for this policy change.
“We commend James Cleverly for this significant announcement. It is absolutely the right step, and shows that the Government is listening. The Met should take note.”
New year, same old hate – and where is the Mayor of London?
It may be a new year, but sadly what we are seeing on our streets is still the same old hate.
Last week, there was an illegal anti-Israel protest, which our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit captured on film, and during the week there were genocidal calls outside the Houses of Parliament. Yesterday, there was another large protest, which our volunteers also monitored.
But even as these demonstrations take place week after week, the Mayor of London has failed to speak out and take action. Perhaps Sadiq Khan did not want to provoke the ire of antisemites, as the Mayor of Bristol did when he expressed solidarity with the victims of Hamas terror.
But Mr Khan is also London’s equivalent of a police and crime commissioner. He is the elected official in charge of policing in our capital city at a time when 90% of British Jews say that they are feeling intimidated and bullied into staying out of city centres, according to our representative polling of the Jewish community.
This weekend, Campaign Against Antisemitism called on the Mayor finally to speak out against the marches on our streets that regularly feature antisemitism, glorification of terrorism and incitement to intifada.
The Mayor is not above criticism. After all, why is it that it is okay to criticise the Mayor over, say, knife crime but not okay to criticise him over antisemitic hate crime? Why do some people seem to think Jewish Londoners do not have a right to expect solidarity and action from their city’s mayor at a time of record antisemitism?
There seems to be a cynical double standard, which we do not accept. We will continue to hold politicians and police chiefs to account, without fear or favour.
100 days in captivity
Today, British Jews have gathered at Trafalgar Square to mark 100 days since the brutal Hamas terror attack.
Contrary to the claims of antisemites, Zionism and a strong connection to Israel are core to the identity of most British Jews. Over the winter break, we published polling that shows that a near-unanimous 97% of British Jews feel personally connected to events happening in Israel, and eight in ten British Jews consider themselves to be a Zionist. Only six percent do not. That is why so many turned out today.
For 100 days, the hostages taken by Hamas have been held in captivity by the terrorist organisation, in unimaginable conditions.
Among them is Kfir Bibas, who turns one year old this month.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is proud to join the call of the Jewish community and its allies to Bring Them Home!
Parliament acts
This week has seen a variety of welcome developments in the House of Commons:
Our volunteers also met with MPs this week, and our Policy Unit continues to engage with parliamentarians and the Government on a regular basis as part of our policy advocacy.
Wiley performance cancelled
You may recall that, in 2020, the rapper Richard Cowie, known as Wiley, published antisemitic and potentially criminal posts on social media. Numerous platforms suspended his accounts in response to the scandal.
Campaign Against Antisemitism continues to seek criminal prosecution against Mr Cowie in relation to these posts, which he published from abroad.
In the meantime, we have made every effort to prevent his hate from being normalised. This week, for example, we wrote to a venue that was due to feature him in a gig. Following our correspondence, he has been dropped from the lineup.
Are these peace marches? We want to hear from you
This past week, all eyes were on the Home Affairs Select Committee, where the organisers of the weekly anti-Israel marches were grilled by MPs and antisemitism experts gave evidence before parliamentarians.
Notwithstanding the evidence gathered week after week by our Demonstration and Event Monitoring Unit, the organisers of the marches, including leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Stop The War Coalition, insisted that these were peace marches, and that they not only “tolerate” the genocidal “From the River to the Sea” chant but actively chant it.
Are they really peace marches? Watch our video and decide for yourself.
After the organisers had their say, antisemitism experts had their turn answering the Committee’s questions.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, pointed out that there is no freedom to intimidate others, glorify terrorism or commit acts of hatred, and contrasted how police at the March Against Antisemitism were there to protect marchers from criminality, whereas at the anti-Israel marches they are there to protect the public from the criminals among the marchers.
This hearing was an opportunity to bring our polling results – your responses to our recent survey – to the attention of lawmakers. Thank you to the thousands of you who participated.
He also did not leave unchallenged Diane Abbott’s claim not to have seen any glorification of terrorism at these anti-Israel protests and her insistence that her Jewish constituents are unafraid to enter Central London during the demonstrations. (After we publicised her comments, members of the Stamford Hill Jewish community contacted us angrily to reject her assertions.)
Watch the exchange in the video.
Have you experienced or witnessed an antisemitic incident?
We are looking to collect filmed testimonials from the Jewish community to capture how British Jews are coping at a time of surging antisemitism.
Please contact us so that we can get in touch about arranging filming.
Solidarity during Chanukah
During Chanukah, it is traditional to display the Chanukah lamp at the window, in order to publicise the miracles that were bestowed on the Jews of antiquity who successfully overcame their oppressors.
This year, particularly after last week’s march, that feeling of defiance is stronger than it has been in a while, and we anticipate that many of the Jewish community’s friends and allies will be looking for ways to continue to show solidarity against antisemitism.
We have created an image of a Chanukah lamp which you can print and place in your window during the eight-day festival, which begins this Thursday evening. We have also included a version that can be coloured in, in case you have children who would like to get involved!
We would love you to send us pictures of images of your Chanukah lamp or the picture of the lamp in your window, which we can share on social media.
“Acheinu” – “Our Brothers”
Campaign Against Antisemitism, in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Rabbi, is delighted to present Jonny Turgel’s “Acheinu”, an anthem for the National Solidarity March Against Antisemitism that took place in Central London on Sunday 26th November 2023.
We were thrilled to have the Chief Rabbi among the speakers at the National Solidarity March Against Antisemitism and to have such an accomplished chazan in Jonny Turgel to express the feelings of the crowd that day.
We are honoured to have worked with him and the Office of the Chief Rabbi to create this music video to immortalise that most extraordinary day and to be able to present it to the Jewish community and our many friends.
Please share the video widely. May it bring light to us all in this particularly dark period for the Jewish people and our wonderful allies.
Wishing our Jewish supporters a Happy Chanukah!
CAA and the Office of the Chief Rabbi present Jonny Turgel’s “Acheinu”
Campaign Against Antisemitism, in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Rabbi Efraim Mirvis, is delighted to present Jonny Turgel’s “Acheinu”, an anthem for the National Solidarity March Against Antisemitism that took place in Central London on Sunday 26th November 2023.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We were thrilled to have the Chief Rabbi among the speakers at the National Solidarity March Against Antisemitism and to have such an accomplished chazan in Jonny Turgel to express the feelings of the crowd that day. We are honoured to have worked with him and the Office of the Chief Rabbi to create this music video to immortalise that most extraordinary day and to be able to present it to the Jewish community and our many friends.”
As we approach Chanukah, this is how we fight antisemitism
As the dust settles following the 105,000-strong March Against Antisemitism of last week, the contrast could not be clearer between us, seeking to uphold our right to walk the streets proudly as Jews and allies in safety, and those whose fight makes our city centres no-go zones for Jews on a weekly basis.
During this season, as we approach Chanukah, we are particularly attuned to the fight against antisemitism, and how we can wage it in twenty-first-century Britain in accordance with our values. Last Sunday, we showed the country and the world how we do it: peaceably, with dignity and in good humour. We showed British values at their best – by being proud Jews and allies.
We have now uploaded a picture gallery of the march, as well as a video of all of the speeches in full.
We were privileged to speak to many of you who attended to ask why you felt it was so important to participate and the impact that being there had on you.
The march was peaceful. The march was unthreatening. The march was different from all other marches that London has hosted in recent weeks.
The contrast could not be clearer between those who fight against antisemitism and those whose fight makes our cities no-go zones for Jews.
Solidarity during Chanukah
During Chanukah, it is traditional to display the Chanukah lamp at the window, in order to publicise the miracles that were bestowed on the Jews of antiquity who successfully overcame their oppressors.
This year, particularly after last week’s march, that feeling of defiance is stronger than it has been in a while, and we anticipate that many of the Jewish community’s friends and allies will be looking for ways to continue to show solidarity against antisemitism.
For those interested, we have created an image of a Chanukah lamp which you can