CAA rally tonight outside Scotland Yard calls on police to “Enforce the law” and “Make arrests, not excuses” as another “National March for Palestine” called for this weekend

The Metropolitan Police Service, like police forces across the country, has a responsibility to defend every community, including the Jewish community, which is all too familiar with the threats that face it.

What we have seen over the past two-and-a-half weeks, however, is an unprecedented 1,350% surge in antisemitic hate crimes met with relative inaction on the part of the police.

Too few arrests, lax policing, and excuses posted on social media for why certain chants and signs and phrases are not hate crimes — all to the incredulity of the Jewish community, the mainstream media and the Government.

As Jews, we are enormously grateful to the police for protecting our Jewish community and for keeping our cities safe. But over the past two weeks, our cities have felt less and less safe for Jews. It has hardly been reassuring to see such lax policing of demonstrations featuring genocidal chants, antisemitic signs, calls for Jihad against the Jewish state, and more. Given that a “March for Palestine” and other demonstrations are planned for this weekend and are likely to continue week after week, the Met must be seen to make urgent changes to its policing policy.

It adds insult to injury when the police take so little action against offenders on these marches but still find the time to stop our digital vans from displaying the faces of children taken captive by Hamas, to raise awareness of their plight, from driving around London.

Hundreds of Londoners of all faiths demonstrated this evening to show the depth of feeling.

Campaign Against Antisemitism Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, told the crowd: “Last Saturday saw an exhibition of Jew-hate as rarely seen before on the streets of London. Britain’s capital was effectively closed to Jewish people.” He further warned: “We cannot and will not endure weekly processions featuring terrorist sympathisers and antisemites through our streets. We are fortunate to live in a country with the freedom to demonstrate, but there are limits set by law and those laws must be enforced. The demands of an unlawful mob must not supersede the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

Lord Ian Austin, an Honorary Patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, demanded that the forthcoming King’s speech be used to introduce new policing powers to strengthen the police response

The leader of Christian Action Against Antisemitism, Tim Gutmann, described his treatment by police as they repeatedly told him that he and his supporters would be in danger if they proceeded with two solidarity rallies for British Jews, leading to their cancellation

Israeli author and activist Hen Mazzig told the crowd: “My Israeli family asked if they should come to London for respite and safety after the terrorist atrocity, and I told them that I am not so sure that’s what they would find here.”

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “The volume of phone calls and messages coming into our service in the last two and a half weeks is unprecedented.”

In their speeches, the speakers covered:

• The sad fact that the Jewish community is in such need of police protection;

• What went wrong on Saturday and why we cannot tolerate a repeat of it at the march this coming Saturday;

• The need for ‘section 12 conditions’ to be imposed on the march this Saturday, which our lawyers requested from the Metropolitan Police today;

• The existing legislation that the police should avail themselves of and the need to use the forthcoming King’s speech to grant the police additional powers;

• The dangers of this moment becoming a conflict between politicians and the police;

• The failures of police to protect two major solidarity marches by Christian groups, which led to those marches being cancelled on police advice;

• The predicament faced by officers policing large protests, and the need to ensure that the desires of mobs do not supersede the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Thanks to this demonstration and the lead-up to it, the Met has increased its sensitivity to the concerns of the Jewish community. It is enhancing the already existing cooperation between the force and Campaign Against Antisemitism on a number of fronts.

Placards read “Make arrests, not excuses”, “Enforce the law”, “Zero tolerance for antisemites” and “Act against hate before it’s too late”.

Police had to intervene in a number of instances when passersby shouted at the rally, with two people arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences. A prominent far-right figure was spotted in the crowd by our stewarding team and hounded out to calls of “racist scum, off our streets”, as we have done in the past when the far-right have attended.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Last Saturday saw an exhibition of Jew-hate as rarely seen before on the streets of London. Britain’s capital was effectively closed to Jewish people and anyone else not prepared to brave Islamist flags, supporters of terrorist organisations. calls for Jihad, genocidal chanting, and signs comparing Israelis to Nazis.

“The police were practically invisible, as they have been throughout the past two-and-a-half weeks. Almost the sole exception was when they swooped on our digital vans displaying the faces of children abducted by Hamas. Apparently that, in contrast to almost everything that we saw this weekend, was the real risk to a breach of the peace.

“The Jewish community is grateful to the many ordinary police officers who work tirelessly throughout the year to protect our community, but the Met’s leadership must adapt policing policy to the scale of the present threat and use the powers already available to make arrests.

“Since we started calling out the force and advertised this demonstration, the Met has already begun indicating that it recognises that policing to date has been inadequate, but it must go further. Firm law enforcement is the only way to deter offenders and reassure all law-abiding citizens that they are safe in our nation’s capital.”

Photo credit: Nathan Lilienfeld