International Jewish network denounces ‘Zionist provocation and abuse’

Protest against far-right Israeli ambassador to UK has faced threats, intimidation and assault

From 5-6pm every Friday evening since October last year, the UK branch of the International Jewish Antizionist Network (IJAN) has held a protest to bring attention to the support of Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely for Israel’s war crimes and her public incitement of genocide.

Hotovely has called for the illegal annexation of the West Bank and has said “Every school, every mosque, every second house” needs to be destroyed in Gaza:

IJAN-UK has also instructed lawyers to initiate legal proceedings for Hotovely’s arrest for incitement to genocide, which the group considers the duty of all governments following the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January, that Israel is ‘plausibly committing genocide’.

After peacefully protesting outside the ambassador’s official residence every Friday for nineteen weeks, IJAN was banned by the police following then-PM Rishi Sunak’s 1 March call for a police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests and was forced to move to Swiss Cottage, the closest venue to the ambassador’s residence outside of the ban area. The protests have continued to grow, with greater numbers of people calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, and for the prosecution of Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and other leading Israeli figures involved in the slaughter. 

“Zionists are attacking our legal peaceful Jewish-led protest with impunity”

The group says that for at least the last three months the Jewish-led protest has been under attack by Zionists intent on disrupting it by provoking and intimidating protestors. Despite the IJAN protesters’ resolute refusal to respond to the provocation, in tactics typical of those seen by Zionists in the US and elsewhere, supporters of Israel’s genocide have:

• tried to drown out protesters’ microphones with megaphones and sirens 
• invaded the protest space 
• invaded personal space to film and attempt to intimidate protesters 
• shouted racist, misogynistic and homophobic abuse, especially targeting Jewish anti-Zionists as ‘Kapos’ – a vile insult from the Holocaust – as well as Palestinians and other Muslim people
• tried to provoke conflict and even physical violence  
• tried to get protesters arrested by making false allegations against participants – two demonstrators were arrested and kept in the cells overnight, before both were released without any further action the next day

A statement from the group about the abuse reads:

This thuggish, abusive and threatening behaviour is targeting our protestors, many of whom are women of colour, mothers, grandmothers and families with children, elderly people and wheelchair users.  A woman who attended our protest last week was followed by a male Zionist to a local park after our protest had ended, he accosted her at the entrance, followed her inside and berated her further.  She was extremely frightened by this and was fortunate that she was not alone.   

“The police are failing in their duty to protect our right to protest”

The statement continues:

The police are consistently failing to protect our right to peaceful protest, leaving us unsafe at times, despite numerous letters and a face-to-face meeting with a senior officer.  Despite undertakings to keep a distance between us and the Zionists, more often than not the officers on site fail to keep the Zionists at a reasonable distance, allowing them to enter our protest area, come up close to us and film us with cameras right in our faces and other intimidatory behaviour.

As we left the protest last week, Zionists blocked us leaving, forming a gauntlet where we faced a barrage of insults, threats and abuse, lunging at people, with one blasting a megaphone on full volume, inches from our ears.  As we disperse, we are surveilled and filmed by the Zionists, and they wait for us at the local tube station entrance, again filming us.

Occasionally the police have kept the Zionists away from us and provided an escort from the site at the end.  However, most of the time this does not happen.  The police tell us, “they (the Zionists) have the right to be there”, and have ignored incidents of threats and even violence against our protestors occurring right in front of them.  The police are ignoring obvious breaches of the peace and of the Public Order Act.  It is clear that this lack of effective policing emboldens the Zionists, enabling them to act with impunity, and their abusive and intimidatory behaviour escalates.  The tactics they use suggest they are being directed and organised by the Israeli embassy which has the support of the UK government.  We are concerned this will lead to more serious incidents and actual bodily harm to our protestors.

Our protest is entirely peaceful and welcomes everyone who agrees with our core demand that the ambassador must be prosecuted and expelled from the UK for inciting genocide.  We have an open mic where everyone is welcome to speak as long as they are anti-racist.  It is regularly attended by 50-70 people (despite the abuse and intimidation by the Zionists), from all communities who are opposed to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. 

We are determined to continue our protest.  We encourage all supporters of the Palestinian cause to join on Friday evenings at 5pm at the corner of Swiss Cottage library. 

IJAN is also appealing to the media to come to its Friday evening protests to observe Zionist attacks on anti-Zionist Jews and others and to publicise them. Based on their track record so far, the UK ‘mainstream’ media will ignore the call and continue to repeat claims by far-right Zionist spokespeople without scrutiny.

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