Met Police bans JEWISH anti-genocide protesters from vast area of London

After weeks of police violence and trying to drum up opposition from residents, Met turns huge area of N London into no-go area for Jewish humanitarians

The Met Police, after weeks of violent arrests of peaceful Jewish anti-genocide protesters and trying to whip up opposition from local residents to justify its repression and draconian policing, has issued a blanket ban across a huge area of north London barring Jewish protesters from demonstrating anywhere the residence of Israel’s extremist ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely.

The area extends far beyond the boundaries of Swiss Cottage, from Regent’s Park and Marylebone in the south to Hampstead Heath and Cricklewood to the north:

In a social media statement, the Met claims that the ban on the weekly protest organiser by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) is to prevent ‘further serious disruption to the life of the community’, but the weekly Friday night protests have been concentrated in a small area by Hotovely’s residence and links the entirely peaceful, Jewish-led protests to ‘hate speech’ and ‘antisemitic hate crime’:

The force also claims to have seen ‘instances of hate speech and intimidating behaviour’ – but no participant in the anti-genocide protest has been convicted of any such crime, while pro-Israel protesters, by contrast, have been aggressive and abusive. Nor were there significant complaints about the protest from residents, leading to the police leafleting the area in an attempt to manufacture opposition:

A spokesperson for the group told Skwawkbox:

This is the seventh time we have been banned from one place or another. The police are acting on behalf of the Board of Deputies and the Israeli ambassador. We are outraged by the starvation of children and families. We are now picketing parliament daily.

Since October 2023 Israel has killed more than 200,000 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians and mostly women and children. It also used terrorist tactics to kill and maim thousands in Lebanon, including children and continues to bomb civilians and target journalists in both Gaza and Lebanon and has imposed a starvation blockade on Gaza’s almost two million surviving people that has pushed almost 300,000 children to the brink of death from malnutrition.

The Starmer government, which has refused to condemn Israel’s actions and continues to provide it with both weapons and direct military assistance, has said it considers the use of the word ‘genocide’ unhelpful and Starmer himself said last week that he has never called Israel’s campaign a genocide. The International Court of Justice is investigating Israel for genocide, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and UN experts have confirmed that Israel is committing exactly that, along with a string of other war crimes.

Starmer and his agents is also misusing both the Public Order Act and the Terrorism Act to criminalise peaceful protesters and those who report on or oppose the genocide and occupation, many of them Jewish, to protect Israel from protest and the exposure of its war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Met has also charged peaceful marchers under the legislation, claiming they ‘forced’ their way through police lines when abundant video evidence shows police officers telling the marchers to cross.

Jewish Voice for Labour, whose members also participate in the peaceful Swiss Cottage protests, said of the ban:

This is a vast exclusion zone and represents a major escalation in the drive to criminalise all dissent.

If they manage to enforce this on protests against genocide they will surely extend it to silencing opposition to many other outrages

Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.