Extremist pro-Palestine agitators intimidate Jewish families, proving Arab-backed hatred is poisoning Western streets.
London police on Sunday were forced to divert an anti-Israel protest away from St. John’s Wood Synagogue after dozens of activists—both Jewish and non-Jewish—assembled outside the building in what Jewish community leaders described as a deliberate act of intimidation, JNS reported.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said demonstrators were moved “around the corner,” warning:
“Once again, a red line has been crossed in Britain.”
Police stated that while they could not legally ban the protest, they invoked Public Order Act conditions to prevent a direct confrontation at the synagogue’s entrance, emphasizing that protesters were forbidden from entering the immediate area around the building. A counterprotest organized by Stop the Hate was likewise barred from approaching the site.
This intervention came after Jewish community groups raised alarms about the protest’s planned location—a synagogue filled with families and children, including guests attending a choral concert.
The CAA issued a stark warning:
“It is profoundly alarming that ‘Free Palestine’ groups told their followers to appear ‘visibly Jewish’ and protest outside a synagogue.”
The organization said that without police action, the synagogue would have faced a hostile crowd at its gates—an act of “performative intimidation” that has nothing to do with events in the Middle East but has devastating impact on British Jews, especially following the Yom Kippur murder of Jewish worshippers at Heaton Park Synagogue just weeks earlier.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned the event unequivocally:
“This is absolutely unacceptable.”
The Board added that after the disgraceful harassment outside a New York synagogue last week and the protest targeting London’s JW3 Jewish community center last year, it is clear that a radicalized segment of the global pro-Palestine movement is intent on spreading hate, provoking fear, and undermining social cohesion.
Britain has seen a sharp spike in antisemitism since Hamas launched its massacre on October 7, 2023. Since then:
- An Israeli academic’s lecture at City St. George’s University was stormed by masked activists screaming accusations and threats.
- Protesters chanted “From the River to the Sea,” a slogan calling for Israel’s erasure.
- University College London reported academic Samar Maqusi to police after she repeated blood libel rhetoric and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control.
These incidents highlight a deeply troubling trend: UK Jews are increasingly targeted not for their politics, but for their identity, as extremist groups import Middle Eastern hatred directly onto British streets.
