Starmer calls for police crackdown on antisemitic chants at pro-Palestine marches
Sir Keir Starmer called for a police crackdown on anti-Semitic slogans at demonstrations, including pro-Palestinian marches, saying the government “will not tolerate” it.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said “freedom of expression is an important right in this country, which does not include inciting hatred or harassing others” and said police would use their powers “more strongly” to combat the spread of antisemitism.
The attack came after two gunmen attacked Hanukkah celebrations at Australia’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, killing 15 people and wounding 27 others.
On Monday, a spokesman for a Jewish security charity warned that violent slogans at protests could lead to deadly atrocities such as the Bondi Beach attack if “unchecked”.
Dave Rich, policy director at the Community Security Trust (CST), which provides protection for Jewish communities in the UK, said there was “no difficult link to make” between the hatred directed at Israel during the marches and “this kind of violent terrorism”.
He said calls for “intifada” and the phrase “from river to sea” used by some protesters at pro-Palestinian demonstrations were not properly challenged.
Chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, meanwhile, warned that “hate speech has the potential to escalate into hate action.”
He said: “On a weekly basis, we see people on the streets of cities across our country chanting slogans that incite hatred, such as ‘from river to sea’ and ‘globalize the intifada’.
“What does ‘globalization of the intifada’ mean? We discovered what it meant on Yom Kippur at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester. Australians discovered what these words meant at Bondi Beach.”
“And it’s time for us to make it clear that this type of speech is illegal. It will not be accepted. It has been going on for too long. So much of hate speech has the potential to escalate into acts of hate.”
Asked whether the government would introduce legislation to ban anti-Semitic chants, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “The Prime Minister accepted that these particular slogans were a call to attack Jewish communities around the world.
He added: “Freedom of expression is an important right in this country, but it does not mean inciting hatred or harassing others.
“We have seen a proliferation of anti-Semitic incidents at these marches, and we will not tolerate it.”
The spokesman continued: “In addition to stronger use of existing police powers, the home secretary is also looking at the cumulative impact of marches and protests… and this includes looking at the repeated occurrence of marches, each time in the same place, and the distress and impact this has on some sections of our community, such as Jews living in the UK.
“Obviously the police have existing powers and we expect them to use more.”
In October, Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood said police forces would be given the power to impose conditions on repeated protests.
It came after Mr Rich told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’ve had massive ongoing protests in our city centers and university campuses, with calls for an intifada, calls for resistance, all kinds of violent rhetoric, calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, the phrase ‘river to sea’ used by many Jews to imply that.”
“And none of that language has been challenged or really addressed properly, either by law enforcement or by the organizers of these demonstrations or by the broader community. And the Jewish people see a connection, too.”
“I think people see a connection between violent words and violent actions, if left unchecked.
“And when there are terrorist attacks like we had at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester or the horrific atrocities we saw at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Jews make the connection.”
Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones said people should avoid using slogans such as “globalise the intifada” and “river to sea” following the terror attack in Sydney.
Asked about his remarks, he told Sky News: “I want to be very, very clear that these kinds of chants, any chants designed to intimidate, to call for violence, to call for the killing of Jews, are absolutely unacceptable.”
He said people had the “fundamental right to protest” but “not the right to intimidate British citizens or call for violence on our streets because unfortunately we have seen the consequences of what happens when that is done.”
Intifada is an Arabic word meaning “to be shaken,” according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU).
The American Jewish Committee noted that the phrase “is used by pro-Palestinian activists who call for aggressive resistance against Israel and those who support Israel.”
Mr. Rich said such statements should not be allowed at demonstrations, adding that “there has been two years of record levels of antisemitism in this country.”
He said: “Every Jew has felt it and experienced it, and everywhere in society – in workplaces, in institutions, in regulators – people often turn a blind eye or take the path of least resistance and allow this problem to fester, and then we end up with situations where Jews are being murdered in the streets.”
The latest official statistics covering England and Wales, published in October, showed that Jewish people had a higher rate of religious hate crimes against them than other faith groups when all police forces were taken into account.
According to Interior Ministry data, 106 religious hate crimes per 10,000 people targeted Jews by March.
