Much has been made of the supposedly peaceful nature of the weekly Palestine marches. But public order comes at a price. Yesterday, it emerged that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, wrote to the Home Secretary to request more funds for police officers, pointing out that Scotland Yard was facing a £240 million funding gap because of the demonstrations.
Since 7 October, he wrote, more than 28,000 officer shifts had been consumed by policing the protests in London. On top of this, the near-daily stunts mounted by Just Stop Oil – staged presumably when they are taking a break from creating havoc in railway stations for Palestine – have cost the force £20 million since their first campaign last year, requiring about 300 officers per day being taken away from frontline policing across London. This, of course, is troubling for the rest of the capital.
Are we really being asked to believe that a march that contains no chants or placards for peace is truly peaceful in spirit?
Is the Mayor to blame for running out of other people’s money? It’s possible. After all, one would expect rallies to be held on the streets of London from time to time, and a contingency budget would have seemed like a good idea. Nonetheless, sooner or later the weekly Palestine marches would drain the resources even of the most well-managed public accounts. They have presented a huge logistical and policing problem, mounted a regular challenge to the basic values of our country and have made mass intimidation and disruption fixtures of city life.
The police’s difficulties in addressing the open glorification of Hamas, calls for the genocide of Jews and expressions of base anti-Semitism are well documented. We know that officers are reluctant to confront thuggery when the cause is fashionable. But the Met deserves some credit for keeping the peace overall. While Palestine campaigners are claiming this as a victory of their own, insisting it proves that the mob is peace loving and non-violent, this is not true. Many of the marchers are simply ordinary people who have seen footage of Gazan suffering on television and drawn simplistic conclusions, but there is a hardcore that is criminal and must be contained. Some – including several of the key organisers of the protests – have strong links to Hamas. Other marchers have been arrested for drugs offences or on suspicion of criminal damage.
A few weeks ago, some shot fireworks at police in Trafalgar Square (are we supposed to have forgotten that?). And who can forget the scenes of a lone counter-protester holding an Israeli flag being set upon by a mob until police intervened to protect him? One of his assailants was seen threatening to behead him. The man was allegedly later found to be in possession of a knife.
Which brings me to the other reason these marches have been ‘peaceful’. By and large, Jewish people and pro-Israel counter-protesters have stayed out of the way. Aside from the Tommy Robinson contingent, which sadly turned up on Armistice Day, the streets of London are surrendered to the Palestine crowds each Saturday. Can you imagine the march turning onto Whitehall and catching sight of a collection of Jews and their allies from the Christian, Persian, Hindu and other communities flying Israeli flags and condemning Hamas? Their peaceful protest would come to an end tout de suite. To wit, while all over the country Palestinian flags fly from windows, you rarely see any Israeli flags. What are you, crazy? Many Jews can barely pluck up the courage to light their Chanukah candles.
On Saturday, officers came under fire for failing to arrest a man carrying an anti-Semitic placard because the Met was focussing on ‘crowd safety, potential disorder and other offences’. A few weeks ago, a policeman was filmed making the argument that ‘there’s more of them than us’ when asked about his light-touch approach. As infuriating as this is, it represents a hard truth. There has been rightful criticism of the way in which officers have failed to arrest those who openly break the law with signs and chants, but at least they have managed to keep order.
But let us return briefly to the Jews, Christians, Persians, Hindus and others who have been inclined to turn out for Israel. The march against anti-Semitism that took place a few weeks ago saw 105,000 people on the streets with zero examples of public disorder. There were just two arrests: Tommy Robinson – who had arrived uninvited and unwelcome – and a pro-Palestinian counter-protester. Many of the officers who lined the route were facing outwards away from the crowd rather than towards it; they had to watch out for threats to the marchers, not the other way round. Only two words were directed towards the police all day: ‘thank you’. Everyone was all smiles. And here was the real giveaway. There were regular songs and chants for peace. Now that’s a peaceful protest.
By comparison, calls for peace at the Palestine protests were few and far between. The closest they came were demands for a ceasefire, which would leave Israel vulnerable to endless repeats of 7 October. Are we really being asked to believe that a march that contains no chants or placards for peace is truly peaceful in spirit?
There are two problems with the Saturday marches. The first is the large numbers of people who are ignorant of the facts and attend without realising that they are strengthening the hand of global jihadism. They see the suffering of Gaza on television and perfectly rightly feel appalled. But due to lack of knowledge of the history and politics of the region, and without the insight to take on the unpalatable yet eternal truth that even a just and defensive war is hell, they take to the streets on the assumption that the Jews are once again unable to control their blood-lust. In a speech a few weeks back, the leader of Hezbollah praised the marches. With good reason: the longer they go on, the greater the international pressure on Israeli defenders and the better the chances of a jihadi victory.
The second problem is the more worrying one: the hardcore of Hamas supporters and their sympathisers who form the skeleton of the Saturday rallies. The radical preachers praising the genocide of Jews from the pulpit every Friday. The Hamas activists and officials who have been allowed to live freely in Britain for years, often in positions of influence over the police or in the corridors of Whitehall or Westminster. The thugs from the north who bus down to shoot fireworks at police, climb statues, deface memorials and bring London to a halt. The hundreds of hard-left activists who regularly hoist hateful placards and spout Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
These people have been a problem in Britain for a very long time. Like Hamas in Gaza, most have been open about their ideologies and intentions. But the authorities have failed to take them seriously. If in recent decades the security services and police had arrested anybody breaking the law by glorifying, supporting or promoting terrorism, the Mayor wouldn’t be asking for £240 million to contain the problem now.
Comments