Some of the worst anti-Semitic protests in the Western world have been in London. The protests have been violent. A mob invaded a café and demanded that Jewish donors leave. They threatened opponents with a knife. They took over major train stations shouting, “Death to all Jews!” A London train driver led his passengers in a chant of “Free, free Palestine.”
Police have addressed the problem by telling British Jews in the city not to wear yarmulkes or stars of David.
But the police and locals themselves have been anti-Semitic. Westminster City Council allowed pro-Hamas demonstrators to set up a stage next to the Cenotaph, Britain’s most important monument to its war dead. It’s hard to imagine a more sacred spot outside of Westminster Abbey. Hamas sympathizers called for a Jewish genocide next to a monument for those who died stopping one.
At another protest, one protester waved the al Qaeda flag while praising the Islamic State and calling on Allah to curse the Jews. The police acted quickly—by posting on X that “the flags in this photo are not those of ISIS. … We have specialist officers with knowledge of flags working on this operation ….” It’s only al Qaeda’s flag, not the Islamic State’s—nothing to see here.
Another protester called for “jihad by the armies of the Muslim countries.” The Metropolitan Police responded with a tweet saying that “jihad has many meanings”—as if “jihad by the armies of the Muslim countries” could simply mean a personal fight against immorality.
Is there nothing that will make British police intervene? One man crossed a line by bringing an English flag. London police told him to put it away and that he’d be arrested if he repeated his “close to racist” actions again.
Meanwhile, they have torn down posters of Jewish hostages and banned a TV van from showing pictures of Jewish victims while driving around London. You can publicly call for murdering Jews, but you cannot show pictures of their dead bodies. That is a shocking double standard.
Are there Hamas sympathizers in the police? We know there are in their advisers. Mohammed Kozbar praised Hamas’s founder as “the master of the martyrs of the resistance.” Kozbar is deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, an organization the government cut ties with in 2009 when it called for attacks on the Royal Navy. He also sits on a panel that advises London’s police and prosecutors on hate crime.
Kamel Kozbar, a Hamas supporter in Lebanon, was invited to advise police on London’s Muslim community this summer.
When Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the protests “hate marches” and said the police “played favorites when it comes to demonstrators,” she was fired. Supporting Hamas won’t end your career—but standing up for Israel will.