‘Zero tolerance for antisemitism’: Tens of thousands march against hate in London
In largest march for decades against Jew-hatred, demonstrators, some waving Israeli flags, are joined by ex-UK prime minister Boris Johnson, a day after mass rally for Palestinians
Tens of thousands of demonstrators, some waving Israeli and British flags, marched against antisemitism through central London on Sunday.
The protest, which police estimated at 50,000 strong and organizers said drew 60,000, came a day after large pro-Palestinian crowds took to the streets of Britain’s capital to demand a full ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Speaking at the march, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said Jews “will not be intimidated.”
“We must teach our children that the superheroes of our society are those who pursue peace and loving kindness, and not those who glorify violence and murder, and we must teach people that they must draw their conclusions from historical facts and not from what they see and hear on social media,” Mirvis said.
The UK has seen a spike in antisemitic incidents since the unprecedented deadly Hamas onslaught in Israel on October 7 unleashed war in the Gaza Strip.
“The hate has got to disappear. You can’t have hate on either side,” 69-year-old retiree Michael Jennings told AFP, as the march began outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
Demonstrators, who were joined by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson, held posters that read “Zero tolerance for antisemitism” as they walked to parliament.
They also displayed photographs of Israelis and foreigners kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7, when the group launched a devastating cross-border attack, sending thousands of terrorists to breach the border and rampage through the south, overrunning communities and slaughtering those they found. The attackers killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted roughly 240 people of all ages and took them to Gaza.
“We’re here to support Israel. We’re here to ask for the release of all the hostages,” 52-year-old Debby Goldberg told AFP, a large Israeli flag wrapped around her shoulders.
“We’re here asking for peace and asking for this nightmare to be over,” added Goldberg, an Israeli citizen originally from Argentina.
Omer Plotniarz, a 37-year-old music therapist, said he was so worried about antisemitism that he had not brought his wife and child on the march.
“We’re not here about hating people. We’re not here to shout for murder. On the seventh of October, we woke up to a new reality and we are all traumatized by that,” he told AFP.
Plotniarz and other protesters wore stickers that said: “Our love is stronger than your hate.”
“We just want to see our babies, our wives, our brothers, sisters, everyone back home,” Plotniarz added.
A third set of 14 Israeli hostages was released by Hamas on Sunday in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners as a delicate pause in the seven-week war held.
Johnson was joined by senior government officials at the march to express solidarity with the Jewish community. Organizers billed it as the largest gathering against antisemitism in London since World War II.
At the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, London’s largest gathering against antisemitism, approximately a quarter-million people — a mix of Jews, Irish dock workers, the local working class and communists — gathered to prevent a government-sanctioned march by the British Union of Fascists through a Jewish neighborhood in the city.
Boris has arrived at the march against antisemitism pic.twitter.com/cXH9VL2LvD
— Josh Kaplan (@JNkappers) November 26, 2023
Gideon Falter, the chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said that Sunday’s rally came after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that had made the capital a “no-go zone for Jews.”
During Sunday’s march, police arrested far-right agitator Tommy Robinson who had been told by Jewish leaders to stay clear of the demonstration. Police said he refused to leave after he was warned about concerns that his presence would cause “harassment, alarm, and distress to others.”
A Jewish charity, the Community Security Trust (CST), has said that in the 40 days from the initial Hamas attack to November 15, it recorded at least 1,324 antisemitic incidents across Britain.
That was the highest-ever total for a 40-day period since it began logging incidents in 1984, and it compares with 217 incidents reported in the same period in 2022.
