A woman is standing next to a group of Holocaust survivors and their descendants in Trafalgar Square, clutching her dog’s lead and livestreaming her challenge to the pro-Palestine marchers on her phone. “Why will none of you condemn Hamas?” she repeats several times, for the benefit of those watching online.
Most of the marchers ignore her, preferring instead to show their appreciation for the group of 11 survivors who oppose Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza. One man yells at her but is quickly ushered along by his friends. One young woman standing with the survivors kneels down to make friends with the dog.
But this is a march of thousands of people and one Londoner, probably in his 50s, takes the bait, yelling about “you bloody evangelical Christians” and knocks her phone out of her hands as she turns to film him. “Where are the police?” she calls, and in the commotion ends up on the ground, cutting her leg on some broken glass. Some of the marchers come to her help, and she dabs the blood with a tissue, then goes back to her livestream. She refuses to give her name, just that she “represents the kingdom of God”.
Does the scuffle show that London is a no-go zone for people who disagree with the demonstrators? Or, if even someone apparently trying to provoke a response can stand in relative safety, is that evidence, as the Holocaust survivors group hopes to show, that this is a peaceful protest where Jews should feel safe?
The survivors group were at the front of the march when it set off just before 1pm in Whitehall on Saturday, the thirteenth time demonstrators have gathered in central London to oppose the war in Gaza after the 7 October attacks by Hamas.
After the previous march, Gideon Falter, the leader of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, released a video clip of a police officer telling him that he could not walk across the march because he was “openly Jewish”, which Falter said showed that London had become a no-go area for Jews during the protests. It led to calls from former home secretary Suella Braverman for the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to resign.
But the release of a 13-minute video showed a much longer and more nuanced exchange between Falter and the officer, who offered to escort Falter away from the demonstration and said he was being disingenuous about his motives for wanting to cross the road at that point.
Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old from Budapest who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, was in the centre as they walked up Whitehall.
“We want to stress our solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Kapos said, adding that memories of the Holocaust should not be used as cover for Israel’s actions in Gaza. “The right wing has been claiming that there are no-go areas of London for Jews. We want to prove that’s wrong – we are very welcome here.”
“Openly Jewish” had become something of a slogan on the march yesterday, and some people were spurred to join the demonstration by Falter’s video.
Simon Moore, a GP from Muswell Hill in north London, wore a handmade sign around his neck about his father, who arrived on the Kindertransport.
“I know my dad would have believed in the Palestinian cause,” he says. “He was a victim of the same thing that is happening now. It’s very important that Jews or people with Jewish heritage say that this is wrong.”
