Since October 2023, from 5-6pm every Friday evening, the UK branch of the International Jewish Antizionist Network (IJAN) has held a protest to bring attention to the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, supporting war crimes and publicly inciting genocide.
Hotovely has called for the illegal annexation of the West Bank and has said “Every school, every mosque, every second house” needs to be destroyed in Gaza. IJAN-UK has also instructed lawyers to initiate legal proceedings for the arrest of Hotovely for incitement to genocide, which is the duty of all governments following the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2024, that Israel is ‘plausibly committing genocide’.
After peacefully protesting outside the ambassador’s official residence weekly for 19 weeks, we were banned by the police following the then PM Rishi Sunak call for a police crackdown on pro-Palestine protests on 1st March. We were forced to move to Swiss Cottage, the closest venue to the ambassador’s residence outside of the ban area, where we have continued in increasing numbers to hold our protest, calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, and the prosecution of war criminals like Benjamin Netenyahu and Yoav Gallant.
Zionists are attacking our legal peaceful Jewish-led protest with impunity
For the last three months our Jewish-led protest has been under attack by Zionists intent on disrupting us by provoking and intimidating our protestors. Despite our resisting every provocation, they have continued to
- try to drown out our open mic with megaphones and sirens
- invade our protest space
- film us up close in our faces
- shout racist, misogynistic and homophobic abuse, especially targeting Jewish antizionists as ‘Kapos’ as well as Palestinians and other Muslim people
- try to provoke conflict and even physical violence
- get us arrested by making false allegations against our participants – two of our protestors, were arrested and kept in the cells overnight, both released without any further action the next day
This thuggish, abusive and threatening behaviour is targeting our protestors, many of whom are women of colour, mothers, grandmothers and families with children, elderly people and wheelchair users. A woman who attended our protest last week was followed by a male Zionist to a local park after our protest had ended, he accosted her at the entrance, followed her inside and berated her further. She was extremely frightened by this and was fortunate that she was not alone.
The police are failing in their duty to protect our right to protest
The police are consistently failing to protect our right to peaceful protest, leaving us unsafe at times, despite numerous letters and a face-to-face meeting with a senior officer. Despite undertakings to keep a distance between us and the Zionists, more often than not the officers on site fail to keep the Zionists at a reasonable distance, allowing them to enter our protest area, come up close to us and film us with cameras right in our faces and other intimidatory behaviour. As we left the protest last week, Zionists blocked us leaving, forming a gauntlet where we faced a barrage of insults, threats and abuse, lunging at people, with one blasting a megaphone on full volume, inches from our ears. As we disperse, we are surveilled and filmed by the Zionists, and they wait for us at the local tube station entrance, again filming us.
Occasionally the police have kept the Zionists away from us and provided an escort from the site at the end. However, most of the time this does not happen. The police tell us, “they (the Zionists) have the right to be there”, and have ignored incidents of threats and even violence against our protestors occurring right in front of them. The police are ignoring obvious breaches of the peace and of the Public Order Act. It is clear that this lack of effective policing emboldens the Zionists, enabling them to act with impunity, and their abusive and intimidatory behaviour escalates. The tactics they use suggest they are being directed and organised by the Israeli embassy which has the support of the UK government. We are concerned this will lead to more serious incidents and actual bodily harm to our protestors.
We appeal to the media to come to our protest, to observe this attack on antizionist Jews and others, and publicise it.
Our protest is entirely peaceful and welcomes everyone who agrees with our core demand that the ambassador must be prosecuted and expelled from the UK for inciting genocide. We have an open mic where everyone is welcome to speak as long as they are anti-racist. It is regularly attended by 50-70 people (despite the abuse and intimidation by the Zionists), from all communities who are opposed to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. We are determined to continue our protest. We encourage all supporters of the Palestinian cause to join on Friday evenings at 5pm at the corner of Swiss Cottage library.
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