Police ban peaceful picket of Israeli ambassador, bowing to Zionist campaign
State repression against supporters of the Palestinian people continues apace.
Violent Zionist counter-protesters are shown on video disrupting a peaceful demonstration organised by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) on Friday February 21 which posed no threat to anyone, Jewish or otherwise, in the Swiss Cottage area. But it is the regular pro-Palestinian Jewish-led protest, targeting Israel’s ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotoveley, that has been subjected to restrictions amounting to a ban by the Metropolitan Police. This alarming decision follows a concerted campaign by Zionist groups to bombard the police with fake evidence of mass fear in the local community.
NWI
De facto ban on Jewish Anti-Zionist picket of Israeli Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) which has been holding weekly pro-Palestinian pickets since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza 16 months ago, on Friday held a demonstration outside Scotland Yard (pictured above) to protest against against punitive police measures.
In a press release IJAN said:
“For the past 69 weeks, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) has been peacefully protesting Israel’s Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, near her Swiss Cottage residency for her incitement of genocide against Palestinians. However, last night, the police imposed conditions to move the picket from Swiss Cottage to a specific — yet entirely arbitrary — location in King’s Cross undermining the whole purpose for its existence. This amounts to a ban.”
The explicitly Jewish-led anti-Zionist protest, with 70-100 attendees weekly, has “faced fury, harassment and intimidation from Zionists who deny or defend genocide of children and their parents, and criminalisation by the police who seem to act on their orders.
“This has meant the verbal abuse of Holocaust survivors, the vandalising of homes, doxxing and arrests (predominantly of Jewish activists speaking from their experience — e.g. Haim Bresheeth, Yael Kahn and Tony Greenstein), as well as the displacement of the picket multiple times to different locations.”
This video shows violent abuse experienced at the last Swiss Cottage picket on February 21. The Met’s announcement of its restrictions appears below.
News from the Met –
Conditions imposed on weekly protest in Swiss Cottage
The Met has confirmed conditions have been imposed on a long-running protest in Swiss Cottage.
The static protest in Finchley Road, at the junction of Eton Avenue, has been taking place on a weekly basis on Friday’s since October 2023.
From Friday, 28 February the protest, organised by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), must take place within a designated area in Kings Cross.
The decision to impose these conditions has been made with a view to minimising serious disruption to the community in the Swiss Cottage area.
Superintendent Jack Rowlands, who is responsible for the policing operation across Camden and Islington, said:
“Our role is to ensure all those exercising their right to protest can do so without incident and without causing serious disruption to the lives of the wider community.
“We have imposed conditions under the Public Order Act on when and where this protest can take place. I would ask anyone attending to make themselves aware of these conditions as to breach them, or to incite others to do so, is a criminal offence.”
The conditions state:
– Any person participating in the IJAN protest must remain in the area shaded on the attached map outside Kings Cross Station, Euston Road, London, on the pavement between the bus stop and pedestrian crossing.
– The assembly must finish by 19:30hrs.
Officers will be in attendance and we would encourage people to speak to them if they have concerns. They are there to ensure everyone is kept safe.
If you want to report anything suspicious you can call 101 or 999 in an emergency.
It says something about the issues of class and British citizenship in our era, in that we now have no comparable status to representatives of a racist state on the mere basis that is a US asset.
It also bears repeating for the umpteenth time – on the issue of citizenship – that though in the past our corporate news media warned LGBTQ people about the dangers of visiting North Carolina, no equivalent warning is issued to Black Britons about the dangers they’d likely encounter in parts on apartheid Israel. And let us recall the BBC pretends to be a public sector rather than the State Affiliated broadcaster, providing a service to power – that it so clearly is – so this is yet another racist stain on the corporations justifiably tattered reputation.
As this ban very specifically targets Jewish people I think it can reasonably be described as ‘antisemitic’. Organisations like the BBC, companies, schools, universities etc, tend to act to buy peace in such circumstances by doing anything to avoid the label ‘antisemitic’ , which no doubt the people who wanted these protests banned deployed this epithet ad nauseum. I doubt the police are any different; perhaps the people subject to this ban should use the same approach and leave the senior officer who authorised this to reflect upon the wisdom of his or her decision.
Your report correctly identifies the ambassador as Tzipi Hotovely. But the intro at the top refers to “Tzipi Livni” — not the same person, although they have the same first name.
amended and thank you for noting this
Maybe the protesters could form a moving line, using the pelican crossings and footpaths around Swiss Cottage, in order to avoid being accused of illegal assembly? A route could be established, which clearly identified a protest, but maybe silent with banners and placards?
Starmer`s Antidemokratische Vollstreckungsbeamte, have to be confronted, whilst enforcing the dictates of an existential foreign state? Perhaps the tactics of civil disobedience, used in Copenhagen recently at the headquarters of shipping company Maersk, might be a useful tool? The company allegedly ships equipment and supplies to the Zionist state. The number of people in attendance was so large, they staged a sit down protest. As the police tried to violently arrest and remove them, the crowd moved together and completely thwarted the armed police efforts to disrupt and disperse the protest. ? As the Zionist liars and the British state step up their silencing campaign and intimidation, we have to up our level of protest and use creative methods to undermine the ban and get our message across?
Nowhere on our “Democratic” UK Media do they tell us about the Labour, Tory, Lib-Dem “Friends of Israel” Sections of these Political Parties. Or Zionist
Lobbying Firms, Funded by the Israeli London Embassy. All UK Parties get Free
Israeli-Funded Trips to Israel. Who do our MPs represent ? Us or Israel ? The
UK “Daily Mail” and BBC wail about the Few Hundred Israelis Killed on
Oct 7th 2023. Nothing about the 60,000 Palestinians Killed by Israel in Gaza.
Including SIXTEEN THOUSAND CHILDREN.
Outrageous. What steps are needed? I watched the Trump Lithuanian sequences and am tracking Palestine/Israel etc.
If the conditions specifically state the IJAN protest is it not possible for another organisation preferably a Jewish one to organise a similar demonstration at Swiss Cottage starting at a slightly different time?