To think this attack on London Jewish schoolchildren should have been headline news

I think I can pretty much guarantee that they are anti-Semites - random thugs might throw stones at a bus, but they don't rush onto it shouting 'Fuck Israel', they don't tend to have much of an interest in world politics. I doubt that they've developed an interest in the Middle East from reading the Guardian but have conflated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

This isn't about rivalry between different schools, this is about kids who have been exposed to anti-Semitic ideas in the home or community and are acting on them.

It is a public bus though, a school route, but a public bus funded by TFL

We have a major problem round here with kids chucking stuff at other school buses. One of my kids currently has a minor injury from it.

I still think this should be in the news more because it's not the same.

Throwing rocks, actually biarding the bus and targeting it specifically to shout anti Semitic things is vastly different** to some bored kids taking advantage of being finished first to chuck a few stones and shout "your school is shit". So different.

As is the fact the bus driver didn't call the police or report it. That's the bit that should be headline for me. The adult in charge of the bus did nothing about reporting this attack. Presumably they too just felt like many on this thread.

Because it’s school kids. 11 year olds going to school by bus. If you can’t see it’s particularly awful to terrorise children, I don’t know what to say to you.

Private school bus. Not private school. As in, not a public bus.

It was a question not an accusation.

JFS isn't a private school so your point is moot.
Yes, there used to be rivalry between schools. I went to JFS when it was in Camden and there were often fights between us and local schools but not like this, These were innocent kids on their bus, not rolling up their sleeves for a fight.

It's not 'misbehaviour' - it's Jew hate. Let's get the terminology right here or we'll never progress.
I don't think teenage thugs getting on a bus and throwing dirt and shouting antisemitic abuse is 'not behaving well'. Come on! As I said in my repsonse to the OP, my DCs went to this school over a period of 9 years between them and never met such abuse.

Erm… I was replying to someone who said that this wouldn’t be reported on if it was any other demographic. I disagreed.

I didn’t make it about anything.

Maybe children on a private school bus travelling to school had it coming? Is that your point?

I've name changed for this as it's outing.
My (now adult) DCs went to that school not so long ago and got one of the 'school buses' (not that route) and I am very upset at this news (I did know about it, but it hasn't been widely reported). Those buses go straight in to the school grounds so are seen as 'safer' by parents as there's no walking to or from nearby bus stops or the tube, but unfortunately that doesn't stop individuals getting on the bus at regular stops, although they are usually full of school kids so who really wants to!
These assailants went on to the bus shouting anti-semitic abuse and throwing dirt. It wasn't just throwing stuff 'at the bus' (which is also unacceptable, but at least a bus is an inanimate object).
Obviously Jewish school children have nothing to do with the politcs of Israel or what is going on in Gaza, so to me it is just an excuse for rabid antisemitism to become more 'acceptable'. I hope the reason for less wider reporting was because of copy cat fears, but I doubt it.
Unfortunately the issues in Israel/Palestine are couching antisemitism in the veil of antizionism. Zionist has always been a byword for Jew.
To anyone posting vile messages on here, please try and educate yourselves, it's not hard. You're showing yourselves up for the ignoramuses that you are.
MN - any chance of banning posters who spout Jew hate (or hate for any race).

A relative taught in a Jewish primary school in London for over 35 years. She retired 10 years ago.

Her stories of what happened to her pupils through the years sadly tell me that this news isn't news. It's far more common than realised and these attacks have been happening since at least the 80s.

I was horrified when she told me about the lockdown drills the pupils were having throughout her career. Lockdown drills are far more common now, but they were unheard of in the UK in the 80s/90s

Really? Bloody hell. Yep. Should have made more news sources.

Despicable. You don't take out your grievances with a foreign government on kids who have nothing to do with it.

I would be very interested to see if this is reported on further and find out if this was an unprovoked attack on Jewish school children or an incident in an ongoing issue between rival schools.

I'm fairly local and have seen multiple studies and fights between school kids over the years. The filming aspect is sadly also very common. I have definitely seen incidents including jfs kids on jubilee line who behave pretty badly (but not especially badly or notably worse than other schools). I would have assumed kids on private paid for buses weren't normally involved in this kind of issue to the same extent those in public transport. I have a definite bias for my first assumption being it was a badly behaved teenagers issue and that often parents don't seem to believe their little darlings can have done any wrong.

I don't think large groups of kids throwing missiles at buses is a daily occurrence, actually. It's probably very rare. It's difficult to get a good sense of scale but this sounds like a much bigger affair than your average street scuffle between teenagers.

No, don't add to it. You're making it worse than it already is.

Well many thanks to all the minimising and worse posters on this thread. You've made me realise that I was completely right to invest my time and money ( have to travel a fair distance) to go to the March Against Anti-Semitism this weekend. By God this March is needed. All anti-racists should be there if they can.

Implying that if this were a bus of Muslim kids then it would be headline news is stoking hatred and prejudice.

You know exactly what you were doing. Why not focus on this incident being reported? It’s bad enough on its own.

I don’t know about your area specifically, but numerically there are more crimes against Muslims than Jewish people. But the Muslim population is much larger. If you look at crimes per 1000 population Jewish people are much more likely to be victims of hate crime, which obviously impacts how fearful they are. Any individual Jewish person is more likely to be a victim of hate crime and at the very least will know someone else who has been.

The word is antisemitic.

As you may need to use it again in your denials, you might as well get it right.

In case anyone is concerned about their safety at the march there will be police and CST (community security trust) there.

What an insidious piece of misdirection.

I was responding to posters minimising this as ' kids will be kids' instead of condemning it as blatant racism. As you well know.

Your comment is irrelevant to my point.

When such attacks against black and asian children were common (actually they still are) we didn't hear about them in national news either.

Sickening. And no doubt what the thugs felt was appropriate for them to record will be popping up on bloody Tiktok

More serious than a bus being pelted by rocks, having the thugs get on board the bus, terrorise the kids on board while filming their aggression...something a bit more juicy than that for you?