Do you think the Palestinian protests should be restricted?

No. This is nuts. People are protesting the genocide. We can’t stop protests it’s a human right.

@Bones101
Well unsurprising to me re Ireland given it was "neutral" during the second world war....it is a very anti Semitic country.
(I say this as a European living there, not a Brit.)

I think they should have been stopped a long time ago.

And these protestors will march chanting 'Globalise the intifada' and when Jews are murdered outside their synagogue they will say 'Nothing to do with us' while arranging an 'emergency protest' on the streets of Manchester that evening.

I know it’s shameful and shocking. Good for Ireland to recognise Palestine waaaay before the Uk.

What's your stance on October 7 massacre?

When did the UK government confirm there is no genocide. If they have they are a bit slow and out of step with the rest of the international community.

They are inflaming violent antisemitism and in blatant support of a terrorist government that literally decimated another country's population in their attack. We literally have ex-Hamas chiefs organising them, as well as organisations banned in the Middle East for their terrorist ties.

The far right protests were dealt with immediately, no issue there, but Jewish people are effectively banned from our town centre every Saturday afternoon now and have been for two years.

People are calling the protests peaceful but people are gathering to spew hate and illegal views.

Matthew Syed just wrote in the Times of his deeply unpleasant experience when he popped along to Trafalgar Square to ask them whether Hamas was a problem.

We've also got
People marching on the streets of London calling for the army of Mohammed to murder Jews https://x.com/lizarosen0000/status/1973829685315534998?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

People celebrating October 7th on the streets of Birmingham https://x.com/habibi_uk/status/1974566508178391462?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

People in Leeds calling for Israel to be wiped off the map https://x.com/habibi_uk/status/1789631217161093223?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Protestors assaulting police officers
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/gaza-protest-whitehall-arrests-met-police-israel-b1250999.html

Not to mention the despicable planned protest in Birmingham on October 7th celebrating Palestinian resistance.

This is a tiny snapshot of the disgusting things that go on at these protests.

They were asked to show some decency in the wake of a terrorist attack on a synagogue where Jews were attacked and killed, and to pause their protest to free up police resources to protect Jewish sites. The said no, fuck you.

I think the marches would not be a problem if they had been policed more robustly and there were clear and immediate consequences for the harrasment of Jews. Yelling about Khyber is an incitement to violence and people should be in prison for it.

It’s a war, if you kick of with your neighbour theres a chance you may find they fight back and you lose. It’s shit but thats war unfortunately. The Uk government has confirmed there is no genocide.

I'm torn tbh.
People need to be able to protest against the government. But what's going on currently is people causing massive disruption and fear to some communities by protesting against a foreign war 2500 miles away.

I genuinely question the intelligence of the protesters. What do they think they will achieve? Keir starmer isn't to blame for what is happening, and I've seen so many no sensical things about him being 'complicit' etc. it's just moronic. And that's before you even count in that a good proportion of the protesters are antisemetic or professional ne'erdowells who just want to watch the world burn.

i think they need to do something to restrict it, but that should be the lightest touch possible. I also think that the protests are counterproductive and turn people against the cause, especially after so dishonorably and stupidly doing it this weekend when they were asked not to.

I think the people who say the PA protests in central London 'must' be allowed to continue as they will help stop the war/save the gazans have such low intelligence they are unable to understand the above though.

No. We are losing our freedoms too quickly.

One of the problems with the protests is the amount of disruption they’re causing every single weekend. Bringing city centres to a standstill. The policing costs are horrendous and I don’t see how the police overtime bill can be sustained.

NO.

We should never restrict or bann peaceful protest. It's a pillar of democracy.

Hell of a lot of conflating criticism of the Israeli government's actions as anti Semitism going on in this post.

The Israeli government should stop flattening Gaza and firing rockets around the middle east with reckless abandon, then the marches wouldn't be needed.

Maybe people should protest about that... Oh wait

The government of this country started taking away our rights long ago and we are firmly on the slippery slope to a police state.

No. I don't think any peaceful protest should be restricted. When the authorities start deciding what we can protest about, it defeats the object of protesting and is a slippery slope. There are already sufficient laws in place to restrict the activities of protesters and the language they can use.

Millions??

I don’t think you can speak for an entire country. Just like Israelis can’t.

Maybe Irish protests are different to the ones we have here in Scotland and England. They have become deeply unpleasant and the repercussions more and more unsettling. And not because they’re forcing the government to act differently (which I think is the goal?), but because they are stirring up all sorts of bigotry and attracting some really awful people.

I don't agree with the proscrbing of Palestinian Action, most of the people arrested at demonstrations are actually protesting about the terrible acts inflicted on the ordinary Palestinian people. Yes Hamas have done terrible war crimes, but the treatment of the ordinary Palestinians is nothing short of horrific, the starving of children, bombing of hospitals. There are many wrongs & rights on both sides & the only answer is the two state solution with NATO acting as peace keepers until all military action has stopped, all hostages have been released & there has been peace for many years. We shouldn't be supplying Israel with parts for F35 fighter jets either.

Well, quite. But there is a marked difference in people taking to the streets to make their voices heard, and largely protesting peacefully, and those taking to the streets to spew hate.

I'm still intrigued at how the Unite the Kingdom rally was widely condemned for being a march full of 'racist, violent thugs' but was, by all accounts, a peaceful gathering with just 25 arrests, yet the pro-Palestine marches was openly antisemitic in tone and saw some 300-odd arrests. But the latter are not the bad guys. Apparently. The double standards are an absolute disgrace.

They're protesting in support of a banned organisation. In my view they should all be jailed.

Totally agree with this. People have the right to peacefully protest but people should not be made to feel unsafe or be threatened because of their race or religion.

Absolutely not if the protests are peaceful. Once we lose freedom of speech it is a downhill spiral. Protests about anything would be stopped and the public are silenced by politicians and the government.

A protest by its very nature is protesting against something happening

There will always be those that disagree
or there wouldnt be the need to protest