London Jew accused of "breach of the peace" by looking "openly Jewish"

[everydaywonderful]

I'm gobsmacked by this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68856360

The bit where "all the Israeli flags are" was presumably either part of the march or a counter march, not just a bunch of Israeli flags that coincidentally happened to be flying around?

So then again, if the Jewish man can cross the march in one location, where his being openly Jewish isn't an issue, but can't cross the march in another location because he looks Jewish, then we are back to the actual issue being that this cannot be a peaceful part of the protest if a Jewish person cannot cross the road there but can cross the road at other parts of the protest

It's not that he tried to cross where there was any protest happening to be going on. Its specifically that part of the "peaceful" protest

Well exactly

Do people actually think that if you are marching on the right hand side of the march, dying for a wee, and you see some toilets on the left hand side of the march, you aren't allowed to use them but have to keep marching until you see toilets on your side of the road 🙄

I have never seen a situation where people are not allowed to walk across, walk back, or anything similar.

I have - the Orange marches in Glasgow. Which says it all really - they're pretty foul. They actually assault people who dare to cross through them.

Well what do they do if you're in the middle of the march and cut out and back in for the loo or something?

Well what do they do if you're in the middle of the march and cut out and back in for the loo or something?

I guess you'd be okay if you're one of the marchers? Anyone else gets assaulted and the police don't intervene to help them either.

That's true.
How did the police even notice him? As I understand it the police approached him first? Or did he approach the police and ask for so sort of help? If the police approached him first, why did they do that? Why would they even notice him crossing through the march?

I meant it's true that his presence should not ever have provoked a reaction, not that the police or protesters proved his point.

How would they know if you're one of the marchers or not?

@Kendodd Another officer had seen him 'running into the protestors' earlier in the day, according to C4

I'm not sure if that is literally running into them or a figure of speech. The phrase was 'you keep running into the protestors.'

NerdWhoEatsMedlar
Check the longer video. At about 1:48 the Police officer offers to escort Mr Falter down the road to cross, where all the Israeli flags are (about a 100m detour max).

The police officer doesn't actually say Mr Falter can cross the road where the Israeli flags are - he is only offering him 'a route out' at that point.

How would they know if you're one of the marchers or not?

They march in their lodges so they know each other. Then each march has "followers", generally in Rangers tops and drinking a lot.

March route and GF's possible routes.

He wanted to take the red route, the policeman wanted him to take the purple route.

Location is easy worked out by watching the long, unedited video.

Ok.
I've never been on a march like that were everyone on it is identifiable. The ones I've been on, some people have placards, some don't, some have flags etc some don't. No way of telling if you were part of the march or not.

Is there any video of this 'running into the protestors'? That could mean anything from just dodging in and out of people to try to cross the road to deliberately crashing/barging into people marching along.

@Kendodd sorry probably a bit of a derail as it's quite specific! And as you say not at all normal.

That was an interesting exchange there. It does add more information than when people just see a little clip and react to what they see.

Do the police usually let people just walk across a demonstration it is taking place?

Would they have let someone else walk across?

Did they think he was going to just walk across or did they think he would walk against the flow?

And did they think that something could happen to him because he was Jewish?

I do think the police officer was trying to look out for his safety - but is that because he is Jewish in a crowd that is a pro - Palestinian demonstration or was it also because they thought he might try to do more than simply cross the road - and deliberately march against the demonstration?

Those posters who’ve in Met policed areas - my thoughts are with you. How terrifying to know you are being policed by incompetent bigots. The force are a big fucking joke, they need a massive overhaul, I’m so fed up of seeing these stories.

What a scary time to be a Jewish person.

The worst thing is if you look into the years leading up to the Holocaust, the drip-drip anti-semitism in public organisations, police forces, magazines, newspapers and radio stations is basically being repeated now. Anti Jewish hate didn’t happen overnight in the 10’s 20’s and 30’s it was a calculated campaign so that when Jewish people were marched into the ghettos, people stood by and cheered rather than trying to stop it.

Im terrified that it’s happening again.

If someone needs to get from one side of the street to the other why would a demonstration stop them? The police don’t need to ‘let’ them. The police aren’t there to ensure no one disturbs the demonstration, protestors have no right of exclusivity to that space. They are there to protect the public. They are doing the opposite

There is a mishmash of stuff in this article.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/04/22/evidence-eyewitnesses-challenge-falters-claims-he-was-stopped-for-just-crossing-road/

I'm not saying it is without bias

I see we've been joined by posters who are comfortable with pro-Palestinian marchers threatening a Jew for being Jewish. I would've thought that since the marches are all meant to be peaceful, posters would be outraged by the comments GF received but it seems not.

Maybe those posters should think about why they're so ok with a Jewish man being considered a provocation by the people they're marching alongside? Or would they be ok with a visibly Muslim person being threatened purely for standing next to a pro-Israel demonstration? Not that that would happen, and if it did fellow demonstrators would be up in arms about it. We sure as fuck wouldn't be defending it en masse.

That article contains this gem of a tweet/photo combo.

An advert saying that street harassment is never your fault, along with a tweet blaming a guy for being harassed on the street.

It's totally his fault he got called Nazi and scum, and threatened, right?

That's inadvertent comedy gold 😂

They could argue that they are protecting the public by making sure that the public are kept safe - and that they were worried about the potential effect of someone crossing a large demonstration.

It was a large, busy moving demonstration. Not easy to get across.

I have no idea of he would have been safe or not if he had tried to get across. I would like to hope he would have been physically safe but I think that there would be some people who would have been verbally abusive - which is totally wrong.

But if the police do tell you that you can't go someway - and you spend a long time trying to go that way when they tell you you can't - you do risk arrest. I think some people would have been arrested much earlier if they had tried the same thing like this.

I think you were asking why the police noticed him. Here's the C4 clip, 'the officer states he 'keeps running into protestors' at 3.13. No idea what is meant, but clearly it had attracted police attention.