Israel supporting counter marches in London - about time

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13304895/Met-Police-arrest-Palestine-Israel-march-London-protest-Gaza.html

I think in a democracy this is absolutely necessary. Obviously policing will be important but it is good to see that in terms of street protest this is not a come sided issue.

I wonder how many are going to be arrested losing their rag seeing Israeli flags an masse after getting themselves riled up calling for a ceasefire.....

@ChalkWitch I’m not sure why Hasbara gets dragged out like some kind of debate winning point, ‘yeah, but, Hasbara’, so facile.

At best it's wheeled out to shut down conversation when a poster doesn't like what they hear or is unable to form an argument and engage with debate, at worst it skates way too closely to the 'dual loyalty' trope.

Yeah well it does seem perfectly reasonable and in no way antisemitic to suggest that British Jews are probably doing the bidding of the Israeli government, and that MN is an arm of that propaganda machine 😉 I mean, we control the media doing a pretty crap job tbh so why should MN be any different??

It makes even less sense if you know I’m not Jewish.

@Hélène79 It’s like listening to a sixth form debate with less critical thinking skills. I will give those pp’s the benefit of the doubt that they are not referring to the dual loyalty narrative.
@AgnesWickfield Quite, need to up our game on the whole control the media effort there.

I will give those pp’s the benefit of the doubt

Could you quote "those people" in your responses rather than these sweeping generalisation posts which could be about any poster who disagrees with you. Try and be more specific.

Pp was BibiSuzanne, the poster quite clearly referring to Hasbara. Specific enough?

Yes thank you but your posts suggests there's more than one, they are referring to people in the plural? I didn't think there was so wanted it clarified.

I don't think it's fair or appropriate to speak in the plural like that, address the specific person you are upset with rather than all these posts criticising people in the collective with pretty patronising posts like:
It’s like listening to a sixth form debate with less critical thinking skills.

I’ve been accused of working for the Israeli government by more than just that poster in this section. Deviating from the approved narrative seems to attract it.

@Dulra then let me take this opportunity to add this addendum to my previous post. By ‘those pp’s (previous poster) I mean ‘that pp’, as named upthread.

Regarding patronising posts criticising people in the collective, ‘yes but Hasbara’ is a good example.

Yes, "Hasbara" used to be thrown about very liberally on this board, often directed to individual (as well as collective posters) and often by posters who had just found out about its existence and refused to believe most governments have their own propaganda wing.

Fine keep going lads or maybe start a thread where we can cumulate all our grievances with comments we've received over the past 6 months because we can all contribute to that!

I think of importance is to achieve a situation in London where you cannot be threatened with arrest for being openly Jewish. This is appalling and I hope someone is held to account.

we need to know if the decision to talk in such a way was the decision of an individual police officer or was there a direction from senior levels to challenge anyone with Jewish religious apparel as they could be construed as being 'provocative'.

if the marches are leading to Jews being not welcome in our Capital centre we need to stop them. People have made their point about Gaza and it appears the war continues any way so there is limited justification for them and a good argument to prevent them as they are having a palpable impact on social cohesion and allowing Jews to face abuse and disceimination.

Hamas keep refusing to enter ceasefire talks anywa y!!!

@Dulra was claiming there was unanimous Israeli support for their military campaign and the IDF. I was questioning the numbers, the polling method and asking for a verified source.(@Dulra With regards to polling on Rafah, I can see that a clear majority (74%) supported that Israel should expand its military operations into Rafah in order to pressure Hamas into agreeing to a better deal for the release of the hostages, rather than straightforwardly supporting a ground offensive into Rafah and I’d also like to know whether there’s been any change in support for that two months down the line).

@TextureSeeker your contribution to the discussion was to ignore the topic being debated and pop up with “Israeli Jews support witholding aid from starving people and 55% of them oppose a political solution. These poll results therefore show how merciless Israeli Jews are.”
I’m not disputing 68% is a majority but I’ll ask you again how any of this relates to a debate that Israelis unanimously support the military campaign and the IDF and question your intentions, bias and language for interceding in the first place.to shift the conversation to Israeli Jews’ “clear no mercy” mindset and labour the point about how keen they all are to withold aid from starving people.

It’s like listening to a sixth form debate with less critical thinking skills.

It really is, the facile point scoring is still as tedious as it was six months ago.

“It really is, the facile point scoring is still as tedious as it was six months ago.”

This is on both sides. It’s like being in a playground.

I already told you, I thought it was interesting. I also didn't know I had to have your approval before I post? Should I send my posts your way for premoderation 🙄

You don't think it should be spoken about, fair enough. I don't see a reason why it shouldn't. It is interesting to me to know what people on the ground in Israel think about the scenes we are seeing coming out of Gaza and the news that they are on the brink of famine. I also thought it was interesting that even if UNWRA or Hamas were not involved they still didn't think people in Gaza should receive humanitarian aid. I don't know how else you would describe 68% of people not wanting starving people to receive food other than merciless, I'm open to other descriptions if you have one?

@TextureSeeker no need to become over defensive or resort to that old chestnut of “shutting down debate”. I’ve discussed the witholding of aid on threads where that’s been the subject. Maybe you could interject into some other posters’ conversation and demand answers from them for your chosen topic rather than mine?

Indeed. I cannot imagine much support to be honest.

@StormyAprilSkies and if the UK were in a position where they controlled all access to deliveries of food and essential supplies, for a population they were accused of war crimes against, I would hope that an independent body would hold the UK government to account and ensure that people in need got lifesaving supplies.

Appearing Jewish or appearing muslim should be both fine. Wearing hamas headbands not so.

Imagine telling someone that they couldn't walk by since they are wearing a hijab.

Been there, had that said. That's actually a pretty common experience for people who are 'visibly Muslim'. A lot of the general public see no issue with that happening to Muslims.

See also 'Flying while Muslim', 'Driving while Muslim', etc.

I do feel that the police officer and the Met have come under unfair criticism over this incident.

news.sky.com/story/mayor-of-london-has-confidence-in-met-police-chief-sky-news-understands-after-force-apologises-for-officers-openly-jewish-comments-13119980

The officer was clear that he was concerned over the safety of the Jewish man because he looked "openly Jewish " and who wished to cross over the protest. He offered him a police escort out of the area and only threatened to arrest him if he refused to leave the side of the protest march.

All the time this incident was going on it started to attract the attention of an increasing number of protesters who were shouting "scum" "Nazi" and lastly one protester who threatened to follow the Jewish man saying "the police are always going to be here to protect you".

The motivation of the police officer was clear- he was concerned over the man's safety, he didn't feel he had enough officers to protect him and he wanted to get him out of the area. To be very clear the police officer was not in any way motivated by anti semitism.

The question that should be asked is why a Jewish man can now not walk around "openly Jewish " and feel safe and whether the protest march is genuinely "peaceful ".

Yeah, I have a feeling that the copper was just in a tight spot. I feel sorry for the police when they’re now routinely filmed. The footage is never likely to be genuinely truthful and honest about what happened, how or why. We can’t know what the officer was thinking, even if his words and manner sound and look unfortunate.

The real issue, as you say, is that the demonstration should not give rise to racially motivated threats. This example and the previous swastika one suggest the problem is under-policed anti-Israel marches, rather than over-policed bystanders.

If the police can't guarantee the public's safety I think this a really powerful argument to end the marches.

The marches seem to be 'peaceful' until anything remotely Jewish comes into sight at which point you get hate filled bile.

Jews have the absolute right to be openly Jewish so the only way to safeguard this right is to abandon or limit the scale of the marches

If we are going to have crowd control issues with the simple flying of an allied country's flag, Israel then we have a problem.

Possibly the met have to admit they can no longer guarantee the safety of Jews and that should be a factor in licensing these interminable marches

Edit: wrong thread!

This is really well put and I agree with most of it. But I do think the police officer was almost redefining being visibly Jewish as a crime. The Jewish guy was being threated with getting his collar felt when it should have been the protestors verbally abusing him. But I think the police officer was caught in the heat of the moment and was genuinely concerned for a) the man's safety and b) wider trouble breaking out. I'm sure he hugely regrets such a clumsily-worded response now. There just aren't enough police on the ground to potentially deal with trouble breaking out on a large scale. At the same time, I'm loathe to give the Met too much benefit of the doubt given their attitude to other minority groups.

The question that should be asked is why a Jewish man can now not walk around "openly Jewish " and feel safe and whether the protest march is genuinely "peaceful ".

Yes, this is the wider issue for me. The police officer was inadvertently acknowledging that Jews are not safe in this city, the protests have a simmering undercurrent of hatred towards Jews and are therefore not peaceful, and that they're being attended by antisemites. Whether that's a small or large minority of protestors is academic really because the atmosphere this is creating for Jews is horrendous.

I've just read that the rabbi at Columbia University has told his students to return home and stay there because the Uni and NYPD can't guarantee their safety on campus any more. I hope we're not sleepwalking into a similar situation in the UK.