How have we come to a state where the police confront someone for being overtly Jewish?

[mids2019]

Just how?

I think at best this inept policing at worst vile anti semitism.

I suppose it is now in the open that central London has become effectively a no go area for Jews given the potential for abuse from hate marchers.

Can't we just stop these marches so Jews can go about their business?

Ok so the police let him cross the road, it becomes a skirmish and he gets knocked to the ground and injured. There would be hell on, “officers could see he was Jewish and they let him walk into that?”
The officers were damned whatever they did here.

You do all realise he had crossed the road several times already. There is film of him on the North pavement of Aldwych.

Yes I agreee but like I said, it is a similar process followed for all different marchers, being black at a EDL has caused a similar response from the police.
There are people at all marches that cause issues, I don’t this is any different.

He was being deliberately provocative, at a pro Palestine rally. Maybe that's his right and should be, but he did was there to cause trouble.

I think it is generally agreed that EDL marchers are racist bigots.

But there are people who have been arguing for months that there are no issues with antisemitism on these peace marches.

That's the difference.

If people had been arguing for months that weekly EDL marches aren't a problem for black people in London and then a black person showed up to test this, and was told by the police that it wasn't safe for them to cross the march, and the crowd started shouting scum at them, would people be saying it was the black person's fault?

Would they be blaming the black person for provoking the crowd in to making the point that the black person was trying to make?

And meanwhile whilst we’re all discussing the rights of a privileged Brit to cross the road directly rather than up and around, thousands of children are facing starvation.

Or amputation.

Or a life with no parents.

I struggle to see why we are discussing Gideon Falter and not Hind Rajab.

Because this is a thread about Gideon Falter and there are other threads for discussing Hind Rajab.

Jewish people are not being confronted for being openly Jewish.

I'm Jewish and furious with Falter because it's clear from the longer video he came seeking a confrontation. He's now totally fulfilled the antisemitic trope that Jews are manipulative whingers or try to play the victims. Thanks a bunch for that.

What the policeman expressed was clumsy but ultimately he wasn't suggesting he'd arrest Falter for being Jewish, the issue was he was telling Falter to do something because he was creating an antagonistic situation and Falter refused, thus potentially creating a confrontation that would be an issue for the police.

Although let's not lose sight of the fact that the protestors didn't have to abuse him, if they were angry they could have said 'We have the right to protest, mate' if they had presumed he was complaining about them protesting.

There is no move towards authority oppressing Jews in this country, nor any mainstream political movement with any chance of power in the foreseeable future that poses a threat to us. Frankly I'm more worried, and it's a much more realistic scenario, that 'protecting Jews' could be used as a cover to remove legitimate rights to protest and the rights and freedoms of Muslim people.

@Echobelly I agree with all of that, including that the Palestinian supporters could have been pleasanter. Well said all round.

Great insightful post 👏

the issue was he was telling Falter to do something because he was creating an antagonistic situation and Falter refused, thus potentially creating a confrontation that would be an issue for the police

You seem to be avoiding saying exactly what it was about Falter that was creating the antagonistic situation. The police were honest about it.

There is no move towards authority oppressing Jews in this country

Have to say, if I were a Jew in England with the upcoming general election and the prospective Labour landslide, I'd be very glad that it's not Corbyn and Co in charge.

He's now totally fulfilled the antisemitic trope that Jews are manipulative whingers or try to play the victims.

That would be true if there wasn't video after video documenting antisemitism on these marches. Hard to accuse someone of 'playing the victim' when there's video evidence of intimidation and antisemitic abuse towards him.

I'm always shocked and saddened by the fact that Jewish schools in this country need special security measures. If deliberately provoking antisemitism is bad, so is downplaying it.

💯

Well said @Echobelly .

Most people don't think GF is representative of anyone other than himself.

The thing is that Falter didn't need to do what he did to show antisemitism on the marches or anywhere. And he should have known there was evidence to show he wasn't 'just taking a walk after synagogue' and that when this came our it would reflect poorly on his fellow Jews.

The vast majority of protestors there are not antisemitic and I know that because I have been at one of them, and so has my husband, being 'visibly Jewish' in his kippah. He walked through the protest not within a Jewish bloc and not holding a placard and no one gave him any issues, but that's not to say there isn't a minority who are antisemitic and enjoying that there's a group they feel they have a 'right' to be prejudiced towards.

Yes, there is a threat to Jews today in the UK, but it's not from politicians or the media. Yes, right now, there is a tiny number of Muslim extremists (who do not at all represent Muslims as a whole) planning attacks on Jewish targets here, without any doubt. I have certainly more than once sat in synagogue and wondered what I'd do if there was an attack while we were there. But the government, police and security services (whose job it is to deal with this) are serious about tackling it and supporting the Jewish community; no one in authority or likely to come into authority is going 'Nah, the Jews had this coming, they can deal with it'.

This is completely different in nature from something like Nazism and anyone acting as though we're on some slide towards Jews losing our rights and freedoms is being absurd. I know and do understand all too well why we Jews are easily spooked by negative situations but we can't protect ourselves or be protected from real threats if we keep seeing them in the wrong places and start going 'Oh, the police want to arrest us for being Jewish' on account of this one incident.

but we can't protect ourselves or be protected from real threats if we keep seeing them in the wrong places and start going 'Oh, the police want to arrest us for being Jewish' on account of this one incident.

Whilst some Jews may be accusing the police of that, to be honest most are more alarmed that the police are inadvertently acknowledging there's a real threat to Jews merely by their presence. It's not the police or government that Jewish folk are worried about, it's Joe Bloggs. Good for you not having witnessed or heard anything at the protests - odd though, because I've lost count of the antisemitic slurs I've heard on the tube on protest days. These are the "real threats".

The thing is that Falter didn't need to do what he did to show antisemitism on the marches or anywhere.

Didn't he? People have been arguing for months that there isn't any antisemitism on the marches. And that's despite the Campaign for Antisemitism going to the marches and interviewing protestors and posting the absolutely horrifying stuff some of them have come out with.

This is probably the first thing they've done that's actually made the press.

So what should he have done instead? In your opinion?

What would you do to highlight the antisemitism on the marches? Or would you just ignore it?

The threat of disorder was / is so high that they’re shutting down whichever part they do have the manpower to control. Quite frequently this is the part that have actually done nothing wrong. If a certain section of society realised that the police actually can’t control them then it would kick off.

We’re in very serious trouble as a country, and very few people have realised what’s really going on. It’s when and not if this gets very very serious.

Absolutely correct.

I've actually just put the house on the market for exactly this reason. I can't stay and watch. We're relocating.

Trying to cross the street isn't "provocative". If he was trying to capture the kind of reactions that some of the protesters have been making, I don't see an issue with that.

He wasn't somehow tricking people into shouting anti semitic abuse or being threatening. Those were entirely voluntary reactions.

The only reason he would have known there was a possibility or likelihood of such reactions is because they've been happening at pro-Palestinian marches for six months.

Why were the Met worried that being "openly" (visibly) Jewish was going to put the guy at risk then?

Why were the Met worried that being "openly" (visibly) Jewish was going to put the guy at risk then?

Probably because the officer was tired after trying to appease GF for 14 minutes.

If you watch the longer video you’ll see that the policeman was aware GF was being deliberately provocative. He even called him “disingenuous”.

If the marches are anti-Semitic why are there lots of Jewish protesters on them who have been going to them for months and not been harmed once.

How do you explain that?

It doesn’t matter what someone does, you literally cannot engineer a situation where I would start shouting abuse at anyone on the basis of what religion or race I think they are.

It would not happen because I don’t harbour secret ill intent towards people of whatever faith.

I think he demonstrated his point pretty clearly

I suspect the police knew exactly who he was.

If I were on an anti Iran march (not anti islam ofcourse) but then started yelling at some random women talking to a police officer because she was wearing a hijab who would be in the wrong?

Exactly, regardless of what he was doing there it’s the very fact that his existence there, looking like he does is perceived by the police as likely to cause a negative violent reaction.

I think posters are being purposefully obtuse about this.

I’m starting to think there are bunch of people here who do think it’s probably ok to start being threatening towards someone in a Hijab or a turban if the context is “right”. I’m an ethnic minority and the excuses made for out and out racism are vile to me.

I don’t want anyone to experience it, ever, it’s fucking awful being visibly different enough that people think it’s ok to be abusive to you for it.