Is the penny finally starting to drop about anti semitism and hate marches?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/04/starmer-c al l-society-response-rising-antisemitism

I think we are now seeing the cumulative impact of the anti senitism that has built up over the last 3 years where there has been a permissive environment with politicians hesitant to intervene in events in the streets that have incubated anti Jew sentiment.

All political parties apart from the hate apologist Greens are now waking up to the fact we need better policing and perhaps legislation. I for one will acting a vote for a party that recognises hate marches for what they are and also willing to tackle the vile posts appearing on social media (and Labour have reacted too late too little). Enough is enough for a Jewish community that lives in perpetual fear.

How do we do this? It seems like a gargantuan task.

I would be more than happy to see the marches limited / banned- alongside the government being clear they understand why people feel the need to protest about what’s happening in the Middle East.

I can understand why you would go on a march- what do you think the government should do?

I noticed that the numbers for the Nakba March were as low as 20 000which is far less than the 250 000 the organisers were hoping for. Maybe we are now in a position where you just have the hard core idealogues attending these events and a lot of virtuous disingenuous people have fallen away possibly seeing that joining in a pro pal match has the same sort of reputational consequences as joining a Tommy Robinson march (indeed both protests had similar numbers of arrests for hate crimes).

Yes hopefully people with more moderate views are moving towards other forms of protest as many Jewish people in the UK find the marches intimidating. And it isn't really believable that those attending them don't hear or see anything antisemitic. From Reuters:

Police said repeated large pro-Palestinian marches - 33 since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 - had left many Jewish people feeling too intimidated to enter central London.

While protesters held a range of views, police said the marches routinely led to arrests for racially and religiously aggravated public order offences.

Some protesters on Saturday chanted "Death to the IDF", referring to the Israeli army - language that police previously said had been a reason for arrests when aimed at Jewish people.

www.reuters.com/world/uk/tens-thousands-march-london-separate-immigration-propalestinian-protests-2026-05-16/

I’ve often wondered why antisemitism isn’t taken seriously these days, but you’ve nailed it here. There is a growing view that Jews are powerful and influential, therefore have “privilege”, therefore can’t be victims. The modern forms of antisemitism are shockingly widespread. I can’t believe it’s got so bad. Not all that many years ago, the things people post on SM would have been considered beyond the pale.

💯 how can 'Jewish people be victims'.

Jews being powerful and privileged isn’t modern antisemitism, it’s bog standard ancient antisemitism. Jews secretly controlling the world/the media and so on was rife in Nazi propaganda. The protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax is over a hundred years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

Can you explain how it isn't being taken seriously? For instance when some ambulances were set on fire the PM himself made a statement condemning it, calling it horrific, the loan of new ambulances was given immediately and the government gave a cash grant to fund 4 top-of-the range electric ambulances. To me that sounds like a good response and taking it seriously? When 2 Jewish people were stabbed the government instantly lept into action, cobra meetings, lots of money pledged etc. Again that seems like an appropriate response.

The usual response to hate crimes is more like what happened when 2 sikh women were brutally raped and another assaulted with an electrical device in separate racially aggravated attacks within 10miles of each other, within weeks of each other. Women were terrified to leave their homes alone. There was no statement from Starmer, there was no funding of extra police etc. This is the baseline, what usually happens with hate crimes.

So I am curious what makes you say 'antisemitism isn't taken seriously these days' are you comparing it to some other type of hate crime and finding the response lacking or how are you coming to that conclusion?

I’m no politician and have limited time but I think the Israeli government’s insistent conflation of anti semitism with criticism of anti-Zionism in order to legitimise its actions has been a most dangerous strategy (and is prevalent on this board). It’s paved the way for non Jews to be able to refer to anyone who is Jewish and against the genocide as ‘anti semitic’ and ‘a useful idiot’, subsuming the very real problem of actual antisemitism. It is a grotesque turn of affairs.

There needs to be a more visibly equal handed approach to Islamophobia and antisemitism. Politicians should lead by example - labelling peaceful protests as ‘hate marches’ is dishonest and irresponsibly divisive. The openly islamophobic rhetoric blasted out on actual stages with microphones at TR march needs to be addressed pronto.

Educate everyone, not just the next generation, on the perniciousness of bad actors outside the UK, social media feeds and media manipulation. Really question who is driving what and why? Who profits from all this? Who is making big bucks from sowing hate and division? @BelleHathor is very knowledgable about this. There must surely be a way of screening hate speech and preventing the millions of bots that are part of the drive, all making a profit for Musk and his ilk. It’s so vile and social media is awash with it.

international policy obvs needs overhaul

You?

Re antisemitism in UK society I would say it is being taken seriously by those in power now, but they have been very slow to call it out.

Keir Starmer has only very recently confirmed that he sees the chant From the river to the sea… Palestine will be free” as antisemitic, for example.

Now the tide is turning & they will all be jumping on the bandwagon of taking antisemitism very seriously. Which is a good thing but still … why did it take so long for those in charge to speak out against chants at these almost weekly hate marches.

Agree and well said

U.K. Politicians, news outlets and those online using language that spreads hate should have no place here. This throw away comment of hate marches regarding the pro Palestinian marches simply shows a lack of and unwillingness to understand

One could start with understanding fascism and anti-fascism for starters

@mids2019
re your last post re numbers at last Saturdays marches

Heres an article on the numbers game from Freedom.org news

‘ After London marches, Unite the Kingdom and its opponents play the numbers game

~ Rob Ray ~

Numbers are in for the big day, in which Tommy Robinson’s Unite The Kingdom mob walked in a straight line for a bit in one part of London while the Nakba Day march acted as a cipher for The Left in another.

The figures as reported by the organisers themselves were wild. Tommy lost control of his mouth entirely and offered the feverish delusion of a million people joining him, while left sources like Counterfire on the other side pontificated that he actually only had a fraction of their 250,000 supporters.

The Met, meanwhile, generally known for mild undercounting, came up with 60,000 for Tommy, 20,000 for Palestine.

Having consulted a leftie with experience in the matter of counting lines of humans, it may be of no surprise to you, the discerning and slightly less flappable Freedom reader, that the Met were probably closest. It seems that both sides were somewhat disappointed to find they’d failed to draw extra large masses, and got carried away with the propagandist bombast.

( I’m jumping in to note here organisers do have to give estimated / potential numbers to the police for organisational purposes ahead of the march date)

That said, the lower figures, if we choose to take them as sort of ball-park accurate, are on balance mildly good news for us. At 20,000 people Nakba day 2026 would be basically the same as 2025, which, which if not a victory is at least not an embarrassment – business as usual.

For Tommy though 60k is a 40% decline from last time. And from all the available evidence, the people he lost were the normies, leaving a rump of loyal hooligans. Still a step up from his EDL days, to be sure, but given he’s working with the advantage of the football season being half over it’ll be a disappointment to have failed to keep his numbers up.

A great deal of effort will be expended, by both sides, over the next few days to realign perceptions of reality to make this A Grand Victory’.

( Whilst Freedom.org is pro Palestine and pro, well, Freedom and equality basically this article does verify the Met figures. )

Interesting.

Hate marches, pro pal, useful idiots

Mob, hooligans, (assume football supporters might join in)

Seems both sets of supporters have lessons to learn.

Multiple brutal rapes targeting a specific community aren't spoken about by Starmer at all. In today's news Mohammed Mahmoodi nearly had his head lopped off by an axe wielding neo nazi terrorist and Starmer didn't speak about it, there was no cobra meeting and rolling news coverage for 3 days. The norm is nothing. What we have been seeing all of these speeches from Starmer on antisemitism and chants and protests is extraordinary, you might feel it took a long time to mention but look at all of the things that are just never directly referenced at all?

Finding the time at all to villainise chants when you can't find the time to mention violent racist rapes and attempted beheadings by neo nazis is astonishing really.

What are the multiple brutal rapes targeting a specific community you are talking about? The white working class girls in places like Rotherham? I assume they are taking place in the UK if you expect Starmer to have any influence?

Re Mohammed Mahmoodi, that is an isolated though horrible incident done by a 19 year old with clear mental health problems.

From what I have found out from a quick Google, the perpetrator was Alina Burns, a neo-Nazi-obsessed teenager who tried to behead a Kurdish barber with an axe in a terrorism-motivated attack. She has been jailed for 15-and-a-half years in custody, plus an additional four years on license.

Court proceedings indicated that Burns, driven by far-right extremist ideology, was radicalized online and targeted minority groups. Evidence uncovered included her connection to prohibited extremist groups, possession of white supremacist literature, and violent, hateful communications regarding Muslims and Jewish people.

www.instagram.com/p/DYYK3meGFie/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxkw014rg9o

Re Mohammed Mahmoodi, that is an isolated though horrible incident done by a 19 year old with clear mental health problems.

The stabbing of 2 Jewish men was an isolated incident done by someone with clear mental health problems too. That didn't stop the speeches, the money pledges, the cobra meetings and the 3 day rolling news coverage.

Agree
There’s no denying a lack of equality in treatment

The stabbing of the 2 Jewish men was more of a pattern as there have been quite a few antisemitic attacks recently, they have escalated to a scary degree.

In the case you have mentioned, the perpetrator seemed to want to kill all Jews and Muslims but it was Mohammed Mahmoodi who unfortunately got attacked.

Passing sentence, the judge said: “I have no doubt that you are a dangerous offender and you remain deeply entrenched in your abnormal belief system.
“You communicated with a man on an online dating app in which at one stage you expressed the desire to kill all the Jews and Muslims in Britain, and also carry out a plan where you wished to take all the glory for carrying this out.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/15/neo-nazi-obsessed-teen-jailed-for-trying-to-kill-kurdish-man-in-bristol-with-axe

Thank you for the link - you can't really expect people to know what you are talking about without some kind of context.

Those cases do indeed sound very frightening for the women involved and completely unacceptable. It's true that I don't recall Starmer speaking out about it.

At the end of the day, UK politicians have become very aware of the problem of antisemitism in our society. They used to largely ignore it (in my opinion) - now it has become a political hot potato to be seen to be committed to tackling it.

Though I'm on the cynical side about how much politicians really care when they start getting all earnest about certain types of racism, I have to conclude that it's a good thing nevertheless that antisemitism is being taken more seriously now.

That doesn't mean that other hate crimes targeting people from other races/religions shouldn't be taken just as seriously.

Re your reference to the pattern of attacks against Jewish people

Islamophobia and attacks on Muslims have increased significantly aswell

Recent data and contextual trends highlight the following:

Official Police Data: Home Office statistics for England and Wales showed a 19% increase in police-recorded religious hate crimes specifically targeting Muslims. They currently account for nearly half of all religion-based hate crimes.

Charity and NGO Reporting: Tell MAMA (a leading national project measuring anti-Muslim hatred) reported unprecedented figures. In a single recent annual period, they logged thousands of verified offline cases—representing a 73% surge in physical assaults and a 60% jump in vandalism.

Do we see high level MPs denouncing attacks in the news
Do we see emergency cobra meetings
No
Yet we do see a huge increase in attacks on Muslims

There have been more attacks on Jewish people in the UK as a proportion to how many Jewish people there are in the UK (a tiny minority of the population).

But - it's not a competition and it doesn't mean we shouldn't be equally concerned about the increase in attacks on Muslims too.

We have a problem in the UK at the moment - too many people with extreme views that are prejudiced against either Jews or Muslims (or both, as we see in the case of Alina Burns discussed above).

We see anti Muslim views reflected in the rise of Reform and we have seen antisemitic views expressed by too many of the Green candidates. I really hope we can return to more normal, moderate politics by the time of the next General Election.

This isn’t and should never be about putting one against the ither

Agree
Its not a competition !

It's about equality !
our Government need to get their head around that because at the moment they haven’t got a clue what that means

Including Starmer

I hope who ever takes over from him isn’t biased too !

I suppose this is my point isn't it? Why doesn't everyone know about these horrendous racially motivated rapes? These things just fly under the radar, no front pages, no rolling news coverage, no meetings, nothing. So for the previous poster to say that antisemitism isnt taken seriously is quite surprising when ambulances got more coverage, more outrage and more attention from the government that racially motivated rapes did. Chants are getting more coverage and more comment from the public and the government than racially motivated rapes did. It's astonishing.

I can't speak for other posters.

For myself I would say that antisemitism being taken seriously is a fairly new thing and probably only because there were so many attacks on Jewish people or Jewish businesses in the last couple of years that it was becoming impossible to ignore.

Hmmm, I wonder when being sympathetic or pro Palestine became labelled as anti- anything🤔

The recent arson of a prayer room in Blackburn is strange .Police said it was not racially motivated but yet they have no suspects except a video of masked men throwing the firebombs so how do they know that it wasn't.
In fact the only condemnation I have read online is from the Jewish Representative Council in Manchester who released a statement.