\n<\/p>\n
Some pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be stopped, the prime minister has warned, as the UK\u2019s most senior police officer said the threat to the Jewish \u00adcommunity was greater than it had ever been.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer indicated he wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to \u201ctougher action\u201d as he sought to allay the fears of British Jews after a series of attacks on their communities in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see, when you hear some of those chants \u2013 \u2018globalise the intifada\u2019 the one that I would pick out \u2013 then clearly there should be tougher action in relation to that,\u201d Starmer told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme.<\/p>\n
While he said he would not interfere in day-to-day policing, he said \u201cthere are instances\u201d in which he would support stopping some protests altogether.<\/p>\n
The prime minister\u2019s comments came as Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, said a \u201cdangerous and troubling\u201d mix of hate crimes, terrorism and the involvement of hostile states was coming together in the UK to create a terrifying atmosphere for British Jews.<\/p>\n
Asked if the threat to their \u00adcommunity was greater than it had ever been before, he said polling suggesting the prevalence of antisemitic views showed \u201cthat has to be true\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told the Times that Jewish communities felt the hostility, adding: \u201cYou can see that in how they talk, how it\u2019s making them change their lives. That\u2019s an appalling state of affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rowley said British Jews were on the \u201chate\u201d list of every racist and extremist group, \u201cwhether you\u2019re extreme left, whether you\u2019re Islamist terrorist, \u00adwhether you\u2019re rightwing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now with some sort of Iranian-related threats. There\u2019s a sort of ghastly Venn diagram that they\u2019re at the middle of.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWhat troubles me is that this isn\u2019t just about a few racist idiots, this is standing on something that is more embedded in society that isn\u2019t being challenged. There\u2019s too much licensing of it in public debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been a series of incidents in the months since the deadly antisemitic terror attack on the Heaton Park synagogue last October. In March, four Jewish community ambulances were torched in Golders Green in north-west London and, the following month, a memorial wall to commemorate Iranian protesters was targeted.<\/p>\n
Between those two incidents, there were several other separate attacks, including an attempted arson at Finchley Reform synagogue in north London, as well as items being found near the Israeli embassy on the day a former Jewish charity building was attacked in Barnet in north London.<\/p>\n
In a separate incident, a court heard a teenage boy smashed the window of Kenton united synagogue in Harrow before lighting a bottle and throwing it inside.<\/p>\n
Starmer stressed his suggestion some protest marches could be banned was \u201cnot a discussion that has only been had this week in response to this awful incident. That is a discussion we\u2019ve been having with the police for some time\u201d.<\/p>\n
He told Today: \u201cIn relation to the repeated nature of the marches, many people in the Jewish community have said to me, it\u2019s the repeat nature, it\u2019s the cumulative effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he supported calls for a moratorium <\/strong>on pro-Palestinian marches \u2013 notably from his independent adviser on terrorism Jonathan Hall \u2013 Starmer said: \u201cI think it\u2019s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect. I think it\u2019s time for, I would say, some people protesting to just reflect on what the Jewish community is going through and the overall impact that this is having.<\/p>\n \u201cI will defend the right of peaceful protest very strongly and freedom of speech. I have defended those principles all my life and I will continue to do so. And so I\u2019m not stepping back from that one bit. But if you are on a march or a protest where people are chanting, \u2018globalise the intifada\u2019, you do have to stop and ask yourself, why am I not calling this out?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some pro-Palestinian demonstrations could be stopped, the prime minister has warned, as the UK\u2019s most senior police officer said the threat to the Jewish \u00adcommunity was greater than it had ever been. Keir Starmer indicated he wanted the language expressed on some protest marches to be subjected to \u201ctougher action\u201d as he sought to allay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1839,1653,336,5437,124,14960,494],"class_list":{"0":"post-49031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-attacks","9":"tag-banned","10":"tag-british","11":"tag-jews","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-propalestinian","14":"tag-protests"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}