UK police arrest four people for pro-Palestine ‘Intifada’ calls

Following Australia’s Bondi Beach attack, police in the United Kingdom made their first arrests since announcing their intention to “globalise the Intifada,” making a false connection between largely peaceful protests against Israel’s genocidal war and a deadly Jewish festival.

Late on Wednesday, London’s Metropolitan Police announced that it had made four arrests at pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside the Ministry of Justice in Westminster, all of which involved the alleged shouting or chanting of slogans that included calls for an intifada.

Eight hunger strikers who are imprisoned in prison have been held in support of a demonstration whose lives are in danger. Just hours after the Metropolitan (Met) and Greater Manchester Police (GMT) announced they would be “more assertive” in policing pro-Palestine protests to counter alleged anti-Semitism, they were imprisoned for connections to the Palestine Action group.

The Met’s action was supported by UK Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips. The Times of London quoted her as saying, “I can only imagine that it is inciting people to violence, which has terrible consequences.”

However, Ben Jamal, a representative from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, noted in a statement that the word “intifada” in Arabic means “shaking off or uprising against injustice.”

The term is understood to mean a civil uprising against the military occupation and the expansion of illegal settlements in Palestine, with notable historical events like those from 1987-1993 and 2000-05 bringing brutal Israeli reprisals that left countless people dead.

Jamal criticized the new police stance as a lack of consultation, claiming on X that “forces across the political establishment” were using the “grotesque racist violence on Bondi beach” to delegitimize any protest against “open genocide.”

Following the father-and-son shootings that occurred on Sunday at a Hanukkah festival on the Sydney beach and an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the most holy day of the Jewish calendar, in October, the police launched a crackdown on the incident.

Words have meaning and consequence, and violent acts have occurred, the context has changed. The Met and GMP commanders both stated in a joint statement that they would take decisive action and make arrests.

Jewish organizations applauded the announcement, calling it “an important step toward challenging the hateful rhetoric we have seen on our streets, which has inspired acts of violence and terror,” according to the UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

Anti-Semitic incidents have increased in the UK, according to organizations like the Community Security Trust (CST), which works to provide security for British Jews.