Four men arrested in anti-Semitism video investigation
Outrage as Jewish Voice for Labour repeats this “suggestion”‘
The BBC reports,
On Sunday, a video was posted on social media appearing to show a convoy of cars with Palestinian flags driving down a street, with a man shouting anti-Semitic abuse from a megaphone.
The person who filmed the video – who wanted to remain anonymous – said they started filming when they heard “excessive hooting” outside their window in north London.
“They happened to stop at a set of traffic lights and I was able to capture what happened.
“I cried. How is this the world we live in today?”
They added: “I felt immediately frightened and appalled that this is happening in this country. What if I was walking alone wearing something that identified me as Jewish? What might have happened?
“I don’t feel safe in my own home, and that’s what terrifies me.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said it deployed one of its helicopters to help trace the vehicle and officers stopped the car at approximately 18:30 BST on Sunday.
Four men were arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences. They have been taken into custody at a west London police station where they remain.
The police said the video appeared to be filmed in the St John’s Wood area. St John’s Wood is an area in north London which is home to a Jewish community.
Superintendent Jo Edwards, in charge of the policing operation, said the behaviour was “utterly shocking” and added that extra police patrols will be in place in St John’s Wood and Golders Green on Sunday evening.
Officers will be sent to key venues, police said, “to provide maximum reassurance to the local community, and deal robustly with anyone committing racially aggravated offences towards the Jewish community”.
The prime minister was among many politicians to condemn the video on social media.
“There is no place for anti-Semitism in our society,” Mr Johnson tweeted. “Ahead of Shavuot, I stand with Britain’s Jews who should not have to endure the type of shameful racism we have seen today.”
Shavuot is a Jewish festival beginning on Sunday that celebrates when the children of Israel received the Ten Commandments.
Sir Keir said: “Utterly disgusting. Anti-Semitism, misogyny and hate have no place on our streets or in our society. There must be consequences.”
Mike Freer, the local MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said: “The scenes I’ve witnessed in my constituency today have left me sick to my stomach.”
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the police had his “full backing” for their zero-tolerance approach, and Londoners could expect to see “high visibility police patrols”.
“Hate crimes are inexcusable and have no place in our city,” he said.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign – one of the organisers of a protest in London on Saturday in support of the Palestinians – also condemned the incident.
“The vile anti-Semitism shouted today from a convoy of cars has no place in the Palestine solidarity movement,” it said in a tweet. “We condemn it and all anti-Semitism, on it’s own account and also as it serves to undermine the anti-racist struggle for Palestinian rights.”
Thousands of people attended Saturday’s protest, which called on the UK government to step in and “stop allowing Israel’s brutal violence against and oppression of the Palestinian people to go unpunished”
Tendance Coatesy 
Al grist for the FB cesspit. Lots of comments from some on the so called ‘left’ arguing with no evidence it is a ‘false flag’ operation, engineered by the usual Zionist suspects, some other equally nasty Islamophobic stuff saying it was a convoy from Bolton and Oldham, and thus a ‘covid risk’. God help rationality. It would be best for everyone to see who these guys are once they are charged – as then have to be.
David Walsh
May 17, 2021 at 12:40 pm
I saw the first from a few people, claiming the sound on the video was added on. But the JVL has claims to be serious political organisation.
Andrew Coates
May 17, 2021 at 1:03 pm
Unite against Zionist terrorists!’ car convoy began in Bradford and Oldham
Video obtained by Jewish News shows one of the organisers of the Convoy 4 Palestine urging “Shia and Sunni” to unite “against Zionist”. Four people were later arrests.
”
Passengers among the convoy of cars that hurled sick antisemitic abuse and rape threats while waving Palestinian flags in London on Sunday travelled down to the capital from cities across northern England earlier that same day, police have discovered.
Video seen by Jewish News shows one of the organisers of the Convoy 4 Palestine event in Bradford urging both “Shia and Sunni” Muslims to “come together as one and let the world know you will stand for the violence and brutality happening to the Palestinians”.
At one stage he tells viewers: “We are not against the Jews – we are against the Zionist terrorists … they are terrorists brutally attacking our people.”
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The man adds: “This is your opportunity to stand up for the people of Palestine. I urge you guys to please come together, do not miss this opportunity.”
There is no suggestion the man in the video is one of the four men arrested by police on Sunda after footage emerged of what appeared to be threats being made to harm from passengers in the convoy as they drove through the Finchley Road.
Police are also believed to be looking into the link between an organisation named Palestine Forum in Britain (PFB) and the convoy protest.
During the Convoy 4 Palestine video recording a male confirms that the convoy “in support of our brothers and sisters who have been oppressed for too long” left the city of Bradford at 9am on Sunday, before stopping off in Sheffield and Leicester to meet other supporters on the journey down to London.
Jewish News understands that vehicles registered in the cities of Preston and Oldham have also been linked to the convoy by police investigating yesterday’s incidents, which were condemned by both Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer.
The man in the video also stressed: “Violence will not be tolerated. You are no better than them Zionist terrorists if you start fighting.”
He reassures those joining the convoy that security will also be provided for those taking part in the event.
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/participants-in-antisemitic-car-convoy-travelled-to-london-from-across-uk/
Andrew Coates
May 17, 2021 at 2:53 pm
Andrew Coates
May 17, 2021 at 2:28 pm
Quite right in apprehending and bringing to book anti-Semites by the authorities. Now all we need is the same kind of assiduity by the authorities in apprehending and bringing to book at the ICC those representatives of the Zionist state for their murderous attacks on hundreds of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children and other assorted war crimes.
I’m not holding my breath for the same kind of quick and effective action.
Boffy
May 17, 2021 at 3:31 pm
“Now all we need is the same kind of assiduity by the authorities in apprehending and bringing to book at the ICC those representatives of the Zionist state for their murderous attacks on hundreds of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children and other assorted war crimes”: who exactly do you have in mind, Arthur? Any Jew unwilling to simply denounce Israel?
Jim Denham
May 17, 2021 at 7:46 pm
No Jim that is your mentality showing through once more. If it meant what you are suggesting then I would not have started by welcoming the arrest of the anti-Semites! It means exactly what it says. It means pursuing those within the Zionist state responsible for these murderous attacks, in the same way that, for example, Serbian and other war criminals were pursued and brought to book at the ICC. That did not mean supporting any Serbians who failed to criticise those war crimes being hauled before the courts did it?
Failing to speak out against heinous crimes against humanity is not in itself a crime, and its generally liberals not Marxists who support the introduction of such measures against holding unpleasant views. The approach of Marxists, by contrast is to simply point to the heinous crimes, and to ask the question of anyone who fails to denounce them, why not? Would you not, for example, want to ask the question of George Galloway why he supported the butcher Saddam Hussein, rather than denouncing him? Doing so would not mean hauling Galloway in front of a tribunal or putting him in a hangman’s noose, but surely questioning his views, his motives, and his behaviour, and thereby his politics is something that anyone would want to do, isn’t it. The fact that the SWP and their splinters give uncritical support to Hamas and Hezbollah, does not mean they are themselves guilty of the heinous crimes of those organisations, and so I would hope no one is suggesting that they should face the same retribution, but surely any serious political analyst, let alone socialist would want to question those organisations support for these murderers, and thereby criticise their politics an method.
I don’t think that anyone was suggesting that members of the WRP or Labour Herald were guilty of the murders and crimes of the Gaddafi regime, and so should not be held to account in the same way, but surely it was right to point to the fact that they did give support to that regime, rather than criticise it, and that a large part of the motivation for that could be accounted for by the financial backing that the Gaddafi regime provided! Of course, those who fail to condemn the murder of hundreds, in total now thousands, of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children by the Zionist war machine are not themselves guilty of those crimes, and should not be held accountable in the same way as the political leaders of that regime that unleash death from the skies, or the military commanders that give the immediate orders, or even the individual soldiers that commit war crimes. They should all be brought to book in the same way that Serbian or other war criminals are brought to book, and I’m surprised you seek to put up a smoke screen to deflect from that suggestion.
But, in the same way that we criticise and call to account the Galloways. the SWP’s, the SWP’s for failing to call to account the murderous actions of regimes and organisations, shouldn’t any serious socialist also do the same in calling to account those organisations and prominent individuals who fail to call the murderous Zionist war machine and its leaders to account, and as k the same questions about motivation, and Cuo Bono?
Boffy
May 18, 2021 at 10:42 am
After an anti IRA march in London in the early 1990s, BNP and C18 supporters “went home” via Kilburn and attacked Irish residents and businesses . This is just a version of that with Islamo-fascists doing the attacking this time.
IainF
May 17, 2021 at 4:18 pm