British Jews should not feel they are being penalised for being law-abiding

Last month, the Metropolitan Police made an announcement. The ragtag remnant of the United Kingdom Independence Party had declared its intention to march through Tower Hamlets, calling on attendees to “reclaim Whitechapel from the Islamists”. When the police banned the march, UKIP attempted to announce an “assembly” – a static, non-moving protest in the borough, which in theory the police are far less capable of blocking than a procession. Yet, somehow, the police prevented that as well, on the grounds of “concerns of serious disorder”. UKIP, the police announced, “cannot hold their protest in Whitechapel or anywhere else in the borough of Tower Hamlets”.

The police were right to do so. As they pointed out, UKIP had described such events as parts of a “mass deportation tour” and organisers had described this as a “crusade”. It was clearly and obviously targeted at Muslims within Tower Hamlets. But it’s important to note that the police did not give that as the reason for the sweeping ban. They noted that “a significant counter-protest was also expected”, and that the reason for the ban was “to prevent serious disorder”. The Met determined that there was the serious risk of violence, and so it stepped in and stopped it.

Contrast that with the scenes that took place yesterday evening in St John’s Wood. The local United Synagogue was holding a series of Israel-related events, including an aliyah fair – providing information and advice for Jews who might be interested in moving to Israel. An increasing number of Jews are at least considering the prospect, given the rise in antisemitism here over the last few years.

In response, there was an announcement of a protest outside the synagogue. It was ostensibly organised by anti-Zionist Jews, but the real push for attendees appears to have come from an organisation calling itself Palestine Pulse. Chants included the far less ambiguous Arabic version of the call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel – “min el-maiyeh lel mayieh, Falastin arabieh” “from water to water, Palestine is Arab”.

It has been less than two months since a terror attack was carried out against a synagogue in this country. Two Jewish congregants attending Yom Kippur services were murdered, by someone citing the Palestinian cause as a motive as he carried out his attack. You might think that in such an atmosphere, the police would conclude that allowing a protest to go ahead outside one of the largest synagogues in London raised the possibility of “serious disorder”. You would be wrong.

The Met’s response was to say that “there is no legal mechanism to ban the protest from taking place”. Instead, they designated a few nearby streets to be off limits – both to the protesters and those who had turned out to counter-protest. And when the ‘anti-Zionist’ protesters flagrantly breached the conditions the police had set out, the response from one officer was to acknowledge that breach, but to say that “we don’t want to antagonise the situation”. In the meantime, synagogue attendees were left to argue with police as to why they should be allowed to enter their own place of worship for services.

It is unclear whether the police realise exactly what kind of message they are promoting here. It is the same message that is promoted when reports of burglaries are met with the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug while officers arrest a couple in front of their young child because they aired their concerns about leadership and governance at their local school in a parent’s Whatsapp group. And that message is that law-abiding citizens are more likely to suffer in this country, simply because it is easier for law-enforcement to keep them in line.

Beyond that, there is a horrifying and bitter thought, which I know has crossed the minds of a significant number of Jewish people in the last 24 hours. And that thought is this: If it had been made clear that a protest outside a synagogue would be met with violence, the police would have prevented it from taking place.

Such violence would of course be disastrous, in too many ways to count. But the reason that thought has even been generated is because the action – or inaction – of the police has caused it to exist.

Look at Birmingham. It is clear to anyone with a working brain that the police banned all Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the match against Aston Villa not because of a threat from hooligans making up a small percentage of travelling supporters, but because sectarian elements of the local community in Birmingham made it clear to the police that if they were to attend, the city would go up in flames. Subsequently, West Midlands police worked overtime to deny this, and, with the revelations over the weekend that their report was significantly different from the information Amsterdam police gave them, have made themselves look institutionally corrupt.

British Jews have worked hard to build strong relationships with law enforcement. The vigilantism of the 43’ group and the 62’ group, Jewish ex-servicemen who, seeing the failure of law enforcement to act against antisemites, took the law into their own hands, has rightly long been eschewed. The simplest and easiest way to prevent even a trace of such a thought process from re-emerging is for the police to stop making the overwhelming majority of Jews question why they are receiving different treatment to other minority communities.