OPINION: When calling for Israelis to be killed is deemed acceptable

After 178 days of a needlessly complicated police investigation dealing with blatant antisemitism from Bob Vylan’s Pascal Robinson-Foster televised to millions from Glastonbury, Avon & Somerset Police and the Crown Prosecution Service say there is “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. 

It would be helpful if this could beggar belief, but given the two-tier – indeed multi-tier – policing in the United Kingdom, the Jewish community and those of us who support them are in no way shocked.

The announcement comes within days of the leaders of both the Metropolitan and Greater Manchester Police having finally caught up with another obvious truth.  Those chanting ‘globalise the intifada’ are, in fact, antisemites calling for the death of Jews.  These policing leaders now realise the mass chanting of this slogan has led to people globalising the intifada, with murderous attacks at Heaton Park in Manchester and on Bondi Beach, amongst many others.

Other police forces remain unclear on this – I asked Avon & Somerset Police about it and a waffly, ambiguous statement was sent back.  We still don’t know whether someone shouting this phrase would be arrested in Taunton, though they would apparently be in Manchester or London.  But they might be – so shouting ‘globalise the intifada’ at the next Glastonbury festival may well involve a knock on the door from Inspector Knacker, but shouting ‘death, death to the IDF’ is absolutely fine.  All clear?

For months my producers at Talk have been working with me to try to get answers out of Avon & Somerset Police about how the investigation is going, whether Pascal Robinson-Foster was ever arrested (he was not, but he was questioned) and we ran a graphic on the screen on many occasions, calculating the number of days the investigation was dragging on.  On numerous occasions we asked chief constable Sarah Crew to be interviewed on Talk.  She refused each time, and continues to do so.

And now we have the verdict from her and her CPS colleagues: despite televised evidence, despite months of investigation, despite 200 people being interviewed on a basis not fully clarified by Avon & Somerset Police, there is ‘insufficient evidence’ for Pascal Robinson-Foster to be prosecuted.  He initially denied he was calling for the deaths of individual IDF soldiers, with evidence inconveniently turning up from a concert just weeks before Glastonbury when he had done just that.  Robinson-Foster has repeated the call in other international concerts.

Free speech is a fundamental part of any free society.  The free speech we enjoy in the United Kingdom is denied to citizens of most of the Arab world and it is certainly not encouraged by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.  But Robinson-Foster’s call was not for the IDF to cease its activity.  He was not taking issue with the IDF’s tactics, or even doing something such as calling them ‘murderers’ guilty of ‘genocide’.  All of these sentiments are ones with which most Jewish News readers will disagree, but will not actively believe people should be arrested or charged for saying.

But now, as 2025 closes, we are told by both Avon & Somerset Police and the Crown Prosecution Service that in the United Kingdom it is absolutely fine to call for the death of the 169,500 active personnel in the conscript IDF army and its 465,000 reserve soldiers.  Many antisemites will sleep more soundly at that.

Sir Keir Starmer lights his menorah candles, has Jewish leaders into Number 10 for a Chanukah reception and says he will do all he can to stop antisemitism.  Perhaps he could start by having a word with the organisation he once led, the Crown Prosecution Service, reminding them what antisemitism actually is, if the Prime Minister himself in fact knows.  It would be helpful if it didn’t take yet more years for our ruling class to work out basic facts.  It may even save a few Jewish lives.

• Peter Cardwell is a presenter on the Talk radio and TV network and author of Political Animals, published by Biteback