Prime minister: ‘Globalise the intifada’ means calling for terrorism against Jews

The Prime Minister has said those attending pro-Palestine marches standing “alongside people who say ‘globalise the intifada’, you are calling for terrorism against Jews”.

Sir Keir Starmer said: “Take the marches that happen regularly across Britain.

“Of course, we protect freedom of speech and peaceful protest in this country, but if you are marching with people wearing pictures of paragliders without calling it out, you are venerating the murder of Jews.

“If you stand alongside people who say, ‘globalise the Intifada’, you are calling for terrorism against Jews, and people who use that phrase should be prosecuted.

“It is racism, extreme racism, and it has left a minority community in this country scared, intimidated, wondering if they belong.

“So I say again, this Government will do everything in our power to stamp this hatred out, we will strengthen our security and protect our Jewish community.

“But I also call on everyone decent in this country to open their eyes to Jewish pain, Jewish suffering and Jewish fear.”

Events like the attack in Golders Green “keep happening”, the Prime Minister added.

Addressing reporters, Starmer said: “At moments like this, we often say, this is not Britain that these attacks are an affront to British values, to British tolerance, British decency. But they keep happening, don’t they?

“And so today, instead, I will simply say that our values are not a gift handed down generation to generation.

“They are something we earn each day through action. They come from us.

“Antisemitism is an old, old hatred, history shows that the roots are deep, and if you turn away, it grows back.

“Yet, far too many people in this country diminish it. They either don’t see it or they don’t want to see it.”

He also pledged more funding for Jewish security services and to speed up sentencing for antisemitic crimes to act as a deterrent after the Golders Green attack.

During his Downing Street statement, he said: “I want to thank the Jewish security services… who prevented a much greater tragedy yesterday.

“I met some of the first responders today, and on behalf of the country, I thank them for their bravery. We will strengthen the visible police presence in our Jewish communities.

“We will increase our investment in those Jewish security services. We will introduce much stronger powers to shut down charities that promote antisemitic extremism.

“We will prevent hate preachers from entering our country, bar them from our campuses, our streets, our communities. Work with our justice system to speed up sentencing on antisemitic attacks so there is a stronger deterrence factor.

“And we need stronger powers to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran, because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews, which is why we will fast track the necessary legislation”.
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Starting his statement in Downing Street, the Prime Minister listed a recent slew of attacks targeting Jews and said: “And so people are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue to practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish, even to use our NHS.

“Nobody should live like that in Britain, but Jews do. And so yesterday, this anxiety that is always there went to another place, to terror, frankly. That is the right word.”