The folded arms of the law
A mob outside a shul isn’t a protest. It’s intimidation the Met refused to stop
Yobs cluster outside a north London synagogue, yelling abuse and projecting an offensive slogan on the wall and the Metropolitan Police does little more than watch.
The real scandal of last weekend’s so-called ‘anti-Zionist’ protest outside St John’s Wood synagogue was not the obscene noise on the street but the obscene silence of the law. The right to protest does not include the right to menace.
A demonstration of this nature outside a Jewish communal building is deliberately provocative.
The location is the message.
It collapses any distinction between Israel and British Jews. This was not political expression deserving legal protection. It was calculated harassment of Jews, The police had a duty to break it up, not stand aside.
The Met’s insistence that it had “no legal mechanism” to move the mob is a convenient dodge. Policing relies on discretion and the ability to recognise when a crowd becomes intimidating. Sunday’s sinister scenes comfortably crossed that line.
Officers were more concerned about avoiding confrontation than exercising their sworn duty – protecting people who have every right to enter a community building without intimidation.
A demonstration of this nature outside a Jewish communal building is deliberately provocative. The location is the message
British Jews cannot feel they are being penalised for being law-abiding. Yet that was the effect. Had the shulgoers shouted back or surged forward, the police would have acted. Abiding by the law was the very thing that left them exposed.
The task of the police in this case was to ensure citizens could enter and exit their religious building in peace – a basic tenet of British society.
Last weekend, the Met let it fall apart on its watch. Again.
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