The police are giving in to anti-Semitism

How have we got to a point where a police officer thinks it legitimate to tell a man he cannot cross a street on which a pro-Palestinian demonstration is taking place because he is “openly Jewish”? For months, Jewish groups have warned that the centres of Britain’s cities have become “no-go zones” for Jews because of the hate marches. A shocking video lays bare the extent to which the police appear to be complicit.

Gideon Falter, the head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, did not threaten the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. He has stated that he was “not part of any protest or counter-protest”, and was simply “exercising my right to walk around my home city”. But one officer told him he was “worried about the reaction” to his presence. Another warned him that, if he did not leave the area, he would be arrested.

Mr Falter has made clear that his issue is not with the individual officers but with the shameful policy adopted by the Met. It has done almost nothing as anti-Semitic slogans have been chanted on the capital’s streets, and notoriously said that calls for “jihad” had “a number of meanings”.

Clearly, it recognises that the marches pose a danger to Jewish people’s safety. But its reaction is not to seek to ban the protests or to curtail them. It is to tell a Jewish man that he should go elsewhere. It is hard to imagine that an officer would make such a statement about a member of another minority group.

The Met released a statement yesterday, saying the use of the term “openly Jewish” was regrettable. But it also appeared to criticise what it described as a new trend – counter-protestors appearing along the march route to express their views, calling them “provocative”.

Obviously, this will have public order implications, but it is intolerable that the Met seems to regard its role as facilitating extremist anti-Israel demonstrations while cracking down on those who voice their opposition to terrorism. A man was even arrested last month for carrying a “Hamas are terrorists” sign at a protest.

As the former home secretary Suella Braverman has noted, “it appears that they’ve picked a side”. It is wrong, she says, that “one group of people cannot exercise their rights to enjoy London peacefully in order to allow another group to express their hatred and intimidation freely”. Indeed.

This cannot be allowed to continue. If the Met refuses to put its own house in order, the Government has a duty to intervene. It is disgraceful that the police seem to think it preferable to restrict Jewish people’s freedoms than to confront the anti-Semites in our midst.