Britain’s Jews fear for their lives because Sir Mark Rowley is a weak coward

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Recently, I was invited to sit in on a Zoom debate with members of the National Jewish Assembly (NJA). The motion was: “This Assembly believes that the Jewish community has a long-term future in the UK.” NJA chairman Gary Mond called first one speaker then another. Some of them were elderly and not familiar with the technology (“You’re on mute, Alan. Unmute!”). Most of them had lived in Britain their whole lives; a few had distant memories of fleeing persecution. But all of them, I think, had a tribal muscle memory of what this moment might mean; should we stay or should we go?

The faces on my screen looked anxious, weary, perturbed, agitated, desperately seeking reassurance.

A younger bearded guy was clearly irate. Anti-Semitism had surfaced from the dripping caves of the internet and was stalking the streets of their capital city. Vast pro-Palestine marches, which had taken place at least every other weekend for six months, began when the corpses of the victims of October 7 were still unburied. The scarcely credible butchery of young festival-goers, women and children counted for nothing apparently. That very first protest was not a reaction to Israeli aggression because there had been no invasion of Gaza. It was Jew-hatred, pure and simple.

Since then, the police have come up with multiple excuses not to arrest any protesters however badly behaved. They even employed a lawyer, previously filmed leading the blood-curdling ‘From the river to the sea’ chant at an anti-Israel rally, to advise them on their response to the protests and invited him into their operations room in Lambeth.

The decision that faced the Jewish group I joined on Zoom was either to ride out the present troubles and hope for the best, or to make Aliyah (take up residence in Israel, an offer available to every Jew). The younger bearded guy, who lived in Manchester, had already made up his mind. He had witnessed several recent attacks on Jews and his family’s bags were packed. “Look at the demographics,” he said bluntly. “The Muslim population is growing. It’s not safe for us.”

“But this is our home,” one woman protested, her voice quavering. A second said she was joining us from Tel Aviv. She advised the rest of the group to get out while they still could. Even faced with the prospect of rocket attacks from Hezbollah, and the threat of war with Iran, that lady and her husband still felt safer in Israel than in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Towards the end of the debate, Mond texted me to ask if I wanted to say something. I declined. Hearing people who were going about their quiet, blameless British lives actually discussing whether they were safe in our mutual homeland was oddly paralysing. I felt sad and helpless. Make that sad, helpless and outraged that our Government and the Metropolitan Police had not acted sooner to shut down the hate-filled forces which have made British Jews so afraid that they now contemplate fleeing.

The motion was defeated. Only 30 per cent believed that the Jewish community had a long-term future in the UK with 43 per cent against.

It was a relatively small number of votes, with many undecided, but still. Here were members of one of the UK’s most successful minorities; so brilliantly integrated, so hard-working, so patriotic, making such an invaluable contribution to this country – from art to retail, science, music, showbusiness, hospitality, finance, medicine, TV, law, education, journalism, politics – that it was impossible to think of Britain without them.

How many Jews are in jail? How many Jews are on benefits? How many Jews don’t learn English? How many terrorist attacks have been launched by British Jews?

By and large, they are exemplary citizens yet any reasonable person listening into that debate might have concluded that Britain may well have lost her Jewish population within 30 years.

It is against this dismaying backdrop that we must understand calls for Sir Mark Rowley to resign as Met Commissioner following an incident in which an officer described an anti-Semitism campaigner as “openly Jewish”. Gideon Falter, head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a kippah when he was walking alongside a pro-Palestine march and tried to cross to the other side of the street. A sergeant blocked his way saying, “You are quite openly Jewish… I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.” He offered to walk Falter to an area where there were Israeli flags and told him that, if he chose to stay put, he could be arrested for a “breach of peace”.

Whether or not Falter was there deliberately to make a point about the safety of Jews in London is neither here nor there. The point was well made. For the Met, “keeping the peace” now appears to mean whisking the “openly Jewish” away in case “peaceful protesters” get antagonised and decide to tear them limb from limb. Sorry, that is not law and order; it is craven appeasement.

The first apology from the Met about the “openly Jewish” outrage was notably passive aggressive. It disapproved of the “new trend” of those opposed to the main protests “appearing along the route to express their views”. Tut tut! As if that wasn’t bad enough, these naughty people “often film themselves while doing so” which “suggests they must know that their presence is provocative… and that they’re increasing the likelihood of an altercation”.

When a woman is raped, it is no longer acceptable for police or lawyers to say, “She was asking for it” because she was dressed in a “provocative” manner. That’s called victim shaming. Clearly, no such scruples apply if the person is a Jew. According to the police sergeant, who rather gave the game away, Jews are responsible for violence caused by their mere presence next to an anti-Israeli march. By that warped logic, it is Jews who must be arrested, not the screeching mob with their cheery genocidal slogans and recreational swastikas.

OK, I think I’ve got the policing strategy straight: “Be a good lad, Mr Falter, and stay well away from people who want your kind wiped out or you’ll only go making them kick off and create more work for the police. And we’re scared of them, see, because there’s more of them than us.” Er, isn’t that called mob rule?

A defiant Sir Mark insisted that, while the use of the term “openly Jewish” was “clumsy and offensive”, his officers were “handling a difficult situation well”. The sergeant at the scene “clearly assessed that there was a risk of confrontation and was trying to help Mr Falter find a different route”.

Actually, I don’t blame the sergeant who did his best to be calm and helpful (he was just obeying orders). But Gideon Falter didn’t want to find a different route, did he? He wanted to cross the road like any free citizen in a free country. This proves the police are being disingenuous when they say the marchers are peaceful and not guilty of stirring up Jew hatred. That’s exactly what they’re doing, and no one dares stop them. Successive governments have ignored tensions with radicalised elements in the Muslim community, and it’s now such a tinderbox it terrifies the authorities.

Police in France moved swiftly to ban pro-Palestine marches at the outset because they knew they would generate public-order disturbances and ethnic tension. Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz declared “zero tolerance” of anti-Semitism and banned marches and Hamas-linked activities after celebrations of the massacres in Israel. Those nations showed strength and resolve in the face of the Islamist menace to the Western way of life.

Britain has let down her Jews, by contrast, and it is shameful. Former home secretary Suella Braverman warned that what she called “hate marches” were an “assertion of primacy by certain groups” with thousands “chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map” while the Met indulged in “two-tier policing” and “playing favourites”. She was sacked by the Prime Minister for telling the unpalatable truth. Six months later, here we are, with precious Jewish citizens planning to make Aliyah, leaving the UK in fear of their lives. Great work, gentlemen.

Of course Sir Mark Rowley should resign. He is weak, complacent and fatally confuses the “best tradition of British police trying to prevent disorder” with cowardly appeasement of the Hamas mob. It is hard to imagine any previous generation of coppers being so timid or unwilling to feel the collar of the actual villains. I hear the latest Rowley solution to this toxic mess is asking Jewish police officers to advise the Met on “cultural sensitivities”.

“That is woke nonsense,” snaps Mond. “All that is necessary is for the police not to tolerate Jew hatred.” Exactly. Those marches have done enough harm; they should be banned.

On Saturday, I may happen to be strolling near the pro-Palestine march carrying a placard: “Openly Welsh.” Is that provocative enough, Sir Mark, to constitute a breach of the peace? Or am I still allowed to express my deep dislike for that hateful rabble causing such distress to Britain’s irreplaceable Jews?