Sunday, May 15, 2016

The day the Jews of London and their friends fought back

Update: see this follow-up for people who think none of this has anything to do with antisemitism.

Today, like so many days in London over the last 10 years, a group of antisemites who go under the laughable guise of 'Palestine supporters' planned to:
  1. March through the streets of London shouting despicable lies against Israel without being challenged
  2. Hand out leaflets spewing more lies, hatred and antisemitic blood libels to unwitting Londoners trying to enjoy a day out in the sunshine; and finally
  3. Lay siege to a modest Jewish Israeli-owned shop with the explicit intention of forcing it out of business, without a murmur of protest against them.
But NOT today. They met their match because, thanks to outstanding work by Gemma Sheridan (see update* about this below), Paul Besser, Joseph Cohen, Yochy Davis,  and others, Israel supporters had found out their plans and, at short notice, got together an impressive counter demo. And for over 3 hours Israel supporters were right in the faces of the antisemites ensuring that not a single Londoner or tourist heard their lies unchallenged.

It all started when the antisemites gathered in Soho Square and were about to serenade the visitors there trying to have a peaceful lunch with their classic tune "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free".  They were greeted first by Ishmael Sali, who they assumed would be joining their hatefest.


The look on their faces was quite something to see when Ishmael pulled out a large Israeli flag (see more pictures of Ishmael below), followed by others doing the same. Within seconds the terrorist supporting goons were surrounded by more people with Israel flags (more people in fact than the antisemites) and for the 20 minutes they stayed there singing the Israel supporters drowned out their noise with their own, including with some impressive shofar blowing.

When the antisemites started their march toward Covent Garden they were surrounded and followed all the way. For the 2 hours they were outside Sabon Israel supporters made sure to counter their lies. In particular they made sure the lies in these leaflets they were handing out did not go unchallenged:


And their ludicrous stunts - like letting off smoke bombs in red and then in the colours of 'Palestine' and attempting to throw a bag filled with shit were muted.


Even when their demo outside Sabon ended (to a rousing rendition of Hatikvah) the antisemites were followed all the way back. For once they did not have the streets of London to their own and they did not like it one bit.

Although still relatively small in numbers today's direct action by Israel supporters was a thousand times more effective than anything done in the last 10 years by the entire set of organisations run by Britain's 'official Jews' combined (UPDATE: Note I am referring to those 'official' demos and not other direct action events like today of which there have been quite a few). In fact I have no doubt that if the Board of Deputies and CST were aware of what was going to happen they would either have tried to stop it or would have made sure the Israel supporters were penned in as far away from the action as possible (which they manage to do every time) to maintain the image of the 'trembling Jew' **(UPDATE: see below comments about this from the President of the BoD).

Every time the 'Palestine Solidarity Committee' plans one of these stunts I can't help thinking of this. And it's about time they are shown up for the bigots they are.

UPDATE: Look at the antisemitic abuse after a video of the counter demo was posted.


PS I like these photos from today (courtesy Sharon Zacks):








and this one courtesy of Israel Advocacy Movement which perfectly sums up the day:


And here is what Israel Advocacy Movement says about today:

***TODAY WE SCORED A DECISIVE VICTORY***
London Palestine Action tried to close down an Israeli cosmetics shop in London called Sabon, their reason? Because the Sabon factory is in Kiryat Gat, a city well within the 1949 Armistice Lines, this was not a protest against "settlements", disgracefully this was a protest against the very existence of Israel.
London Palestine Action promoted this event for over a month, yet without advertising we were able to mobilise far more activists than they had. For one of the first times in years, our chants of "1, 2, 3, 4 stop the boycott, stop the war, 5, 6, 7, 8 stop the boycott, stop the hate", drowned out their screams of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"... a call for the destruction of Israel.
With our activists and supporters robed in Israeli flags we were successful in obscuring their message of hate.
The cherry on the cake, was when Chloe organised our supporters to end the day with a shopping spree in Sabon... the perfect response to a boycott.
For those that couldn't make it today, please take 5 minutes to head over to https://www.sabonuk.co.uk/en/ and support a great business that has found itself the focus of a vile and bigoted hate campaign.
Thank you so much each and everyone who came and continues to support Israel with us.
UPDATE: Wow it seems we REALLY got to them:


..and check the antisemitic abuse on the view comments

*UPDATE: Gemma Sheridan was working solidly on this - and the counter-demos that took place the day before - for six weeks and deserves special credit.

**UPDATE: Following my posting of this article the President of the Board of Deputies (Jonathan Arkush) wrote this response (which he is happy for me to share here):
Dear Edgar
I was very pleased indeed to read about the counter-demonstration.  You rather did the Board a disservice with your wide-of-the-mark comment.  The Board has always supported demonstrating and indeed has organised many of the leading ones.  The very last thing we would do is to have restricted this type of event !  Provided, obviously, any demonstration is conducted within the law I can assure you it will have the Board’s support.
I think you are aware that under my presidency the Board has spoken up and acted loudly and clearly for British Jews and Israel and I assure you will continue to do so without fear or favour.

What we need to do is to act with unity.  Let us support each other strongly and steer away from making derogatory comments – we can save those for the real opposition.

Regards  
Jonathan
UPDATE: a commentator expressed concern at the (well-meaning) banner saying "Israel is not an apartheid state etc") held up by one of the pro-Israel demonstrators, feeling it was far too defensive. I have written about this here.

See also:

18 comments:

Unknown said...

This is not the first time Jews and pro Israel activists have fought back, not by a long way. Unfunded, in fact mostly unrescourced in any way, a few dozen amateurs have fought Israel's corner on literally hundreds of occasions.
Kol Hakavod to everyone who was on the streets yesterday and today and at an untold number of events over the last decade.

Unknown said...

This is not the first time Jews and pro Israel activists have fought back, not by a long way. Unfunded, in fact mostly unrescourced in any way, a few dozen amateurs have fought Israel's corner on literally hundreds of occasions.
Kol Hakavod to everyone who was on the streets yesterday and today and at an untold number of events over the last decade.

Confronting antisemitism and Israel hatred said...

Anthony

I apologise if there was a misunderstanding but I definitely did NOT say this was the first time Jews had fought back. I was very clearly drawing a comparison to those 'official' demos and not other direct action events like today of which there have been quite a few. I have added further clarification of this in the report now.

Philip Witriol said...

Brilliant!

moretorah said...

Freaking awesome

Anonymous said...

These people are AMAZING! What they did was biblical! May THIS begin to trend globally as the proper response! THIS is what I was suggesting the kids on American campus' begin to do.

Rima from Texas said...

Bullies crumble when challenged, they can dish it out but they cant take it!
Thank G-d the response is a challenge to their abuse!
A huge Thank yoi and much RESPECT TO you, the advocates for Israel and the Jewish people!!
Shalom from Texas!

Anonymous said...

You guys are great! Fantastic! Wish I could have been there! From the USA. Keep up the great work❣

Adrian said...

Kol Hakavod for the brave and necessary counter demo. Its a tough and frightening thing to do. We should, however get off the back foot; forget "Israel is not a racist country" and start shouting "palestinians are a racist people", "Not a single Jew will be allowed to live in our country (Mahmood Abbas), "palestinians are murdering and ethnically cleansing Christians", "Hamas ethnically cleansed Jews from Gaza and continues to destroy churches" etc. "palestinians support ISIS and rejoice in terrorist atrocities".
Lets take the fight to them.

Confronting antisemitism and Israel hatred said...

Adrian

I absolutely agree with you about getting off the back foot. I HATED that banner that one of the well meaning counter-demonstrator was holding up. AS I said in a previous article a while back: if you are accused of something that is blatantly malicious and false blatant your response should be the same as if a man who has never met your grandmother tells you that she is an Alien bounty hunter from the Planet Zog and demands to know if you are therefore prepared to help him kill her. You should expose the person who says that as the liar and insane psychopath that they are:http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/responding-to-israel-apartheid-state-lie.html

Shirl in Oz said...

To President of the Board of Deputies (Jonathan Arkush)

I do not for one moment believe that the powers that be at the BoD in the UK would have sanctioned this demonstration, any more than they would have done here in Sydney Australia.

I know the 'performance' we had here in Sydney when we went on the attack against the BDSers and we beat them.

Shimona from the Palace said...

Kol Hakavod to all those proud Jews who took the fight back to the enemy.

Dina said...

I have another chant for you, guys, one that makes full use of their idiotic warcry:

From the river to the sea
"palestine" will NEVER be
From the sea and to the river
ISRAEL will be forever

goyisherebbe said...

Kol hakavod to the good folks who did this job to put the haters in their place with no quarter asked and no quarter given. However, this does not change two facts. One, that the influx of Muslims and the increase of synergy with the good old British Jew-haters will only continue and grow. Two, that the Society of Trembling Israelites will do everything they can to prevent more cases of Jews fighting back. Therefore, Jews come home ASAP!

Unknown said...

Bravo

Daphne Anson said...

To be honest, Edgar, I didn't know what to make of this when I saw the brief clip provided by Russia Today. But this post of yours really clarifies the situation. It's great to read Jonathan Arkush's remarks too.

sara said...

Well.. Unfortunately, this is not all lies.. It is easy for pro-israel supporters to defend Israel's stance from europe but what is happening in Israel is against the values of Zionism and if we want to have a true jewish state we must give palestinian a separate state where they can live in peace. Becoming an apartheid state is not going to serve Jewish Israelis.

Dina said...

Don't just bullshit, Sara. Give actual examples. Just keep in mind that *I* actually *am* in Israel.