HAARETZ :Anshel Pfeffer Follow Mar 24, 2023 Anti-Netanyahu Rally in London Gives pro-Israel and pro-Palestine Protesters a Common Cause

 Anti-Netanyahu Rally in London Gives pro-Israel and pro-Palestine Protesters a Common Cause

'Don’t ever forget that Israel is a racist project,' a protester yelled on the Palestinian side near Downing Street, while the few hundred Israeli expats there shouted against Netanyahu's bid to erode democracy

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Demonstrators protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  on his visit to London Friday.

Demonstrators protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his visit to London Friday.Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP

Anshel Pfeffer

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Mar 24, 2023

LONDON – “It’s strange and rather sad to be protesting against your country’s government while in another country,” said Amos Morris-Reich, a history professor at Tel Aviv University, currently on sabbatical at University College in London. “But anyway, my head is constantly in Israel and everything that’s happening there, so it’s almost as if we’re back home.”

For a few hours Friday morning, a long section of Whitehall, the street leading to the Houses of Parliament – and studded with government departments – was transformed into another location of Israel's growing pro-democracy protest movement.

Standing opposite the entrance of Downing Street, as Benjamin Netanyahu was about to arrive for his meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, were hundreds of Israelis, reinforced by members of the British-Jewish community. They had turned up to keep the pressure on Netanyahu and his government’s plans to weaken the Supreme Court. A smaller group of a few dozen pro-Palestinian activists protested separately.

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A man rides a bike with Palestinian flags next to demonstrators with Israeli flags during the protest.Credit: Maja Smiejkowska/Reuters

Most of the crowd was Israeli, either students or others living in Britain for a spell, or expatriates.

“I haven’t been to a protest since moving to Britain, because I’m not politically involved here,” said Or Bar, who has lived in London for 21 years. “But I feel that when everything is falling apart in Israel, and all my family and friends are on the streets there protesting against the government, it’s my duty to do so here in London.”

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While the flags were Israeli and most of the chanting was in Hebrew, the homemade signs were in English.

A protest divided by mother tongue was something of a challenge. Most of the time the protesters chanted in Hebrew “busha” (“shame”) and “demokratiya,” but there were a few attempts to combine the languages, like “Netanyahu go to jail, ve’shalom al Yisrael!” – and peace to Israel.

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Protesters supporting women's rights, dressed as characters from "The Handmaid's Tale," demonstrating on Whitehall.Credit: Isabel Infantes/AFP

The soundtrack of the protest was also a bit dissonant, with a playlist including '60s classics like “Let the Sunshine In,” Hebrew oldies by Yardena Arazi and more up-to-date Israeli protest songs from Hadag Nahash, a hip hop/funk band.

The demonstrators started gathering shortly after 7 A.M., more than two hours before Netanyahu was due, and over a couple hundred were there by 8:30.

The lone pro-Palestinian protester at that point, a man with a long beard name Khalid, carried a homemade sign calling for sanctions on Israel “for crimes occupation & Apartheid of Palestinians.” He was impressed. “My lot won’t turn up before 10,” he said.

Around 500 people were there by 9:30 A.M., when Netanyahu’s cavalcade swept down Whitehall and turned into Downing Street. There had been rumors he wouldn't get the traditional greeting outside the door of No. 10 and would instead be smuggled through the back entrance.

This turned out to be false, but the noise caused by the protesters ruined the audio component of any photo-op video for Netanyahu. In a minor gesture of concerns for Israeli democracy, at the last moment the British canceled the customary joint statement to the cameras at Downing Street.

Protests against the Israeli government in London certainly aren't rare, but their dynamic is always one group with Palestinian flags and usually a much smaller group with the Israeli blue and white as a counterdemonstration. This time the much larger and better-organized protest featured Israeli flags, but both sides found themselves protesting against the Israeli government, albeit with very different emphases.

One speaker at the Palestinian demonstration warned his listeners not to fraternize with the other side. “We may like the fact that Israelis are also protesting against the war criminal Netanyahu,” he admonished them. “But don’t ever forget that Israel is a racist project that didn’t start with Netanyahu and won’t end with him.”

Some of them gathered around the small stage and averted their eyes from the hundreds of Israeli flags waving on the opposite street corner. But many were drawn there; after all, it made a change to the regular chanting of “Free, free Palestine.” As the morning proceeded, more and more pro-Palestinian and anti-occupation signs mingled with the sea of blue and white.

The two competing protests posed a problem for some left-wingers who were uncertain where to stand. Uri Agnon, an Israeli student and member of an anti-occupation group, said that “ideally we would like to stand in the middle, because we’re for democracy and against the occupation, but the police won’t let us.”

Like-minded protesters, including members of the anti-occupation British Jewish group Na’amod, kept gravitating between the two sides. “We’re basically wandering Jews,” one of them joked.

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