On 11^th December, outside the Israeli-owned restaurant Erev (also known as Miznon) just off Portobello Road, an organised group of Zionists attacked a small gathering of anti-genocide protestors in a coordinated act of intimidation. The victims are part of a group that has sought to raise concerns over Erev due to its owners’ close ties to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and the Israeli army, two institutions that have (prima facie) committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, mainly against women and children. We have spoken with most of the victims of the Erev incident, and their accounts raise questions about the roles of the restaurant’s owners and managers; the Metropolitan Police and Britain’s Zionist lobby in the targeting of these local North Kensington anti-genocide activists.

‘6:30, Thursday, at Erev, W11 2XH’

The protest, the seventh to target Erev on the corner of Elgin Crescent and Kensington Park Road was planned to start at 6:30 pm. Arriving early, one protestor saw four police community support officers already stationed outside the restaurant. The officers told him that they had seen the announcement of the protest on Instagram. The previous six Erev protests had been peaceful (aside from some aggression from several Zionist Israelis who took exception to the first anti-genocide gathering there in September) with no arrests. The protest group has focused on informing customers and passers-by about the restaurant’s connection to the genocide in Palestine.

From 6:30 to 6:50, the protest played out as usual, with most members of the public grateful to receive printed information about Erev’s connection to the Gaza Strip war. One notable passer-by was Shahar Segal, Erev’s co-owner and the former spokesperson for the murderous US-Israeli GHF project. Segal told an activist, “I’m one of the owners,” before walking off without entering his restaurant. The protestor searched online for images of the Erev owners when he got home and saw that it was indeed Segal he had spoken to.

Between 6:50 and 7:00, a group of 25-30 counter-protestors arrived. They were largely made up of middle-aged men from the predominantly non-Jewish Zionist organisation Our Fight UK several of them were identified by one witness as having been at an earlier protest that day at King’s College London. They waved union jack and Israel flags and chanted “IDF, IDF” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, the name Israel euphemistically gives its army. Two of them claimed to have served in the IDF, one in the last two years. In contrast, the anti-genocide group were mainly aged 60+ with a couple of younger members.

At King’s College one of the Our Fight members had kicked a protestor in the face, captured in this video:

Our Fight UK is led by Mark Birbeck, a non-Jewish Zionist, who was present at Erev threatening and abusing protestors. The role of the organisation within the Zionist movement seems to be to target students and older activists. A protestor with knowledge of the group told us, “They (Our Fight UK) don’t have the following of Tommy Robinson but they aspire to be that.” Robinson’s career as a far-right agitator has been nurtured by Israel lobbyists, always keen to support Britain’s fascist fifth columnists.

At previous protests at Erev, the restaurant’s manager had called the police, who attended but took no action. The manager had been visibly exasperated by the police’s refusal to remove the protestors. But on the 11^th December, the police were already in position, with the far-right thugs not far behind.

With the Zionist harassment operation “in full swing” by 7pm, a female member of the anti-genocide group was just arriving, having been at the King’s College protest in town. Before she had even reached Erev, one of the Zionists shouted at her, “Why don’t you go fuck yourself…why don’t you fuck off.”

When she responded in kind, the Zionist ran to the police to complain about her language. A police officer, believing the Zionist to be the victim, told the protestor to “stop telling people to fuck off” – when she explained that she had been abused without provocation, the officer advised her to “maybe turn the other cheek then.”

This protestor told us she thought the police’s appeasement empowered the Zionists. Realising the police were both outnumbered and not minded to tackle the instigators, she resorted to asking members of the public to stay with them to provide some protection. At this point, shortly after 7pm, there were five anti-genocide protestors, up to 30 Zionist thugs and only eight police officers, mainly community support officers.

Meanwhile, from a distance, a group of young British Moroccan men watched the scene play out.

Tactics

The Zionist gang formed a pack in front of the protestors and groups of two would peel off to ostensibly engage protestors in conversation, soon trying to provoke violence or to catch them out by asking if they supported proscribed organisations.

Early in the confrontation, a Zionist warned the group, “You should leave if you know what’s good for you.”

But leaving was not a viable option as the Zionists continued to circumvent the police line and to come up close to the protestors. A female protestor, approximately five feet tall, was threatened personally three times. The Zionists told the protestors they would catch up with them individually after the protest, claiming to know where they lived. The threats were reported to the police, who responded with, “We can’t do anything.”

When two local youths stopped and tried to intervene in support of the protestors at around 7:15, the police immediately removed them.

All the Zionist gang had balaclavas or scarves which they put on when their attack turned more physical. They moved forward to push the police line back, which in turn pushed the protestors into the road.

The lead police officer asked the anti-genocide group to stand on the other side of the road, forming a perimeter around them to help them across. But the harassment continued with small groups of Zionists crossing over to step up their threats and attempt to instil more fear, seen on this link.

One of our sources told us the Zionists were “grown men screaming at us hysterically from three sides.” This is shown in a video posted on the Our Fight UK X account, accompanied by the usual claim of victimhood.

The Zionists repeatedly tried to remove a keffiyeh from one of the protestors, resorting to pushing him when their attempts failed.

At 7.30pm, the lead officer told the protestors that he had no other officers locally who could provide backup. Fearing serious assault, the seven protestors agreed to leave together which would enable the police to ensure the Zionists did not follow them.

Our sources told us the police never had control of the situation, unable or unwilling to respond to the level of aggression of the Zionists. The protestors left Erev, but the Zionist gang wasn’t finished yet.

After the protest

The small group of local British Moroccan youths were still nearby; they had seen there was something going on and that people were waving union jacks and Israel flags. One of them told Urban Dandy what happened next: unprovoked, a group of Zionists – outnumbering the youths three to one – confronted them, calling them “terrorists.” The youths defended themselves against the racist attack, and two of the young men were arrested, charged with ABH and GBH. Our source left the scene before he could see if any of the Zionist instigators were also arrested. The police have confirmed there were “a number” of arrests, which they stated were connected to the protests, although nobody was arrested outside Erev.

According to our source, the bail conditions state that the young men cannot see each other, nor can they attend Palestine protests, a bizarre condition as none of them have attended anti-genocide protests and none were outside Erev. Regarding the relationship between the police and the Zionist street thugs, our source commented “It looked like the police were protecting them.”

Erev’s dog that didn’t bark

According to one of the protestors, the Erev staff seemed to know exactly who the thugs were: “On a number of occasions, I saw the manager watching them trying to frighten us off. Her only concern seemed to be to pull a curtain across the entrance so that her customers in the restaurant would not see the ugly scenes outside. She clearly didn’t care about us getting lynched by this mob here to defend Erev and Israel.” 

Over three months, the protests at Erev have all been organised on Thursday evenings. For the Thursday 11^th December protest, for the first time, Erev had a professional bouncer on the door. He did not interact with the protestors, focusing only on customers arriving and leaving. He showed no interest in the Zionist mob as they threatened the seven protestors. One protestor commented to us: “It was almost as if he had been told by the Erev manager that he didn’t need to worry about these men of violence.”

The same protestor remarked: “It seems likely that Erev had called in an organised gang to frighten and silence local citizens…does Erev have its own group of thugs it can call on, or was this group organised by Community Security Trust or the Campaign against Anti-Semitism (both key parts of the Israel Lobby in the UK, with the former reportedly staffed largely from the ranks of the Israeli Army).”

Two days later, on a busy Saturday night, Erev did not station a bouncer on the door.

St John’s Wood

Throughout the attack, Zionists filmed the North Kensington anti-genocide protestors. It seems that the videos are used to provide intelligence to enable Zionist activists to target specific individuals. The Notting Hill incident came less than a month after a similar scene in St John’s Wood when Zionists targeted a group of three middle-aged female anti-genocide protestors. One of the three sent us this description by text message:

“The incident took place on Sunday 23rd of November around 5 pm Three of us went to support the pro-Palestine Jewish Community in St John’s Wood. As we were making our way out of the station, we noticed a group of men in their late 40s standing near the exit, I assumed they were a group of Eastern European workmen taking a break. We continued walking and suddenly they surrounded us, we were in shock, they were Zionists, they’ve noticed the keffiyeh on my friends, they also recognised one of us from previous protests.

“They were intimidating, on the edge of physical attack if police officers didn’t arrive quicky. We couldn’t go anywhere, stuck inside the station, we were kept there for more than an hour. Meanwhile, a larger group of Zionists were forming, waving, shouting, blocking the exit. Police officers questioned two of the aggressors. We were asked if we wanted to make a complaint but we didn’t want to give our personal details.

“Another five Pro-Palestine joined us, police officers told us that under section 14 (don’t know what it means) if we went outside we would be arrested. The recommendation from them I think was to take the tube to Swiss Cottage, all very confusing…We then walked from that station, two Pro-Palestine disappeared who actually were leading us and then we were ambushed by Zionists and suddenly a few police officers appeared. Police officers escorted us to go back to the station. One of our friends got her bag thrown by a Zionist over a wall and begged to police officers to get her stuff, she was begging them and they arrested her.”

Our St John’s Wood source did not recognise any of the Zionists from the footage taken outside Erev.

Erev and Genocide

Erev (aka Miznon) is an Israeli chain restaurant that markets itself as specialising in “Mediterranean cuisine,” a euphemism for appropriated Arab cuisine. The restaurant is not been targeted by protestors because it is Israeli, but because its co-owners have been complicit in Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. One co-owner, Shahar Segal, was spokesperson for the murderous GHF, a non-profit registered in Switzerland but formed by the US and Israeli governments. The GHF ousted the United Nations as the coordinator of aid distribution in Gaza. Israeli soldiers and GHF mercenaries killed over 2,600 Palestinians queuing for food at GHF sites, with at least 19,000 injured. The GHF was officially wound up in October, but the key figures behind it have designed President Trump’s Pentagon-directed International Stabilization Force, which will oversee the dystopian, totalitarian control of every aspect of life for Gaza’s population, with the Palestinians again the test cases for other unwanted populations. For more information on the GHF, see our previous articles and watch the video below.

Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023. Since then, the Met Police’s War Crimes Unit has not prosecuted anybody suspected of being complicit in the genocide.

Erev and Our Fight UK were approached for comment.

 

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles