On Friday night, police collusion with the Zionist movement was on show in North Kensington. Peaceful protestors reacted to the conduct of the Met Police by spontaneously chanting “Who do you serve?” at officers. The officers didn’t answer, but they’d already left plenty of clues as to the answer.

Erev

Since September a small group of local anti-genocide protestors have demonstrated outside the Notting Hill branch of the restaurant Erev (also known as Miznon) which sits on the corner of Elgin Crescent and Kensington Park Road, just off Portobello Road. The restaurant’s co-owners have close ties to Israel’s military establishment and have supported the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. One owner, Shahar Segal, was Spokesperson for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF), a US-Israeli private company established to usurp the United Nations’ role in providing aid to Gazans. The GHF’s four “aid distribution” centres in Gaza were a front to lure and murder Palestinians. Israel (abetted by private mercenaries) killed over 2,600 Palestinians in GHF queues and wounded at least 19,000. 

For more on Erev and the GHF, click here and read our previous articles. 

In this context, and with the mainstream media and politicians ignoring the GHF-linked killings, it is unsurprising that people have chosen to protest Erev, raising awareness at community level to draw attention to (prima facie) war crimes and crimes against humanity.  

Far-Right  

At a December protest outside Erev, right wing, predominantly non-Jewish, Zionist activists from a group associated with pro-Israel, anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (better known by his stage name, Tommy Robinson) abused the small group of non-violent, mainly retirement aged, protestors. The intimidation appeared to have been coordinated with the restaurant, and the police were overwhelmed by the number of Zionists. Despite the abuse, the protestors had since been back to Erev, handing out information and explaining their cause to local people.

For Friday’s protest, the small North Kensington collective was joined by activists from the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), an organisation working for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the end of the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, two aims that align with British law and official government policy. IJAN announced their planned attendance on Instagram, and a response from a British Zionist account suggested that another move by fascists against the protestors was to be expected. The heavy police presence reinforced this sense; surely the scores of officers weren’t there just to police a small group of locals and a peaceful Jewish campaign group. 

Protect & Prepare

But the police were there solely for the anti-genocide protesters. At 2pm, police sent the local coordinator of the protest a Section 14 Notice under the Public Order Act 1986. Ostensibly, the order empowers police forces to “prevent…disorder, damage, disruption or intimidation” and the result was the police moving the protestors away from their usual spot outside Erev and further up Kensington Park Road. It was not obvious to passers-by why there was a group of noisy protestors, penned in like animals, facing the side of a closed flower kiosk.

The Section 14 notice was signed by Jon Savell, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, second in command of the Met’s Specialist Operations and Senior National Coordinator for Protect and Prepare. It is inconceivable that such a senior official was involved in a decision around the small group of local activists, meaning IJAN’s involvement must have prompted his intervention. As IJAN is a peaceful protest group, it raises the question of whether the authorities profiled and targeted them on the grounds that they are Jewish. Anti-Zionist Jews are an awkward fact of life for the Zionist movement, which aims to present Israel and Israeli policy as representative of all Jews, thereby framing criticism of state policy antisemitic by definition. 

I didn’t join the approximately 60 anti-genocide protestors in the pen; I wandered comparatively freely and witnessed apparent coordination between several Zionist operatives and the police.

In the video above you can see the setup: police vans can be glimpsed down the side streets; a few people loiter outside the restaurant; the Zionist ranks include several photographers, two on mobile phones (one, a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan, was helpfully live streaming), one with a doorbell camera on his jacket, and one with a more serious camera; the protestors are flanked by the police and there is no violence, just speeches followed by chants after each speaker.

A grey-haired man in a black jacket can be briefly seen in the video. He was remonstrating with the police, apparently distressed, telling them that his Jewish children were scared to leave their home because of the protestors who he believed were a threat to them. The police at the pen gave him short shrift. I followed him down to Erev where he took up his argument with an officer. The officer sought to reassure him by outlining the police’s plan: ‘We’re letting them do it two or three times. Once they’ve had two or three protests, we’ll have enough evidence to shut them down and they won’t be able to do it again.’

But what if the protests are peaceful, I wondered, how will the police shut them down?

Satisfied, the man went into Erev for a drink, which he enjoyed outside the restaurant, apparently no longer concerned about the dire threat to his children just 50 metres away. The man had been at Erev during previous protests claiming that the restaurant’s owners had “nothing to do” with the Gaza war.

Operatives

Unlike at previous protests at their restaurant, Erev’s management appeared calm, watching and waiting for events to play out. This time, despite the protest being publicly announced, Erev did not hire a bouncer. On the Zionist side, as well as the photographers, there were two operatives in frequent conversation with the police. Both were identified by protestors as having told the police which protestor they wanted to see arrested. This photo, shared with Urban Dandy, apparently shows the exact moment that the decision – or order – to arrest the specific individual, was made:

In the protest pen, a young Jewish man had given a speech, offering his personal perspective on anti-Zionism. After speaking, as was the pattern throughout, he was asked to lead a chant. His was “Only one state, 48; there is only one solution: intifada, revolution.” 48 refers to Palestine as it was until 1948 when people of all faiths could live together in the Holy Land. And Intifada is the Arabic word for ‘uprising’ and is the name given to the Palestinian uprisings in the late 80s/early 90s and in the early 2000s which were brutally suppressed by Israel’s occupation forces. (See footnote for a more in-depth translation).*

Eyewitnesses told us that the Zionist operative in the photo above pointed, telling the police to arrest “that man in black rimmed glasses.”

Other protestors, fearing what was to come, moved the speaker to the middle of the group in a vain attempt to protect him. Meanwhile I was outside Erev waiting for the protest to end – its time limit of one hour was up. Behind me, an incongruent build-up of police officers in two-by-two formation was underway. At ten past seven, as a protestor announced by loudspeaker that the demo was over and the protestors should disperse to the tube station, the police made their move. The photo below shows them setting out across the road to the captive protestors.

The police marched over to surround the protestors and arrested the Jewish man identified by the Zionist as the chosen one. The Zionist protagonists who had been liaising with the police were exultant. You can hear one saying “here we go” in the video below (0:33) as the police moved in to grab their victim.

An IJAN member told Urban Dandy, “The arrestee was already complying with the police, providing his contact details. I was mediating, and whilst we were talking to the officer, we were violently charged into by a large number of officers, who proceeded to cuff the activist.”

A local activist who was caught in the chaos told us the police “violently inserted themselves, trampled a disabled protester and manhandled the arrestee.”

The man was arrested under laws relating to the stirring up of racial hatred and was released on Saturday without charge pending further investigation.

Local activists have drawn a distinction between local West London police who were relatively polite and measured and the six vans worth of public order police who were apparently acting on different priorities.

In the confusion of the arrest, the overwhelming response of the protestors was bemusement at why they had suddenly been subjected to such violent policing having complied with instructions throughout. A chant of “Who do you serve?” broke out, directed at the police. Nobody present on Friday could reasonably argue that the police’s primary concern was public safety.

The Met stated that somebody breached the Public Order Act, but they do not say what their evidence was or who provided it to them.

The Zionist photographed as he pointed the finger has been identified by anti-genocide activists as Jonathan Cohen, a King’s Counsel with a track record at protests of speaking with police and instructing them who should be arrested.

Cohen was one of two Zionist operatives on intimate terms with the police. The other, pictured below in the Crocs, was an associate of the various Zionist photographers. After the arrest he went back across the street to Erev. I asked him who he was and what his role was; did he work for the police. He stared straight ahead. I asked if he’d had a say in the man being arrested, as several protestors had just told me. Again, he stared straight ahead. I then spoke to his female companion, one of the photographers (pictured below, wondering who I am). I told her that I just wanted to know why the man had been arrested. Rather than let his friend speak, the Zionist-police interlocutor interrupted her to tell me, ‘The police have their reasons, you’ll have to ask them why they arrested him.’

So I asked a nearby policeman (pictured below too, in the blue Liaison Officer vest), who was also unenthusiastic about communicating with me and also stared straight ahead. When I asked the officer for a broad category for the alleged crime, the Zionist operative again interrupted and informed me of exactly what the police’s answer to my question would be. It was along the lines of certain people (such as family) having the right to that information. When he had finished, the policeman said, ‘yeah that’s pretty much it.’

The operative had intervened to stop the woman and then the policeman from giving their own answers. He then walked away, and when a young boy who had been listening asked the policeman if the man had been arrested for swearing, the policeman was more forthcoming with an explanation: ‘It wasn’t because he swore, but he said a word that might encourage other people to do something.’

The Police Van

A few metres away down the side street, I saw the Zionist operative in the Crocs emerge from a police van and close its door. He returned to the same blue-vested police officer, shook his hand, said, “see you on Sunday mate” and headed into the night.

By this point I had started an audio recording on my phone, so the following quotes are verbatim:

Me: Why was that man closing the door of a police van?

Officer: (seemingly unconcerned) “There’s a person in there taking a statement, there’s a man having a statement taken so he’s closing the door for their privacy.”

Me: Who is he?

Officer: “I don’t know”

Me: Why did he say “See you on Sunday”?

Officer: “Cos he’s going to another protest on Sunday.”

Me: Is he your friend? Does he work with you?

Officer: “Oh no no no (laughing), it’s no job-related. I’m at another protest on Sunday…I’m a liaison so I go to all these protests. I know him from all the groups, the protests, the counters, all that stuff.”

Me: So he was closing the police van door; he was able to quote exactly what you were gonna say to me and then he shook your hand and said “see you on Sunday.”

Officer: “Yeah cos I’m on the protest on Sunday.”

Me: Who is he?

Officer: “Dunno who he is, I don’t know his name, I don’t know why he was in the van.”

Young boy: But how does he know you’re going to see him on Sunday?

Officer: “Cos I’m always on…I’m on all the protests, in the whole of London. So in terms of major protests, I’m there.”

Me: What’s the Sunday protest?

Officer: “Sunday is going to be Iranian. It’s Iranian and Israeli and Tommy Robinson’s coming down to support.”

Me: Why would he (the operative) go to that one as well?

Officer: “Cos he said he’s going to it. In terms of a reason why he’s going to it, I don’t know.”

And with that, the vague and confusing officer was off to help bring an end to what had, presumably, been a successful night’s work for the Met. Yesterday at the Iran protest, Tommy Robinson was accompanied by a man in an Israeli Army t-shirt.**

Collusion

Friday evening in saw two sides with irreconcilable goals meet in North Kensington. Peaceful protestors aimed to raise awareness about the role of Erev’s owners in a genocide. Erev, the Zionist activists and the police deny the genocide, seeking to portray the protestors as irrational and dangerous. In this case we are supposed to believe the protestors were anti-Jewish Jews. They also deny genocide by not taking legal action, via the Met’s War Crimes Unit, against those in Britain that are (prima facie) complicit in Israel’s crimes. The heavy handed policing of peaceful protest showed the rapid erosion of our civil liberties in the name of this genocide denial. It also provided distraction, keeping anti-genocide activists and protestors bogged down, having to deal with the harassment of the police and the Zionist operatives.

The conspiracy against the protestors was not complete though, until the media and politicians weighed in the following day; a coordinated demonising of those who preach peace in service of those who profit from death. We will address the media’s distortions in another article. In the meantime, we should all be asking the police, as the peaceful protestors did, “Who do you serve?”

 

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

*” Intifada comes from the root nfd (all Arabic words can be traced to a 3-letter root) which means “shake off”. In the form Intifada it evolves into rising up, against something holding it weighing you down. In the context of Palestine, it’s pretty clear the uprising is to shake off the occupation.” – translation by hakaya.zawaya.

In the legal context, it is not clear why the British state would find offense at the use of this word, as Britain is officially opposed to the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel and the Palestinians, like all people, have the right to resist occupation.

**Apparently this man, Shahab Zaheri, is also a regular at protests.