Pro-Hamas ad posted at London underground station

Antisemitic offenses in London increased 162 percent in 2023 through November.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

A British volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism has decried the posting of an allegedly unauthorized pro-Hamas advertisement on the Transport for London (TfL) subway, which is used by over 5 million commuters every day.

“Israel murdered over 25,000+ innocent, men, women, and children,” reads the advertisement, which contains a QR code linking to the website of the UK branch of Amnesty International, a human rights group that critics accuse of holding an anti-Israel bias.

“Wouldn’t you resist?” the ad continued. “Palestine has the #RightToResist. This genocide is aided by Conservatives, Labour, [His Majesty’s] Government. Paid by the UK Taxpayer.”

The Algemeiner has asked TfL if the advertisement was posted lawfully — Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), the British charity that tracks antisemitic hate crimes, maintains that it was not. The nonprofit also blasted the message for rationalizing Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, when the Palestinian terror group murdered over, 1,200 people, mostly civilians, across southern Israel and abducted 240 others as hostages to Gaza.

“A disgusting ad illegally posted at a Brick Lane bus stop attempts to justify the murder and rape of innocent Israelis by Hamas terrorists,” CAA tweeted. “And isn’t it time that TfL started to insist that advertising companies put locks on their bus [to] stop advertising hoardings? This happens all too frequently and the fact that there are still no locks makes TfL’s long-term inaction look like complicity.”

CAA also called on Amnesty International, which has been widely criticized for falsely accusing Israel of apartheid and mass war crimes against Palestinians, to “disavow” the advertisement.

Open support for Hamas in London public transportation is emblematic of rising antisemitism in the city, where a torrent of antisemitic hate crimes is continuing unabated, as the city has experienced a record number of such incidents this year.

According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) data, antisemitic offenses in London increased 162 percent in 2023 through November, with 1,442 incidents eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The MPS began issuing public data on the city’s anti-Jewish offenses in 2018.

Antisemitic hate crimes in London were already on pace to exceed last year’s figures before the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, which led to a global surge in antisemitic outrages. Between January and September, the MPS recorded 487 incidents. In October and November, city police recorded a staggering 955 hate crimes targeting Jews — twice as many as occurred in the first three-fourths of the year.

Orthodox Jews in the Stamford Hill section of the city have been targeted disproportionately for being visibly Jewish, as shown in a spate of incidents reported by Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group.

This month alone, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!“

The antisemitic attacks targeting both people and property have been unrelenting in recent weeks. Days after the Oct. 7 massacre, two Jewish primary schools in Stamford Hill were vandalized and doused with red paint.

Jewish Londoners and allies have responded to the surge in antisemitic hate by showing solidarity. Last month, tens of thousands of people marched through London to protest the rise in anti-Jewish crimes, displaying signs with messages such as “Shoulder to shoulder with British Jews” and “Zero tolerance for antisemites.”