Organizers refused requests by the police and government to call off Saturday’s demonstration, which had been announced before the attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur that killed two and injured several others.

By Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

London police arrested dozens of protesters for supporting a banned pro-Palestinian group at a demonstration on Saturday which went ahead despite requests to call it off after a deadly attack at a synagogue in Manchester.

Two people were killed in the attack in the northwestern English city on Thursday and police shot dead the assailant, a British man of Syrian descent who counter-terrorism police said may have been inspired by extremist Islamist ideology.

Organizers refused requests by the police and government to call off Saturday’s demonstration, which had been announced before the attack, to protest against the banning of pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws.

STARMER CALLS FOR CALM

Calling for calm on X on Saturday morning, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognize and respect the grief of British Jews.”

“This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain. It is a time to stand together,” he said.

Police arrested protesters in Trafalgar Square in central London as they wrote slogans on placards declaring support for Palestine Action, which was proscribed in July after members broke into an airbase and damaged military planes.

Hundreds gathered for the protest, applauding and cheering those arrested as they were carried through the crowd by police without resisting. Onlookers chanted “shame on you” at officers.

“I’m disgusted by the police actually, they shouldn’t be arresting non-violent protesters here,” said protester Angie Zelter. “We have a right to protest and Palestine Action is not a violent organization, should never have been proscribed in the first place.”

Six people were arrested separately after unfurling a Palestine Action banner on Westminster Bridge outside parliament.

SERIES OF PROTESTS

The demonstration is the latest in a series of protests, during which hundreds have been arrested for defying the ban which makes it an offense to show support for Palestine Action.

Police said Saturday’s protests would draw resources away from security they have tightened around synagogues and mosques following Thursday’s attack.

Defend Our Juries, which organized Saturday’s protest, has condemned the attack on the Jewish community in Manchester, and urged police to focus on that, not policing the demonstration.

Thursday’s attack followed incidents of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate in Britain this summer, and pro-Palestinian marchers have taken to the streets to denounce Israel, drawing criticism from some members of the Jewish community.

Jewish and Muslim communities in Britain have expressed fears for their safety.

Israel has waged war on Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel two years ago. US President Donald Trump has urged Israel to stop its bombardment after Hamas said it was ready to release hostages and agreed to some aspects of a plan to halt the war.

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Around 90,000 protesters flooded Sydney’s Harbour Bridge in a massive anti-Israel rally, drawing sharp condemnation for glorifying Iran’s Ayatollah, ignoring Hamas’ hostages, and aligning radical leftists with Islamist extremists.

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The LAPD did little to interfere with the terrorist supporters, but did block Jewish counterprotesters from reaching their own synagogue.

Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Magazine

Thirty minutes after Hamas supporters first set up their operation outside a Los Angeles synagogue, they maced their first Jew. And the Los Angeles police did nothing.

Not until an hour into the terrorist rally outside a synagogue, did the LAPD finally step in, pushing back masked Jihad supporters in keffiyeh terror scarves from the entrance of Congregation Adas Torah (Congregation of the Bible) which they had occupied.

And then the mob, chanting calls for “intifada” and the destruction of Israel, moved outward to target two smaller synagogues attended by Persian Jewish refugees from Islamic terror in Iran.

“Billions of us will come and kill you,” a heavily accented Middle Eastern man in a keffiyeh unprompted rasped at me as I walked up. Only dozens had actually shown up, but they made up for it with bullhorns, robotic chants, and assaults in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood.

The Jewish counterprotesters had come waving American and Israeli flags while the other side was a sea of terrorist flags. A man wore an Antifa cap, another had come in ski goggles during 90-degree heat, while others toted bear spray, metal bottles, and other implements of violence.

The Jewish community members included older men and women, as well as families, while the Hamas contingent was mostly young and many were masked. A pair of rabbis led a melodic song that could hardly be heard over the harsh clatter of the hateful terror chants.

Despite knowing that a terrorist rally was planned outside a synagogue, the LAPD had allowed the terrorist supporters to take over the entire sidewalk leaving only a thin lane for attendees to walk through to get inside. The LAPD did little to interfere with the terrorist supporters, but did block Jewish counterprotesters from reaching their own synagogue. The police also did nothing as clumps of masked Hamas supporters broke away from the synagogue and began confronting, threatening, and attacking Jewish community members on the street.

LAPD officers did not stir as confrontations escalated into assaults, shoving into mace and bear spray. Jewish community members rushed to provide water bottles to the affected. Only after several such incidents did the LAPD finally bring in reinforcements and push the Hamas supporters away from the synagogue entrance (dispersing them to harass and threaten two other synagogues) while also clearing Jewish families away from the other side of the street who had been peacefully waving flags near a children’s school.

The terrorist hate rally spread outside three synagogues, Congregation Adas Torah, Chabad Persian Youth, and Congregation Ateret Israel (Glory of Israel), and the confrontations in the center of the street continued. There were running battles along the large commercial street with violent assaults outside a Kosher luncheonette and running battles down a residential street in the Jewish neighborhood.

The terrorist hate rally was not an aberration, It’s become the new normal.

On Thursday, Hamas supporters showed up at Congregation Shaarey Zedek (Gates of Righteousness) in the San Fernando Valley formerly attended by Ben Shapiro, yelling abuse at parents taking their children to school. Other Jewish schools have been similarly targeted.

Beginning with the assault on the Museum of Tolerance when it was screening a documentary on the Oct 7 massacre to the violence at UCLA, it has played out this way for 8 months.

The LAPD has consistently failed to secure protest zones, to separate different groups of protesters and to prevent violence, and only steps in when it escalates past a set point. That point usually comes when the Jewish counterprotesters start fighting back. And then the LAPD begins arresting both sides while politicians, including Mayor Bass, deplore the violence.

Media accounts, especially from the Los Angeles Times, CNN and the JTA, falsely characterize the violence as coming from the Jewish counterprotesters rather than the terrorist supporters.

I had previously heard first person accounts from people who were assaulted while the police and security at UCLA did nothing, but now I saw it for myself. And after 8 months of the same thing, it’s hard to believe that it’s simple incompetence or that a major urban police force has no idea how to handle the same kind of protests and is incapable of figuring out how to do so.

Especially when it’s been standard procedure by other urban police forces.

The LAPD is clearly aware of the potential for violence because it sends out offices in riot gear. But rather than engaging in proactive policing to prevent violence, they stand passively and wait for orders from higher up before taking any action. This is not normal policing during protests and counterprotests when the standard doctrine is for police to set up barriers and stand between groups of protesters before they bring out the riot gear. But the LAPD brings out the riot gear, allows the radicals free rein and waits as long as possible before taking any action.

Why is this happening? I previously reported that Mayon Karen Bass is a close political ally of BLM LA boss Melina Abdullah, who has backed the pro-terrorist campaign against Jews. When Jews were attacked at UCLA, Democrat members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion to fund legal support for the terrorist supporters. The resolution to use taxpayer money to fund legal defenses for antisemites was put forward by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath who ‘represents’ CD3 where the synagogue hate riot was taking place. After all the antisemitic violence at UCLA, the only one facing serious charges is a Jewish student.

The Democrat leadership of Los Angeles does not stand with the Jewish communities being targeted by hate, but with the antisemitic mobs surrounding synagogues.

Behind the masks, keffiyehs and the terrorist flags is the new Democratic Party.

The post What I saw at a terrorist rally outside a synagogue appeared first on World Israel News.

25-year-old Noa Cochva was waving an Israeli flag in a counter-protest while a pro-Hamas rally was going on. 

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

A former Israeli beauty queen was hit in the face with a sign by an anti-Israel protester in New York City’s Times Square last month.

Twenty-five-year-old Noa Cochva, who was crowned Miss Israel in 2021, was waving an Israeli flag at a counter-protest across from a pro-Hamas rally.

A man began arguing with Cochva and hit her in the face with a sign before fleeing the scene.

Cochva later recalled that a group of pro-Hamas protesters  “threw down our flag . . . and they came down and one of the guys hit me.”

The former Miss Israel, who served as a medic in the IDF, refused medical care following the incident.

Cochva was visiting the U.S. as part of a Public Diplomacy Campaign.

She took to social media to describe the incident, and wrote, “4 of us Israelis went to counter a protest and were up against 5000 people.”

She continued, “We went straight into the heart of the protest and waved the Israeli flag showing our pride.”

“They can intimidate us, outnumber us, rip our flags out of our hands and even be violent, but they will NEVER take away our pride,” Cochva concluded.

Cochva also mentioned that police officers said they were unable to do anything about the incident.

On April 10th, Cochava filed criminal charges against the assailant.

The news of the attack in New York emerges as many universities, including Columbia and NYU, are being overrun with anti-Israel demonstrations.

In Columbia, students have been encamped on campus for over a week and regularly harass Jewish students who try to walk through campus.

The anti-Israel protesters have been caught on video declaring that they support Hamas and their statement that they aim to commit October 7th atrocities repeatedly.

The tone of these protests has become so severe that Columbia has suspended in-person classes for the time being until the demonstrations have been reined in.

As Jews celebrated Passover seders on Monday night, pro-Palestinian protests overtook the NYU campus which resulted in violence and the arrest of around 133 demonstrators.

The post Former Miss Israel assaulted by pro-Hamas demonstrator in Times Square appeared first on World Israel News.

Chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” fill the air in Tehran’s Palestine Square Saturday night.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets to celebrate their country’s missile and drone attacks on Israel overnight Saturday and early Sunday morning, which Tehran dubbed “Operation Honest Promise.”

The name stemmed from Iran’s vow to retaliate after the IDF’s unacknowledged assassination two weeks ago of two of the country’s generals and five other military officers in Iran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus.

The highest-value target, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which plans and directs all extraterritorial terror forces funded by the regime.

A large banner has hung for days in Tehran’s Palestine Square, asking Israelis, in Hebrew, “Have you stocked your safe rooms with enough food?” because Iran’s reaction “is coming.” The word “shelter” is printed in both English and Hebrew on a red Star of David, with pictures of shadows of missiles falling around and through it.

In the square, chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” filled the air as demonstrators waved both the Iranian and Palestinian flags as well as banners saying, “God’s victory is near.”

Some held pictures of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the previous head of the Quds Force, who was assassinated by an American airstrike outside the Baghdad Airport in January 2020.

Motorcyclists and cars weaved through the crowd honking their horns, fireworks lit up the sky, and joyous people waved their cellphones with flashlights on as they sang and flashed “V” for victory signs with their fingers.

A new mural was revealed in the square that said “The next slap [will be] fiercer.”

AFP reported some reactions on the street, quoting two people who hoped that there would be no further conflagration due to the situation, and one university professor who said, “War is always bad and worrying — a person who has experienced war would never support it, but sometimes to achieve peace, a war is necessary.”

Regime supporters also took to the streets in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, which was Zahedi’s hometown.

There were also rallies in support of the regime outside of Iran, such as outside the country’s embassy in London.

The Iranian attack, which consisted of a few hundred drones and ballistic missiles, is the first time the mullahcracy has tried to strike Israel directly.

For decades, it has led its quiet war with the Jewish state only through terror proxies on the border, mainly Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In a new twist, after the Israel-Hamas war began six months ago, Iran ordered its Houthi proxies in Yemen to begin attacking Israel by launching missiles at Israel’s southern tip of Eilat, with two slipping through so far but causing no fatalities.

The IDF said that 99% of the airborne assaults were foiled, with the joint efforts of Israeli, American, British and French jets and Israel’s air defense, including its Arrow-3 anti-missile system, shooting down the missiles and UAVs.

One Israeli child was seriously injured when hit by the detritus of an interceptor missile and was taken to the hospital.

Iran’s UN Mission categorized its reaction as based on international law.

“Conducted on the strength of Article 51 of the UN Charter pertaining to legitimate defense, Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus,” its statement said.

While adding that “The matter can be deemed concluded,” it warned Israel against any further action against Iran.

“However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” the statement said, concluding with a message to the U.S. not to get involved in what it deemed a bilateral conflict.

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Capitol Police claimed they knew of a potential protest following a planned tour.

By JNS

About 60 anti-Israel protesters were arrested in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The trespassers chanted “Not another nickel! Not another dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes!” and bore “Stop Arming Israel” signs, the New York Post reported.

Linda Sarsour, a political activist and former Women’s March leader who has a long history of antisemitism, reportedly led the protesters.

“Pro-Hamas insurrectionists are storming the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. We were told for three years that this is a serious federal offense that must be prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” wrote Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), referring to the prosecution of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Will the FBI be rounding them up at their homes? Solitary confinement? Will Biden Department of Justice prosecute?” she asked.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced that one of the Jan. 6, 2021 rioters, who spent half an hour in the Capitol, was sentenced to 22 months in prison and 24 months of supervised release.

“We were aware of a group’s potential plan to take a tour of the U.S. Capitol building and then start a protest,” the Capitol Police stated.

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