UK police arrest two for chanting ‘Globalize the Intifada’ after policy shift

Authorities say recent terror attacks changed how incendiary slogans will be treated under the law.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Two people were arrested Wednesday in London after allegedly shouting “Globalize the Intifada” at an anti-Israel protest, hours after authorities announced that the phrase had been banned.

The suspects were charged with “racially aggravated public order offences” for calling for an uprising — the literal meaning of “intifada” in Arabic — police said.

Three other people were arrested at the scene as well.

One individual allegedly attempted to interfere with the arrest of the first two, while two others were detained for separate public order violations, one of which was also deemed “racially aggravated.”

The policy shift follows Sunday’s terror attack in Sydney, Australia, in which two ISIS-affiliated gunmen murdered 15 people at an outdoor Chanukah celebration.

The Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police explicitly cited the Sydney attack, as well as a terror incident in Manchester on Yom Kippur in October — when a Syrian-born assailant rammed a car into pedestrians and then stabbed worshippers at a synagogue, killing one person and injuring several others — in their warning.

“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence,” the police forces said in a joint statement. “We will act decisively and make arrests.”

“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘Globalize the intifada’ and those using it at future protests or in a targeted way should expect [us] to take action,” they said.

London has seen near-weekly demonstrations over the past two years in support of Hamas during the Gaza war triggered by the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and massacre of nearly 1,200 people.

While being widely understood in the Jewish community as a call for violence, the chant, heard often at the protests, had previously been ignored by authorities.

Similar protests have taken place in Sydney, where Jewish leaders repeatedly warned the government that the community was at risk prior to Sunday’s attack.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the police decision.

“We strongly welcome this necessary intervention,” the leading representative body of British Jewry said.

“We have long warned that people chanting slogans like ‘Globalize the intifada’ are inciting violence, and we have been making the case for robust enforcement in relation to this slogan with government at all levels for some time.”

Antisemitic incidents ranging from online threats, vandalism and arson to physical assaults, have shot up by hundreds of percentage points in the UK over the past two years.

Anti-Israel groups protested the pronouncement, with the head of one major protest organizer, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, calling it “another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights.”

“The horrific massacre in Sydney, Australia should not be used as a justification to further repress fundamental democratic rights of protest and free speech in this country,” PSC director Ben Jamal added.

Many of the protests have devolved into antisemitic rhetoric and, at times, violent confrontations with Jewish passersby, generating widespread fear within the Jewish community — particularly when demonstrations have been permitted near synagogues.