On October 7, the British Prime Minister described the marches of the Palestinians as “non -British”. Hundreds went out to the streets anyway

Hundreds of pro -Palestinian demonstrators, many of whom are university students, gathered in several British cities on Tuesday, despite the appeal of Prime Minister Kiir Starmer to cancel the marches, which he described as “non -British” because it took place on the second anniversary of the attacks led by Hamas on Israel.

On the campus of the University of Kings College in London, Palestinian flags were fluttering while the organizers led the crowd amplifiers, which included a few hundred people through several chants. They demanded free Palestine and condemned Israel as a terrorist state.

A few dozen police officers were seen, along with students who were taking a afternoon break from the classroom.

“I think all of these people have many reasons for protesting. Telling someone not fighting for what they believe is ridiculous,” said Vincent Ji, who demanded computer science in the second year who came to show his support for Gaza and the demonstrators.

“This country has been built through a large number of different cultures? Unless (Starmer) was not able to determine what it means to be non -British clearly, I do not think that he must say something like this.”

The pro -Palestinian marches often attract several thousand people in central London with a variety of crowds In protest against the Israel war Which, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and turned a large part of the region into ruins.

The protests also became an internal political ignition point and its severity increased after the terrorist attack that occurred last Thursday at a Jewish synagogue in Manchester.

Police says Jihad Al -Shami, 35, a British man of Syrian origin, was the one who launched the attack on the day of forgiveness in the Hebrew Hitton synagogue. Two Jewish men were killed in a run -over attack and stabbed a car, including one of them was killed by police bullets The officers opened fire on the suspect and killed him.

The attack led to a wave of sadness, as well as accusations that the British Labor Party government did not do enough to suppress the demonstrators. Anti -SemitismAnd that grew in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people and the war that followed in Gaza.

High anti -Semitism

According to the British Charitable Corporation, Community Service Trust, which focuses on anti -Semitism and increasing security for the Jewish community, more than 1500 anti -Semitic incidents were recorded in the first half of 2025.

When the British Deputy Prime Minister participated in a protest to refuse the victims in Manchester on Friday, he was ridiculed by some in the crowd. One of the women shouted, saying that he “allowed this to happen”, while others joined the chants of “shame”.

The British government has pledged to do everything in its power to protect the Jewish community, including enhancing security in the Jewish temples. It is also preparing to reduce the protests that have occurred “Catured repeated disorder” By giving the police additional powers.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation on October 3, British Interior Minister Shabana Mahmoud called on the people protesting the war in Gaza to “retreat a step back” and provide time for the Jewish community to sadness, saying that “continuing this way is non -British.”

She and other government officials asked the organizers to cancel a march that was scheduled to be organized in London last Saturday in the field of Al -Aghir. The march went forward, according to the capital police Nearly 500 people They were arrested on the site to show their support for the Palestinian Labor Organization, a group banned by the UK government in the summer After classifying a terrorist organization.

In a comment published on Monday evening in the Times, Starmer wrote on how to “penetrate the daily acceptance of anti -Semitism” in society. He went on to condemn the protests planned on October 7, and wrote that “this is not what we are as a country. It is a non -British thing that we have little respect for others.”

Marches all over the United Kingdom

Several marches and protest stops are scheduled to be organized on Tuesday in the United Kingdom, including one organized by the Justice Association for Palestine at the University of Glasgow.

“Honoring our resistance and honoring our martyrs.”

Isaac Zerfati, CEO of Standwithus UK, a charitable institution that supports Jewish students, says that the ongoing Palestinian protests led to the “spread of hatred” to the streets, and he wants the government to take a more strict stance by arresting those who support “terrorism” and claim to destroy Israel.

At the London event on Tuesday afternoon, the faces of many participants were partially blocked by scarves and were not interested in speaking to CBC News or other media.

Mark Etcind has emerged among the crowd, which was mostly young. He is not only in the early sixties of his life, but he was wearing a banner saying that he is the son of one of the survivors of the Holocaust and that he wanted to stop “genocide in Gaza.”

Iettend’s father, Michael, escaped prison in Poland during World War II, and Mark felt that he had to join the protest on Tuesday because he was not estimated that the UK government discourages the marches just because it came in the wake of the Manchester attack and on October 7.

“I do not participate in this logic,” ITECED told CBC News. “I feel people who die on any side in any war. What we have to do is stop wars“.

In fact, he believes that it is very “British” to speak publicly against the unfortunate situation in Gaza.

Collin Davis, professor of psychology at the University of Bristol, told CBC News he believed that it is “unreasonable” that leaders promote the language describing people and activities as non -British.

“The protest has a long history and pride in this country, and we often celebrate the protests of the past.” The topic on the Internet. “It is common for governments to seek to remove legitimacy from the protests, but their accusation that they are non -British is a new approach.”

Davis said that the recent statements of the government have been an attempt to try to control the narration at a time when public opinion changes.

A modern poll for the month of September A study by Yajov, a market research and data analysis company, found that after two years of war in Gaza, about a third of the British have no sympathy at all with Israel.