For the past 69 weeks, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) has been peacefully protesting Israel’s Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, near her Swiss Cottage residency for her incitement of genocide against Palestinians.
However, on the night of 27 February, the police-imposed conditions to move the picket from Swiss Cottage to a specific – “yet totally arbitrary” – location in King’s Cross.
As denounced by IJAN in a press release, this measure “undermines the whole purpose for its existence, which amounts – in their words – to a ban.”
IJAN members have said that they hope that “journalists and others will report on this new repression against Jews who opposes the genocide of Palestinians or anyone else.” They also expect the media will address a broader issue: “the right for Jewish people to challenge and reject the Zionist takeover of the UK”. To provide some context, they explain that as the only explicitly Jewish-led anti-Zionist protest in the UK (consisting of approximately 70 to 100 weekly attendees), they have “have faced fury, harassment and intimidation from Zionists who deny or defend genocide of children and their parents, and criminalisation by the police who seem to act on their orders.”
They add that at the protest this has meant the “verbal abuse of Holocaust survivors, the vandalising of homes, doxxing and arrests (predominantly of Jewish activists speaking from their experience — e.g. Haim Bresheeth, Yael Kahn and Tony Greenstein), as well as the displacement of the picket multiple times to different locations”.
In their opinion, these punitive measures have targeted an “entirely peaceful Jewish-led protest in defence of Palestinian survival and liberation rather than the violent Zionists intent on shutting it down”. They recorded a video of what happened, which shows – they say – “the violent abuse” of their protest on Friday 28 February in Swiss Cottage. In response to this ban from Swiss Cottage, IJAN decided to be outside Scotland Yard the following night. It should be noted that this protest has been ongoing since October 2023.
As described on its website, IJAN is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part.
IJAN’s UK branch was launched in 2008, and from the beginning they have prioritised their accountability to the Palestinian struggle, working with other members of the Palestine solidarity movement (IJAN members currently work as part of London Palestine Action) and other grassroots movements “impacted by Israeli apartheid, assassination, repression, militarisation and other brutalities”.
*Information supplied by International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN).
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