{"id":6424,"date":"2025-12-18T13:13:38","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T11:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=6424"},"modified":"2025-12-18T13:13:38","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T11:13:38","slug":"met-police-globalise-intifada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2025-12-18\/met-police-globalise-intifada\/","title":{"rendered":"Open letter to Met police chief: Let me tell you what ‘Globalise the intifada’ actually means"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sir Mark Rowley, your primary concern is not public safety but protecting the interests of the British establishment. And it has decreed that no opposition to Israel\u2019s genocide will be tolerated<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley,<\/p>\n

I heard on the BBC News last night that you are planning to \u201ctake a more assertive approach to the way [you] police pro-Palestinian protests\u201d in the wake of the Bondi Beach terror attack.<\/p>\n

I wondered what this might mean, given that you and other forces have already arrested thousands of entirely peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters \u2013 many of them elderly, a number or them disabled or infirm \u2013 for holding a placard<\/a> opposing the Gaza genocide.<\/p>\n

Journalists<\/a> have been detained by your counter-terrorism squad for writing, too critically it seems, about Israel\u2019s slaughter of children in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Prominent Jewish activists like Haim Bresheeth<\/a> and Tony Greenstein<\/a> are being investigated or prosecuted on terrorism offences, for publicly echoing the International Criminal Court and major human rights groups in accusing Israel of committing crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

What more are you planning? Tarring and featherings. Hangings in the public square. Let us hope not.<\/p>\n

The BBC says that, following the attack in Sydney, you will arrest anyone using slogans like \u201cGlobalise the intifada\u201d. Last night your force arrested<\/a> two people at an anti-genocide protest outside David Lammy\u2019s ministry of justice building for using what you apparently term \u201cracially aggravated\u201d speech.<\/p>\n

Mr Lammy must be delighted by your intervention. After all, he doesn\u2019t want the British public being reminded that, in his previous role as Foreign Secretary, he endlessly justified Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza and even warmly shook hands with Benjamin Netanyahu, a suspected war criminal and fugitive from international justice.<\/p>\n

In a statement you issued with the chief constable of Manchester, you wrote: \u201cThe words and chants used, especially in protests, matter and have real-world consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, isn\u2019t that precisely the point? Alerting the public to Britain\u2019s two-year complicity in genocide is exactly why protesters use these slogans \u2013 and to shame the British government. You\u2019re right: that does matter!<\/p>\n

Is it because the government fears these \u201creal-world consequences\u201d that you are acting ever more harshly to choke off the last remnants of the right to protest on Palestine?<\/p>\n

\u2018No active investigation\u2019<\/h3>\n

Strangely, though, Sir Mark, the Met does not seem to be interested in applying your principle equally. Not all words have consequences, as far as your force is concerned. Nor do all actions.<\/p>\n

For example, a legal dossier<\/a> was submitted to the Met in April concerning at least 10 British citizens who have served in Israel\u2019s genocidal army in Gaza. They are documented to have participated in the Israeli military\u2019s killing and maiming many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children.<\/p>\n

And yet there has been not a peep about it from the Met since. A spokesperson for your counter-terror officers would only say there was \u201cno active investigation\u201d on the matter.<\/p>\n

Words don\u2019t seem to matter much either, as long as you\u2019re supporting Israel\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has incited war crimes by praising as \u201cheroes\u201d Israeli soldiers in Gaza \u2013 whom he mistakenly describes as \u201cour soldiers\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has given religious blessing to what the ICC suspects are crimes against humanity, including Israel\u2019s mass starvation of Gaza\u2019s people. He calls these crimes the \u201cmost outstanding possible thing a decent, responsible country can do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

Britain\u2019s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, enthuses about the crimes against humanity being perpetrated in Gaza by what he calls \u201cour heroic soldiers\u201d \u2013 yes, if you or I conflated the Jewish people with Israel, we\u2019d be called antisemites.<\/p>\n

He then reveals that his son, Danny, is\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/y43oUhz5UN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) January 10, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n