Watch: ‘Two-tier police' threaten to charge Jewish man for waving Israeli flag at Palestine Action protest
The Metropolitan Police has been accused of 'two-tier' policing after threatening to charge a Jewish man for waving an Israeli flag at a Palestine Action demonstration.
The pro-Palestinian protest group clashed with police in Trafalgar Square on Monday, with 13 arrested after violence flared within the crowd of 500 activists.
But the Met was accused of 'two-tier' justice over the actions of its officers after two Jewish counter-protesters had to hide inside a double-decker bus as the 'mob' outside chanted 'Zionist scum'.
Footage shared with The Telegraph showed police warning them that 'waving an Israeli flag' could be a breach of the peace.
Isaac Grand, 22, and another Jewish man, 28, who declined to be named, accused the Met of 'two-tier policing' over the threat.
Mr Grand said: 'It was a clear case of two-tier policing. A hostile mob surrounded the vehicle, shouting abuse and threatening me – but instead of protecting me or arresting those responsible, the police threatened me with a public order offence.'
Mr Grand and his friend started their two-person counter-demonstration against the group, which is soon to be proscribed as a terrorist group, by waving the Israeli flag.
Using a megaphone, Mr Grand's companion told the crowd: 'Ban the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. Rape is not resistance. Terrorist supporters off our streets. Am Yisrael Chai [the people of Israel live], now and forever.'
But when the hostile crowd surrounded the pair and chanted 'Zionist scum!', they had to board a nearby double-decker that had been blocked by the protest.
As they were taken to the bus, the two men shouted and swore back at the pro-Palestine protesters who were chanting slurs at them.
Footage on board filmed by Mr Grand, a trainee barrister, shows him being told by a Met officer: 'You are creating a breach of the peace.'
Mr Grand replied: 'What did I do, officer?' to which he replied: 'You're waving an Israeli flag.'
'Not a criminal offence'
When asked by Mr Grand if it was a criminal offence, the officer said: 'No it's not. But it is now... look at them protesting for Palestine.'
Mr Grand argued that he had merely exercised his rights to free speech and protest.
The officer then said: 'Yeah, yeah, but there's a time and a place, isn't there?'
He went on to say: 'You're perfectly within your right to protest, but I'm not going to let two rival protest groups clash, yeah? That's why you're on here [the bus].'
Later, Mr Grand told The Telegraph that the fracas was provoked when 'a young man from the crowd grabbed the flag', with his companion adding that the crowd had attempted 'to topple us to the ground'.
His companion said: 'I'm sure it would have devolved into a much worse situation had the police not got there so quickly.'
Mr Grand continued: 'At that point the bus was surrounded by this big Palestinian mob. It was terrifying.
'We had already been harassed, then they grabbed our flag, now we were trapped on this bus. It didn't seem like the police had any control over the situation. It seems to be almost anarchy at these protests.
'It's simply terrifying to exercise your rights to freedom of protest. You can't have an opinion in this country. The Met Police won't let you.'
He said that he intends to make a complaint about the officers' conduct.
It is understood that officers were seeking to protect the Jewish men from danger and recognised the risks of releasing them into the crowd alone.
The men left the protest unharmed on foot with a policeman escorting them, whom they thanked when they parted ways.
A Met Police spokesman said: 'This was a challenging protest which saw 13 arrests and a number of officers assaulted.
'Protesters surrounded police officers on multiple occasions and when two counter protesters started waving an Israeli flag and shouting on a megaphone, they surrounded them too.
'Officers intervened to protect the two men. They were held on an out of service bus for their own safety and not because they had committed a crime. When it was safe to do so, officers escorted them out of the area.
'As the officer explained at the time, the men had every right to protest, but it was unwise for two people to walk into a crowd of 500 people with opposing views and not expect a confrontation to follow. Had the situation been reversed with 500 pro-Israel supporters and two pro-Palestinian, the officers would have done the same thing.'
Series of accusations
The Met has been plagued with accusations of so-called 'two-tier' policing in recent years.
The Telegraph revealed earlier this month that a Jewish man was charged for holding a placard mocking Hezbollah's leader at a pro-Palestine protest in London after police claimed that the sign could cause 'distress' to terrorist sympathisers. The charges were later dropped.
At the same protest, Mohammad al-Mail, a pro-Palestinian activist, had shouted, 'I like an organisation that starts with H' through a megaphone at an anti-Israel protest last year. He was arrested but never charged.
Last year the Met admitted that it had made mistakes in its handling of pro-Palestine protests, with Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner, saying the force 'didn't get everything right'. However, he rejected accusations of two-tier policing, claiming that the force had an 'infinite number of tiers'.
The protest began at midday on Monday and swelled to a crowd of approximately 500 people, including masked protesters. Demonstrators played pro-IRA folk songs and the pro-Hamas red triangle symbol was stuck to a traffic light.
Supporters of Palestine Action, who are suspected of maliciously damaging two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton on Friday, had been planning to protest outside Parliament.
But they were forced to change the venue for the gathering at the 11th hour after Scotland Yard imposed an exclusion zone around Parliament Square and Whitehall.
Instead they gathered in Trafalgar Square with some protesters blocking traffic by sitting in the road, others waving Palestine flags and some singing the controversial chant: 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'
The Met said its officers 'faced violence' from the crowd when they went to 'speak to three individuals whose behaviour was arousing suspicion'.
A spokesman said six people were arrested for assaulting an emergency worker and two were arrested for obstructing an officer carrying out his duty. Four people who refused to move when the protest came to an end at 3pm were arrested for breaching public order conditions.
Another person was arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence after they were heard shouting racial abuse.
Proscribed as terrorist organisation
During the rally, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told Parliament that Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, alongside the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State, within weeks.
The Home Secretary's decision to proscribe Palestine Action is set to make membership and support for the protest group illegal.
Palestine Action has staged a series of demonstrations in recent months, including spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint over its alleged links to Elbit, an Israeli defence company, and vandalising Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire.
A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said the latest incident was 'emblematic of the kind of intimidation and thuggish tactics that we have all come to expect from Palestine activists'.
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