Campaign Against Antisemitism, led by Gideon Falter, cites safety fears and promises more protests to come
Campaign Against Antisemitism has cancelled its planned counter-protest against a pro-Palestinian march through central London on Saturday.
The group, led by Gideon Falter, had said it wanted to use the “walk together” initiative to support its view that the area around the planned pro-Palestinian march was not safe for Jewish people.
Continue reading...Statement comes after Met police apologised for calling antisemitism campaigner ‘openly Jewish’
Being Jewish “should never be seen as provocative”, the government has said after a row over the policing of a pro-Palestine march.
In a video released by Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), the charity’s chief executive, Gideon Falter, who was wearing a kippah skull cap, was told by a Met officer at a pro-Palestine march last Saturday: “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march. I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.”
Continue reading...Police officer had stopped Gideon Falter from walking near pro-Palestinian march while wearing kippah skull cap
The Metropolitan police has apologised after an officer used the term “openly Jewish” to an antisemitism campaigner who was threatened with arrest near a pro-Palestine march.
Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, was wearing a kippah skull cap when he was stopped from crossing the road near the demonstration in the Aldwych area of London last Saturday afternoon.
Continue reading...Minouche Shafik appeared beleaguered as House members grilled her over reported upsurge in antisemitism on campus
The head of a prestigious US university clashed with members of Congress today in highly charged hearings over a reported upsurge in antisemitism on campus in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, appeared beleaguered and uncertain as one Congress member after another assailed her over her institution’s supposed inaction to stop it becoming what one called “a hotbed of antisemitism and hatred”.
This article was amended on 17 April 2024 to correctly identify the school where Elizabeth Magill resigned as president last year. The school was the University of Pennsylvania, not Pennsylvania University.
Continue reading...Group’s annual report notes rise in anti-migrant activism and asks if Tory voters are ‘falling out of love with democracy’
British voters are restless, angry and demoralised and more than half of them are pessimistic about the future, according to polling that a counter-extremism organisation has said shows warning signs of future unrest.
More than one in four respondents (43%) described the UK as “declining”, just 6% agreed that the political system was working well and 79% said politicians “don’t listen to people like me”.
Continue reading...Withdrawal of backing for Graham Jones, candidate for Hyndburn, follows Starmer’s action against Azhar Ali in Rochdale
Labour has suspended a second parliamentary candidate over their remarks about Israel, as Keir Starmer struggles to contain the fallout from the leak of a private meeting of party activists in Lancashire last year.
Party sources said on Tuesday that Labour had suspended Graham Jones, the candidate for Hyndburn, less than 24 hours after the party withdrew its support from Azhar Ali, its candidate for the Rochdale byelection later this month.
Continue reading...Labour leader says he acted decisively after further information on Azhar Ali’s comments about Israel
Keir Starmer has defended his handling of the controversy surrounding Labour’s candidate in Rochdale, who was suspended by the party on Monday night after days of revelations about remarks he made about Israel soon after the Hamas attacks.
The Labour leader said on Tuesday he had taken tough and decisive action against Azhar Ali, who will now campaign for the Rochdale seat with no official support for the party.
Continue reading...Police described the object as a ‘dangerous object’ as Sweden’s prime minister condemned the ‘attempted attack’
Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson condemned “an attempted attack” against the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, after an object found outside it was destroyed by the bomb squad on Wednesday.
Police said a “live” device had been found by staff on the embassy premises on Wednesday, calling it “a dangerous object”, although they did not specify what it was.
Continue reading...Vincent Reynouard discovered living double life in Scottish village where he worked as a tutor, reports say
A Holocaust denier who was arrested in a Scottish fishing village will be extradited back to France after spending two years on the run from the authorities.
Vincent Reynouard lost his extradition battle after his arrest in November 2022. He had been discovered living a double life in Anstruther, Fife, where he worked as a private tutor, according to reports.
Continue reading...Fifteen months after two men were shot in Bratislava, evidence suggests the killer may have been helped by an unidentified US-based extremist
The October evening was warm and sunny. At about 7pm, two young men stepped out of the Tepláreň bar on Zámocká Street in the centre of Bratislava, to sit on a concrete bench and drink lemonade. Matúš, 23, had just arrived in the Slovakian capital to study Chinese. His 26-year-old friend worked in a local clothes shop and enjoyed anime, K-pop and dance.
Standing in an alcove a few metres away was Juraj Krajčík. The 19-year-old had been loitering for about half an hour, witnesses later said. Shortly after the two patrons of the Tepláreň sat down, Krajčík stepped forward, raised a .45-calibre handgun and fired several shots at them. Then he turned and ran, gun in hand.
Continue reading...Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse
The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.
Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.
Continue reading...Arrests in Germany and the Netherlands increase fears that Jewish institutions in the UK could be targeted by Hamas
Britain’s terror threat level is being kept under “very close” review amid concerns that extremist groups could target Jewish institutions in the UK, a day after German prosecutors said they had foiled a Hamas attack plot by making four arrests.
MI5 and counter-terror police indicated they were focused on whether the war in the Middle East could galvanise extremists into taking violent action, as Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza extends to its third month.
Continue reading...Rabbi says antisemitic attack, hours after Donald Tusk vowed to reform Poland, galvanised support for Jewish community
A far-right Polish MP has extinguished candles on a menorah lit for Hanukah in Poland’s parliament, disrupting proceedings before a vote of confidence in the new government.
Grzegorz Braun, a fringe far-right MP, was shown on television spraying the menorah with a fire extinguisher. Haze filled the area. The parliament took a break in proceedings to deal with the incident and Braun was suspended for the rest of the day.
Continue reading...Claudine Gay and presidents of UPenn and MIT faced backlash over responses on campus policy at congressional hearing
The Harvard Corporation, the highest governing body at the university, has backed the university’s president, Claudine Gay, to remain in post after calls for her removal following controversial testimony over antisemitism on campus.
Gay and the presidents of University of Pennsylvania and MIT faced backlash for their remarks at a congressional hearing into antisemitism on college campuses. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik demanded a “yes” or “no” response to her question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their university’s code of conduct. The presidents’ various responses were criticized for not being unequivocal enough in their condemnation of calls for genocide.
Continue reading...Many say Germany’s historical responsibility for Nazi crimes makes it hard for people to criticise Gaza strategy
Lobna Shammout was initially only vaguely aware of the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October, because she had been celebrating her 40th birthday. “The breaking news was crashing my phone, I thought ‘please, not today’,” the Palestinian-German said. “When I finally checked … each newsflash was worse than the one before.”
In the following weeks, as Israel launched an all-out assault on Gaza in retaliation for the attacks, which killed 1,200 people, Shammout has waited anxiously for news of her relatives and friends in Gaza. Some have been killed, among the estimated 15,000 Palestinians who the Hamas-run health ministry says have lost their lives.
Continue reading...Leaders of three universities continue navigating calls to resign following ‘evasive’ answers in House hearing
Leaders of three prestigious US universities remained under pressure on Friday as a controversy about antisemitism on campus, inflamed by their appearance at a congressional hearing earlier in the week, showed little sign of abating, with free speech advocates and billionaire college donors wading into the fray.
Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), survived an emergency meeting of its board of trustees on Thursday amid backlash to her “disastrous” comments to the hearing investigating rising campus antisemitism since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war.
Continue reading...Gallery owner, who has represented Parr for 36 years, says she was sickened by ‘hate graffiti’ in the work, but denies censoring it and has kept it on display
The Melbourne gallery owner Anna Schwartz has dropped the provocative performance artist Mike Parr after a 36-year relationship, after a piece commenting on Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Schwartz sent Parr a two-sentence email on Sunday, the day after he installed the third part of his exhibition Sunset Claws, informing him she would no longer represent him.
Continue reading...Congressional testimony on campus policies by heads of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT draws criticism
The presidents of three of the nation’s top universities are facing intense backlash, including from the White House, after they appeared to evade questions during a congressional hearing about whether calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct.
In a contentious, hours-long debate on Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sought to address the steps they were taking to combat rising antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. But it was their careful, indirect response to a question posed by the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York that drew scathing criticism.
Continue reading...Amir Maimon urges government ‘to take all necessary measures’ to ensure ‘different people of different faiths’ feel secure
The Israeli ambassador says he is “very sad” about a rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia and has urged the government to “take all necessary measures” to ensure people of different faiths and backgrounds feel safe.
Amir Maimon said that, in particular, he was “so, so upset” about the presence of pro-Palestine protesters at a Melbourne hotel where relatives and friends of Hamas-held hostages were staying last week.
Continue reading...Executive committee rejects banning members who ‘espouse or tolerate antisemitism’ and deny Holocaust, arguing clause is vague
Members of Texas’s Republican party are free to associate with Nazi sympathizers without worries of violating internal policy after they held a vote on Saturday.
In a 32-29 vote, the party’s executive committee decided against excluding from their organization those “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial”. A proposal to ban such individuals was included in a resolution supporting Israel as it wars with Hamas in Gaza.
Continue reading...