Anti-Zionist Jewish groups have responded to the statement issued by the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemning its protest outside a Great Israeli Real Estate Event in London on Sunday.
The demonstration was co-organised by the groups Jewish Anti-Zionist Action (JAZA), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) to oppose the sale of land and properties, including illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, promoted at the event.
In its statement, the Board of Deputies attempted to claim the event, which was hosted by the Edgware United Synagogue in northwest London, did not market any real estate over the Green Line - the 1949 armistice line separating Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The board said the protests were “wholly unjustified” and intended to “harass and intimidate members of the Jewish community”, without acknowledging that many protesters were from the local Jewish community themselves.
Despite Sky News revealing images that contradict its claims and property event organisers being forced to apologise for listing West Bank settlements as illegal under international law, the Board of Deputies has neither retracted nor corrected its statement.
Jewish protesters say that the Board of Deputies, a representative body made up of elected members from synagogues and Jewish organisations, can no longer seek to describe itself as “the voice of the British Jewish Community”.
Dora, who is Jewish and grew up in the area, obtained marketing materials after signing up for the event with other JAZA members, before they were kicked out for disrupting it.
She told Middle East Eye that “categorically speaking, there was illegal land sale happening, because I picked up the leaflets, the brochure, and have videos of the stalls in the main room”.
On top of physical evidence, Dora also told MEE that she had a covert conversation with one of the stalls about properties that they “weren’t allowed to” advertise in what they called “Judea and Samaria”, the Israeli name for the occupied West Bank.
“They don’t see anything wrong, because they believe that the land is theirs”, she explained, which is why there was a “hush, hush, giggly, under the table, ‘that’s fine’ attitude” from the vendors.
MEE contacted the Board of Deputies for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.
The event drew pro-Israel counter-protesters who MEE journalists witnessed attacking and verbally abusing pro-Palestinian demonstrators, as well as the presence of the Metropolitan Police Service.
One counter-protester was videoed taunting attendees with a photo of a dead Palestinian child.
Max Hammer, who is also a member of JAZA, referred to the counter-protesters as exhibiting “the behaviour of a fascist mob” who “did everything they could to exert as much violence on us as possible before the police arrived”.
He described witnessing counter-protesters singing Tommy Robinson chants, and wearing Trump hats and Jewish Defense League (JDL) T-shirts. JDL has been classifiedas a “right-wing terrorist group” by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2001.
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Hammer said that the board, by aligning itself with the counter-protesters organised by Stop the Hate, have chosen to “legitimise far-right violence” and “aggressively shore up its position by making common cause with street fascists”.
He said that this is proof that the organisation is in “crisis” from “twisting itself into knots in order to defend a state that has shown itself to be committing a genocide in Gaza”.
As a result, it has “found itself at odds with increasing parts of the Jewish community” as well as society as a whole, which has turned against Israel, forcing it to “find allies in ever more repugnant places” because “the alternative would be to confront the moral rot at the heart of Zionism and the far-right politics that Zionism has become synonymous with”.
“The only saving grace is that by making it increasingly clear that upholding a Zionist position means collaborating with far-right groups… They are doing the work of the Jewish left for them, by making it very evident how morally bankrupt this project is.”
