UK: Suella Braverman in war of words with police over Israel-Gaza protests

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has launched a war of words with the Metropolitan Police with a tough-talking newspaper article on Thursday that accuses the force of not tackling the “hate marchers” protesting on the streets of London against the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Indian-origin Cabinet minister has come under strong criticism from the Opposition benches for accusing the country’s largest police force of having a “double standard” in dealing with aggression during the protests, by ignoring some actions of pro-Palestinian protesters.

In a warning to the police, Braverman pointed out that if a planned pro-Palestinian protest march goes ahead this weekend, an “assertive and proactive approach to any displays of hate” will be expected from the officers on duty.

“There have been dignified vigils in London held by Britain’s Jewish community, but that is not what has tested our capacity to maintain public order,” Braverman wrote in ‘The Times’ newspaper.

“It is the pro-Palestinian movement that has mobilised tens of thousands of angry demonstrators and marched them through London every weekend. From the start, these events have been problematic, not just because of violence around the fringes but because of the highly offensive content of chants, posters and stickers. This is not a time for naiveté,” she noted.

“We have seen with our own eyes that terrorists have been valorised, Israel has been demonised as Nazis and Jews have been threatened with further massacres… I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza. They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland,” she wrote. (PTI)