Now, we will start this off with a caveat: This video is from around April, 2024, so it’s not exactly breaking news. But we are bringing this to your attention now because 1) we never showed you the video when it originally happened, 2) a new post sharing the video on Twitter/X is getting attention and 3) holy crap! What the heck, London?!
With all that being said, here’s the video:
Some additional context is presented here:
The article lays out that the Jewish man was Gideon Falter, chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism. His headwear is a kippah, a.k.a. a yarmulke. And the cop was concerned that if an ‘openly Jewish’ person came near the ‘campaign of love and tolerance’ known as the ‘Free Palestine’ movement, that the loving and tolerant apologists for Hamass might get agitated and attack him. So, in the cop’s eyes, Falter was committing a criminal act, breaching the peace, if he peacefully walked near those completely peaceful and loving protesters.
Of course, we are sure you detected a fair amount of sarcasm in the last paragraph. We all know that these ‘Free Palestine’ protesters are not peaceful. It’s not impossible to support a terrorist organization with peaceful protest, but it is at least contradictory to do so. ‘I support violent terrorists! But … peacefully!’ is not the most natural sentiment. And of course, ‘Free Palestine’ in a misnomer, too, much like Anti-FA (which is actually a fascist organization pretending to be anti-fascist). Hamass isn’t fighting for ‘freedom’ in any way normal people understand that term. Hamass doesn’t allow freedom in Gaza. You have no free speech, you certainly don’t have elections and if you are gay they will literally execute you by throwing you off a roof—that is, if there are any buildings left standing in the area. So, the only ‘freedom’ they seem to want is to be free of Jews. And when they say ‘Palestine’ they also mean ‘from the river to the sea’ meaning basically all of Israel. So ‘Free Palestine’ is a coded call to ‘free’ what is now Israel of jews. It is a call for genocide: A second holocaust.
Basically, it is word games all the way down with the left and this is one of the nastiest examples.
Thus, obviously, it is dangerous for a person to be ‘openly Jewish’ around such people. And there is nothing wrong with making sure such a person is seeing the risks with open eyes. This author has sometimes said to people who wanted to tangle with dangerous people: ‘I am not telling you not to do this, but I want you to understand the risks before you do so.’
But for the cop to think somehow the peaceful Jewish man is at fault when other people get violent just at the sight of him is inexcusable. In American law, that is forbidden. In Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992) the Supreme Court said that ‘Listeners’ reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation.’ In other words, you can’t silence a person because you think someone else will get angry and get violent. The correct response in that situation is to control the people who would get violent, rather than the people who plan to express themselves peacefully.
(And for the record, wearing a yarmulke is a form of expression. It’s no great stretch to say that people often express themselves through their clothes and in this case, Mr. Falter’s clothing was not only born out of religious obligation but it was an expression of his religious identity.)
Because the alternative is to give people the worst possible incentives. If we are going to blame a peaceful speaker—that is, a person who is not engaged in threats or incitement of violence—for the violence of the listeners and silence the speaker as a result, then it sends the message to anyone listening: If you want to silence your opponent, all you have to do is get violent. In the First Amendment community, we call this a ‘heckler’s veto’ and in America, that is prohibited.
This is true, even if the people getting violent on the surface seem to agree with the speaker. After all, if the violence of people who seem to follow you justifies censorship, then all a person’s opponents have to do is pretend they agree with their opponents and then get violent and they will be rewarded with their opponents being censored.
Incidentally, according to that AP article above, the police even screwed up when apologizing to Falter and the Jewish community:
London’s Metropolitan Police Service on Friday afternoon apologized for the language the officer used in describing Falter’s appearance, but said counter demonstrators had to be aware ‘that their presence is provocative.’
The Met later deleted that apology from its social media accounts and issued a second statement.
‘In an effort to make a point about the policing of protest we caused further offense,’ the force said. ‘This was never our intention. We have removed that statement and we apologize.’
‘Being Jewish is not a provocation. Jewish Londoners must be able to feel safe in the city.’
Yikes. We are reminded of the subtitles gag at the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they declare that
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.
It is rarely good when public officials echo Monty Python.
And, of course the AP tries to run interference for the pro-genocide side of the argument:
While the marches have been largely peaceful, many demonstrators accuse Israel of genocide and a small number have shown support for Hamas, the group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and which has been banned by the British government as a terrorist organization.
We’re surprised they even admitted that the attack on October 7, 2023 was carried out by Hamass (although they can’t seem to spell their name the correct way we spell it). But everyone knows the score. It is dangerous to be near a pro-Hamass protest, especially if you are Jewish. Again, we aren’t telling our Jewish friends not to go near such protests. They might find it useful to expose the violence behind the pro-Hamass movement much like Dr. King exposed the violence supporting American segregation. Just make sure you understand the risks before you do it.
And if you weren’t sure if all of this was an isolated incident or not, here’s a whole thread of people being arrested or threatened with arrest for being ‘openly Jewish’ around those loving and peaceful pro-Hamass protesters. We are skipping the first because it the same video of Falter being threatened with arrest:
The cut off text:
‘The police approached me and asked me and my family to leave the area,’ Rabbi Scheier describes. ‘I asked why we were given this directive, as we had not exchanged even one word with a protester. The only thing I am guilty of is shopping in downtown Montreal... while wearing a kippah.’ ‘The policeman explained to me that he was fearful of a ‘fire starting between the two sides.’ Apparently, my presence is deemed a sufficient provocation for removal, while their hateful chants are allowed to continue.’
One of the many, many problems with hate speech laws is that they are not enforced even-handedly.
The cut off text:
Police accused the Jewish journalist of breaching the peace and arrested him ‘in the interest of public safety’ while claiming that his presence was ‘inciting the crowd’.
The cut off text:
This turns entire cities like London, Sydney, Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto into terror no-go zones
The occupation is underway
It also highlights the importance of controlled immigration. You do not automatically become an American citizen just by setting foot here. While obviously people born here become citizens automatically, we can and do require an immigrant to demonstrate that they are able to function in our republic before we let you become a citizen. That includes allowing people to disagree with you even on matters are profound as faith without getting violent and we have the right to throw non-citizens out of the country if they can’t manage that much. In the most technical way, you might say that this is viewpoint discrimination in our immigration system, but we think it is fully justified under the notion that our ‘Constitution … is not a suicide pact.’ Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144 (1963). It is basic self-preservation to say that if you hate America or the values it stands for, that you are not allowed to become a citizen, and if you are merely an immigrant, we can throw you out.
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Editor’s Note: Religious freedom is under attack around the globe.
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