Hundreds of people recently gathered at JW3 for a conference that brought together British, Jewish, Israeli and joint Israeli-Palestinian organisations and delegates working for Middle Eastern peace.
Greeting myself and other attendees at the entrance were some 60 anti-Israel protesters who lined the pavement to the front and side gates. Many were masked and shouted chants over megaphones, including “You are mass murderers”, “Baby killers” and “Nazis”, while recording footage of attendees and waving Palestinian flags and banners.
Footage of distressed elderly attendees entering JW3 soon circulated on social media, prompting outrage. Counter-protesters waving Israeli flags assembled. And the Board of Deputies condemned the protest for targeting a “Jewish community centre”, without referencing the conference.
Communal outrage was warranted. But much of the response missed the significance of this protest as vividly understood by conference attendees. British Jews have become highly familiar with regular anti-Israel, pro-Palestine protests in central London that started after the 7 October attacks. But attendees were dismayed, and some angered, why protesters opted to target this specific conference.
Adam Schwarz
“Why today? We’re here to support peace!”, a woman said as she looked relieved to arrive inside. My attempt to engage with protesters later that day provided an insight into the answer.
The sound of chants and drums boomed over conference speeches in the overflow room where around 100 of us watched opening remarks being streamed from the main hall. The speeches, some of which used similar language to that on protesters’ signs, rapidly laid bare the glaring futility of the attempt to intrude on the conference.
The Israeli government operates an “apartheid regime” and conducts “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians, declared Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken. The speech, which also called for sanctions against Israeli settler leaders, was considered so intolerable by the Netanyahu Government that the Israeli Diaspora Ministry has since suspended ties with Haaretz.
Protest outside JW3
Most corrosive to the protesters’ claims to represent Palestinian welfare was the presence of Palestinian delegates themselves at the conference. This included Dr Rula Hardal, Director of A Land for All, who said Israel was “colonising” Palestinian land. Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh also spoke against the “fascist” Netanyahu government and called for UK recognition of a Palestinian State.
Discussions revealed some variation in opinion among the 700 attendees on terminology. Yet, audience and speaker engagement was markedly calm and constructive throughout the conference. Many felt the “contrast and power of being with hundreds of people keen to engage thoughtfully with Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, said David Davidi-Brown, New Israel Fund CEO. Attendees told him that they felt “extra determination” to participate in the conference after witnessing the protest.
“The people in this room are able to see both realities of what is happening in Israel and Gaza”, said Dr Ayala Panievsky, City of London University Fellow, during a panel discussion. “The hardest position is the one that thinks two things at once. The one that says, there are appalling things going on… but that doesn’t mean this country [Israel], uniquely among others, should stop existing”, added Jonathan Freedland.
Demo outside JW3 during Haaretz conference
Acknowledgement of the conflict’s complexity, nuances and most importantly, legitimate grievances of both Israelis and Palestinians characterised the temperament of the conference. Attendees listened to and engaged with unrestrained criticism of Israeli policy with the confidence that its purpose was to aid issue diagnosis and consider practical solutions – rather than to encourage Israel’s demise.
The desire for Israeli-Palestinian peace was most powerfully articulated by Dr Sharone Lifschits, whose parents were kidnapped on 7 October and whose 84-year-old father Oded is still held in Gaza. Dr Lifschits persevered through grief to recite how her mother Yocheved had turned to her Hamas captor as she was released and shook his hand. “She looked really clearly into her captor’s eyes, and in that look is a demand – to acknowledge shared humanity.”
Dr Lifschits briefly turned to the topic of the protesters. “These are confusing times”, she confessed. “I felt so angry with the people outside but, really, I should look at them in the eyes for shared humanity”. Inspired by Dr Lifschits words and the example of her mother, I decided to speak to the protesters.
I walked over to the anti-Israel protest and attempted to politely engage. No one was willing to talk. Most showed visible suspicion and hostility to me, which they appeared to consider as an act of defiance
A counterprotest of equal numbers to the original protest had mobilised by late morning. The anti-Israel protest had been moved to the other side of the road as the Metropolitan Police bolstered its presence.
“We were just driving past and saw the protest against JW3. We went home, collected our Israeli flags and came back to stand with the Jewish community”, a couple told me. I asked their views on the conference, only to discover they were unaware it was taking place, as was every counter-protester I spoke to.
I walked over to the anti-Israel protest and attempted to politely engage, initially as a journalist and then as a curious (but admittedly Jewish looking) pedestrian. No one was willing to talk. Most showed visible suspicion and hostility to me, which they appeared to consider as an act of defiance.
Eventually, a young man was willing to talk. “Are you Jewish?”, he asked, to which I said I was. He proceeded to question how I felt being part of a “religion of paedophiles” before spewing a related antisemitic conspiracy theory. None of his fellow protesters who were listening interjected.
David Davidi-Brown had earlier also tried to speak to protesters. “They ignored me and continued to shout ‘Shame on you Zionists, you are nothing but Nazis’ and, in a perhaps revealing moment, ‘Hitler will judge you’ hastily corrected to ‘History will judge you’.”
My despondency from my failed engagement with the protesters lifted as I watched Ehud Olmert and Dr al-Qudwa present their plan for a two-state solution to an energised audience
As reported by Jewish News, protest groups mobilised attendance by advertising that “war criminals” former UK PM Tony Blair and former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert were participating in the conference. But given the protesters’ unwillingness to engage beyond spouting explicit antisemitism, it’s clear that their presence was not motivated by a mere rejection of these two individuals. Even the briefest of Google searches into the organisations attending would have revealed that the conference comprised of delegates ferociously critical of Israeli policies.
While ‘pro-Palestine’ protesters outside were rejecting dialogue, Palestinians inside were pioneering peace with Israelis. “This is the first time I have attended any Israeli conference”, proudly proclaimed Dr Nasser al-Qudwa, former Palestinian foreign minister, who received rapturous applause and shouts of “welcome” from the audience.
My despondency from my failed engagement with the protesters dramatically lifted as I watched Ehud Olmert and Dr al-Qudwa, who is also a nephew of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat, jointly present their plan for a two-state solution to an energised audience. Their courage demonstrated that, amidst endless violence and war, the real act of defiance is not to reject dialogue, but to embrace it.
The protest failed to impede the success of the conference. Yet, it undoubtedly contributed to its atmosphere, albeit inadvertently, through distinguishing the noise-makers outside from the solution-makers and Israeli and Palestinian peace-makers inside.
The protest also served as a sobering reminder of the hard realities of the Middle East and beyond. The besieging of JW3 was a vivid metaphor for the external threats actively exploiting the conflict to fuel hatred. In doing so, it reinforced the urgent necessity to seek solutions beyond military force.
As Dr al-Qudwa told attendees: “We have to begin by talking to each other.”
