Planned pro-Palestine protests under pressure amid attack on a Poppy seller
Remembrance Day poppy seller, 78, attacked as pro-Palestine protesters staged a sit-in protest at Edinburgh.
It is a mark of winter approaching to see poppy sellers spring up across the United Kingdom. For several weeks ahead of the November 11 Armistice Day and the Remembrance Sunday, many volunteers, including veterans, set up stalls to sell their paper poppies, which most commuters are happy to fork out for and adorn on their coats.
Doing so is a very British tradition to show respect, honour and a pause of reflection for the sacrifices of military veterans from WWI to Afghanistan.
So when a poppy seller, 78-year-old army veteran Jim Henderson was punched and kicked as pro-Palestine protesters staged one of their sit-in protests at major transport hubs – this was at the busy Edinburgh Waverley train station last Sunday – the British calm was stirred.
Justice Minister Alex Chalk said: “It sent a shudder down my spine, I cannot truly believe something like that would happen, it is truly appalling.”
Another poppy stand at Charing Cross station in central London has been shown on social media, surrounded and overwhelmed by pro-Palestinian supporters.
Which brings us to this Saturday, Armistice Day, where pro-Palestinian organisers have ignored a request from the Scotland Yard’s assistant police commissioner Ade Adelekan to defer their protest, and will conduct a mass march in central London.
Across the city, thousands of poppy wearers will pause for a moment’s silence on Saturday ahead of the more formal commemorations at the Cenotaph on Sunday.
More than 70,000 pro-Palestinian protesters are anticipated to converge on central London in the demonstration organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. A convoy of cars draped in Palestinian flags is also expected in the capital on the weekend, arriving from Bradford in echoes of a 2021 protest that resulted in anti-Semitic abuse of the Jewish London population in north London.
The Jewish Chronicle has reported that the leaders of four of the groups organising the march: the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Friends of al-Aqsa, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Palestinian Forum for Britain, have had ties with Hamas or expressed sympathy for its views.
The paper says The Friends of al-Aqsa activist, Ismael Patel, two former leaders of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, as well as the Palestinian Forum for Britain’s Zaher Birawi and The Muslim Association of Britain’s director Anas Altikriti have visited Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh at various times.
The pro-Palestinian marches, which claim to call for “peace” and “a ceasefire”, have been held in various British cities since the October 7 orchestrated surprise attack by Hamas on Israeli border towns and a music festival.
Hamas slaughtered 1400 people and kidnapped more than 230 of which more than 30 of the hostages are children with the youngest, Kfir Bibas, just nine months old.
Gaza’s health authority has claimed that Israel, having declared war on Hamas, has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza.
The weekly protests in London have resulted in 99 arrests, including for inciting racial hatred, anti Semitic comments, and public order offences, and two for breaching the terrorism act in connection with the wording on a banner.
Fears that the march on Armistice Day could turn ugly are putting pressure on the police to apply to the home secretary, Suella Braverman to ban the march.
Ms Braverman wants to do this. Her views have been clear all week.
“The hate marchers need to understand that decent British people have had enough of these displays of thuggish intimidation and extremism,’’ she tweeted. The prime minister Rishi Sunak has been similarly outspoken. He said there was a risk the Cenotaph could be desecrated and said the protests would be “provocative and disrespectful”.
But the politicians must wait for the police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to make the request before a ban can be lawful.
In a statement the march organisers said they have “made it clear we have no intention of marching on or near Whitehall, in order not to disrupt events at the Cenotaph” They added their march, from Hyde Park to the US embassy, will start nearly two hours after the minute silence of commemoration for the war dead.
They added: “We are alarmed by members of the Government, including the Prime Minster, issuing statements suggesting that the march is a direct threat to the Cenotaph and designed to disrupt the Remembrance Day commemorations. “
They said those statements “are motivated by a desire to suppress widespread public support for an end to Israel’s bombardment of the people of Gaza”.
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