The National Jewish Assembly (NJA) and We Believe in Israel (WBII) strongly condemn the anti-Israel demonstration outside Miznon in Notting Hill.
Targeting a lawful business because it is Israeli-owned and frequented by Israelis and British Jews is not legitimate protest, it’s intimidation. Dressing such actions up as “political expression” does not change the reality experienced by staff, customers, and the wider Jewish community: harassment, fear, and exclusion.
Chants and slogans calling for Israel’s eradication carry an unmistakable meaning when directed at a Jewish-Israeli space. This is not about government policy; it is about who is deemed welcome, and who is not, on Britain’s streets. London must not become a place where Jewish or Israeli businesses are told to “get out”, nor where Jewish or Israeli presence must justify itself. That one of the organisers was a self-described “anti-Zionist Jewish” group does not diminish the antisemitic impact of the protest. Jews do not lose the right to safety because others claim to speak in their name.
Seeing the police stand immobile, despite prior commitments to tackle language calling for Israel’s eradication, Roger Walters, Chairman of the National Jewish Assembly and Director of WBII, said: “Is this Berlin in 1936, or London’s future—where Jews are told to leave and the authorities look away?”
What happened at Miznon is not a protest in any serious democratic sense. It is coercive and designed to make ordinary life impossible for those its perpetrators have decided are fair game. Britain cannot function if harassment is allowed to masquerade as activism. The targeting of Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses is not solidarity. It is collective punishment.
“We will not accept the normalisation of intimidation as protest. Civilians buying dinner must not pay the price for political grievances,” said Catherine Perez Shakdam, Executive Director of WBII.
“These so-called ‘activists’ reveal the naked hypocrisy of the pro-Palestinian movement” said Steve Winston, Managing Director of the NJA. “They screech about Israel, yet remain silent as Iranians and other groups across the Middle East suffer, showing their outrage is selective, performative, and morally bankrupt.”
We call on authorities to enforce the law firmly and on civic leaders to reject behaviour that would be unacceptable if directed at any other minority community. Antisemitism does not become acceptable because it is directed at Israel or Israelis.
