The Mayor for London has said that pro-Palestinian protestors who chant “From the river to the sea” is not “antisemitic.”
Sadiq Khan was asked during the Mayor’s Question Time at City Hall about the terrorist attack at a Manchester synagogue and the pro-Palestine protests last week.
The leader of City Hall Susan Hall asked, “Do you think to scream ‘From the river to the sea’, which they’re doing during these hate marches, is appropriate? Do you think it is antisemitic?”
Khan replied, “I don’t think it is antisemitic, and I think it’s all about context.
“Some slogans can be antisemitic, but it’s all about context. And in certain contexts, yes, those slogans are antisemitic. In other contexts, they’re not.”
Hall said that the pro-Palestine protests took place in London and protesters were seen “screaming chants at passing commuters.”
The Home Secretary to the protests “should not have gone ahead” on Yom Kippur which is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish community.
Hall told Khan, “Protesters could be heard chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ and describing Israel as a ‘terror state’.”
She asked Khan, “On the day of the Manchester terror attack, was that behaviour appropriate?”
He replied, “No, I don’t think it was.”
He was then asked over the behaviour of the protesters and was it antisemitic? He replied, “You’re asking a general question about individuals’ behaviour – I think it [their behaviour] is insensitive.”
Khan was asked yet again if it was antisemitic, Khan responded with, “No, I don’t think marching is antisemitic.”
Hall then asked Khan, “So you don’t think that screaming ‘From the river to the sea’ and calling it a ‘terror state’ is antisemitic?
“We all hear ‘From the river to the sea’ and we know what that means, and that is antisemitic.”
“From the river to the sea” is the land between Jordan and the Med Sea, it is often followed by, “Palestine will be free.”
The Mayor for London was then told he failed to condemn the protests in contrast to the “duplicity of his remarks” against Tommy Robinson’s march last month of Unite the Kingdom.
Hall then waved a little Union flag, she said this does not make her Far Right, however, it makes her “very patriotic.”
The Mayor for London then said he will “fight to the death for the right to protest.”
She asked Khan, “Do you not see that in London, to have one community that is so badly disadvantaged by what is going on, with these antisemitic chants, that you as mayor should do something about that? Shame on you, because our Jewish community need looking after.”
He replied, “I have gone out of my way since [the Hamas attacks on Israel on] September 7, 2023, to reassure Jewish Londoners.
“We are going to make sure we do what we can to keep Jewish people safe.”
