The Chief Executive of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has expressed his disappointment that both Sadiq Khan and Gary Lineker did not attend the march on Sunday.
Speaking on GB News, Gideon Falter said:
“It is curious: there’s been a 1350 per cent rise in anti-Semitic crime in London and Saqid Khan, by virtue of being Mayor of London, is essentially the Police and Crime Commissioner for London.
“It is curious that he didn’t find the time to be there on Sunday, it did cross my mind.
“It’s something that seems to happen with hatred of Jews that doesn’t seem to happen with other forms of hatred.
“You have this extraordinary story that the BBC had told staff that they shouldn’t go on this march because it might be political and then they later backtracked and said we didn’t tell staff anything, we just told them they shouldn't go on any marches at all.
“I’m pretty sure they weren’t saying that, for example, during Black Lives Matter.
“So there is this strange idea among some people that fighting anti-Semitism, standing up to hatred of Jews is a kind of racism and is in some way political.
“I’d love for them to explain how on earth they think that is political.
“That has a real-life effect.
“I was in the office, it was about midnight, we’d all been working really hard the last few weeks since the October 7th massacre and what we found, for example, was someone posting a picture on facebook saying ‘Jews – not Israelis – have just bombed a hospital in Gaza.
“The next post was a picture of some knives and the next said there aren’t going to be any Jews walking alive in London because he’s going to go and behead them.
“We obviously called that into Counter Terrorism but that is a very direct consequence of someone watching the news, seeing this incorrect reporting, getting absolutely incensed and deciding that they are going to commit acts of violence.
“That is absolutely terrifying.
“Where was Gary Lineker? Gary Lineker keeps telling us, he’s one of many people, who says he stands against all forms of racism.
“We had 105,000 people on the march yesterday. It was the biggest gathering against anti-Semitism in this country since the battle of Cable Street in 1936 when Londoners stood side by side with Jews and fought off Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists.
“It was a big event and it was so heart-warming to see Londoners and people from all over the country turn up and I did wonder where Gary Lineker was and a few other people who claim to be against all forms of racism.”
