The boss of the Campaign Against Antisemitism has won an apology from police – but what was Gideon Falter’s intention at the pro-Palestine demo he’s complaining about?

According to the BBC, Falter was told he was being “openly Jewish”, causing a “breach of peace”, and threatened with arrest by a police officer at a pro-Palestine protest in London on Saturday, April 13.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being “openly Jewish”, and if a policeman said that and used it as a reason for arresting Falter, then he’s right to have complained and to want restitution from the Metropolitan Police.

But what was Gideon Falter’s intention at the pro-Palestine demo he’s complaining about?

According to a slightly confusing BBC News report, video evidence shows a police officer telling Falter he

“took it upon himself” to deliberately walk “right into the middle” of the march, and said he was “disingenuous” and was trying to “antagonise” others.

The officer said to the campaign boss: “My view is you are looking to try and antagonise things.”

Mr Falter then responded: “I’m not, I’m trying to walk along the pavement.”

But the article also says that footage recorded by Sky News (it is not clear whether this is the same footage)

shows Mr Falter telling the police officer he was trying to cross the road.

If that is true, then it is possible that he was trying to disrupt the march, provoking the marchers in order to present the appearance that the event was organised – and attended – by anti-Semites rather than by decent UK citizens who simply want an end to the genocide being committed by Israel against the people of Gaza – and possibly to see the perpetrators brought to justice.

Falter himself told BBC News,

“If the law says that Londoners are able to go wherever they want freely, as long as they’re law-abiding, then that’s what they have to enforce.”

The operative words here are “as long as they’re law-abiding”.

The policeman is said to have told Falter he was causing a “breach of peace”. This is defined as “an act done, or threatened to be done, which either harms a person or, in his presence, his property, or is likely to cause such harm being done”.

It is not a criminal offence but anybody causing it, or threatening to do so, can be arrested for it.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism is one of several pro-Israel organisations and individuals that has attacked pro-Palestine marches as anti-Semitic and attempted to have them banned.

As such, it seems reasonable to suspect its members of “breach of peace” in turning up at such an event and trying to disrupt it – if that’s what they are seen to be doing, or believed to be planning to do.

If Falter had been allowed to try to cross the road, we would all be able to judge him by his actions. But the police officer who stopped him has a duty to prevent “breach of peace” if he believes such an act is “threatened to be done”.

So it seems to be that the officer concerned was caught in a double-bind.

He could have allowed Falter to carry out his plan – whatever it was – and be blamed for allowing a “breach of peace” if such a thing happened; or he could do what he did – stop Falter before he could potentially cause harm – and be blamed for that instead.

The words he used were ill-advised in hindsight, and an apology is certainly required for that. But anything else depends on something we cannot now know, which is what Falter would have done.

So before the Metropolitan Police set a potentially dangerous precedent by making an apology that could be unnecessary, perhaps its representatives should stipulate that it depends on being certain of one major detail: what was Gideon Falter’s intention at the pro-Palestine demo he’s complaining about?

Additional: You can see the Sky News footage here. From about the 7 minute mark, you can hear the policeman saying that Falter and his group had tried to walk into marchers: “I am not saying it is because you are exclusively Jewish… Your behaviour changed… You then decided to walk into the road, not to cross it but to walk against the flow of people.”

Judge for yourself what Falter’s intention was.

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