Jewish protester lashes out at UK Police after hate crime charge dropped over satirical Hezbollah placard arrest

A Jewish protester who was detained by the Metropolitan Police lashes out at them for being “completely out of their depth”. In an exclusive interview, he said that the ordeal was “distressing” for him and his family. The charges against them were dropped on May 10, eight months after the prosecution began.

He was arrested for holding a satirical placard for less than three minutes, in Swiss Cottage, north-west London. The placard, which he described as satirical, featured a drawing of the then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah holding a pager to his face, with the words "beep beep beep". This was related to the pager attack 'Operation Grim Beeper" by the Lebanese terror group, detonating pagers and walkie-talkies, killing 42 people and injuring thousands. He was charged with causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by words or writing under the Public Order Act.

The police officer asked him," Do you think that showing this image to persons protesting who are clearly pro-Hezbollah and anti-Israel ... would stir up racial hatred further than it is already?" To which his lawyer replied, “Are you saying that there were pro-Hezbollah people there? Because it is a proscribed terrorist organisation.”

The footage of his interview with the Metropolitan Police was published by the media outlet The Telegraph.

“The Met Police are still completely out of their depth when it comes to policing the anti-Israel hate marches we’ve seen on our streets week in, week out since the October 7 attacks,” said the man to the Telegraph anonymously.

The incident had sparked a widespread debate around dual policing, likely to cause arguments around anti-Semitism and failure to protect British Jews. This comes just a few days after two Israeli embassy staff were shot down in the name of Gaza near the Jewish Museum in Washington.