Multiple corporate media outlets – including the Independent and GB News – smeared members of a Palestine Support community as antisemitic for supposedly staging a protest outside a performance of Fiddler on the Roof. In reality however, they hosted no such protest.
What’s more, it was in fact Zionists attending the theatre show who threatened and hurled racist abuse at the group as they queued for ice-cream and coffee. Despite this, the corporate press spun the story to vilify them, and paint them as the agitators.
The Canary spoke to the group about the hate incident, and the impact of the spurious reporting which followed.
Another corporate media antisemitism smear
On Tuesday 6 August, numerous corporate media outlets falsely accused a group of people of antisemitism. Specifically, the mainstream press suggested that the group – carrying Palestine flags – had turned out to protest a performance of Fiddler on the Roof in Regent’s Park.
The Independent ran the headline:
Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of antisemitism after protesting outside Fiddler on the Roof”
Meanwhile, GB News plastered its video coverage with the specious title:
‘Jew haters’ – Pro-Palestine demonstrators accused of anti-Semitism after Fiddler on the Roof march
The Jewish Chronicle carried the most in-depth report and was the first to publish on the incident. Notably, it included a series of comments from a party of theatre-goers claiming victimhood of the supposed antisemitic protest.
The outlets presented a series of videos from X posts portending to back this up. Of course, these invariably cherry-picked select clips from the footage, without portraying the full picture. Predictably also, none of the outlets contacted the supposed pro-Palestine protest group, or the venue to verify this. Unsurprisingly then, the reporting was a serious misrepresentation of events.
Crucially, the group in keffiyehs and Palestine flags weren’t protesting the theatre performance at all. Instead, they were queuing together for refreshments in a public cafe – at least a couple of hundred metres away from the open air show. What’s more, it was the JC’s interviewees – who proudly self-professed as Zionists – that actually enacted a vile tirade of racist abuse against the group of cafe patrons.
Fiddler on the Roof protest was an “utter lie”
Given this, the Canary asked the group of cafe customers what happened from their perspective. We’ve maintained their anonymity for their own safety after the incident.
Firstly, the cafe group emphasised to the Canary how the reporting was an “utter lie”. One member expressed how:
We were getting a coffee after a Palestine Support event about a mile away from Regents Park. We knew nothing about any screening. We were all standing in the queue, chatting in pairs etc, waiting to order, and obviously just relaxing.
However, things suddenly soon took a turn. The cafe group member said that it was at this point that they were:
accosted by a group of Zionists who immediately started telling us to get out of the cafe, because some of us were (still) carrying Palestine flags.
Eventually, he said that:
We began to realise they had some kind of event going on because after several minutes one the women there started saying “you know we’re doing a screening today!” We tried to find out what she was talking about but she didn’t tell us.
It was only an hour or two later when I took a walk to investigate some orchestral sounds I’d heard that I discovered the cinema (which I didn’t even know existed!) and a poster for Fiddler on the Roof. I went back to the group and explained that that’s what I had found and we were all mutually stunned that anyone would believe that peace protesters would have been anywhere to protest about a film like Fiddler on the Roof.
Another member of the cafe group told the Canary that in the videos the Zionist theatre-goers supplied to the press, it appeared:
They also cut out of their video the fact that we asked multiple times what “what’s screening?” when they said “you’re here because of the screening aren’t you?”
One member who spoke to the Canary articulated that they had personal connections to Fiddler on the Roof, which made the accusations all the more shocking to them:
I was particularly amazed because the Jewish side of my family were the very same people that the film is about – Russian Jews who left due to the Cossack pogroms!
Racist abuse and threats
Aside from the corporate outlets purposely leaving out these vital details, they also omitted footage showing the extreme prejudice and bigotry the Zionist theatre-goers directed at the cafe group. One of the cafe group customers described the vile racist and abusive comments the Zionists shouted at them:
They called us animals, pigs one of them called my friend a dirtbag
Notably, they singled out a Black Somalian member of the cafe group and “went right up into” her face and:
said very aggressively “look at your face”
The cafe group explained that they felt the hate-fueled verbal assault:
had massive potential to descend into public disorder because of the suddenness, the volume, the physically threatening nature of the Zionist attack on our group.
Notably, a member said to the Canary how:
one man in particular looked like he was going to punch one of our group so I stepped in between them to ensure that he was aware there were several males there.
Eventually the aggressive man who kept rolling his sleeves up and was being held back by several women, this group went back outside to the tables.
What’s more, other people in the cafe appeared to recognise the risk of the Zionist party escalating the hate incident too. The cafe group member described how:
Other customers were worried for our safety, as evidenced by one man – of large physique – approaching us and saying if you need any help I’m just outside here – just shout for me.
Vitally, he felt that the fact that their group:
reacted rationally to their improved behaviour meant that the situation eventually de-escalated as we started to disengage with them.
Zionists were the aggressors at Fiddler on the Roof
To make matters worse, the cafe group told us how the Zionists verbally assaulted them while they were out socialising with their children.
Speaking separately to Migration Films about the incident, one of the children present told them it made him feel:
Distressed and scared, because I didn’t know what they were going to do
Migration Films also corroborated the group’s accounts with cafe staff:
AN INSIGHT INTO ZIONISTS IN LONDON…
‘On Monday 5th Aug, some people went into the Regent’s Park cafe for some refreshments – What followed was a barrage of insults, threats and an accusation of Antisemitism against them’
Investigation by Migration Filmspic.twitter.com/3Mt08Q2FG3
— Save Our Citizenships 🔻 (@LetsStopC9) August 18, 2024
They independently confirmed that the group of Zionists were the aggressors. Notably, one staff member stated that:
The guys with the Palestine flags – they just came in – they were just peaceful, they were just going about their way. And I think people just didn’t like that they had their Palestine flags in there.
Videos on X also backed up their story:
Those with 🇵🇸 flags were there to buy refreshments. They didn’t want to leave.
They then faced verbal abuse from
the other customers in the form of foul language & other hate speech 👇2/3 pic.twitter.com/chJYfQgZ7X
— Viv (@VivCat123) August 7, 2024
Corporate media spin against pro-Palestine solidarity
Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Jewish Chronicle had entirely fabricated a story to slander anti-racists and people critical of Israel. The Canary consistently covered the outlet’s vile smear campaign against dedicated anti-racists and socialists in the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as party leader.
Unsurprisingly, a number of people have previously won legal cases against the Jewish Chronicle for its libelous and fictitious reporting. Moreover, throughout Israel’s ongoing genocide and war crimes, the Zionist media site has run relentless stories branding pro-Palestine protesters as antisemitic.
Similarly, right-wing GB News has deployed a hostile media campaign against people speaking out against Israel committing genocide in Gaza. One of the cafe group customers explained to the Canary how one woman said to them that they:
shouldn’t carry the Palestinian flag in public because it was “provocative”.
Naturally, the GB News piece took this a step further. National Jewish Assembly chairman Gary Mond told the GB News presenters that:
Lots of Jews feel this way, that the Palestinian flag is really a terror flag – it’s not the flag of any particular individual country.
Of course, this was a palpably fallacious and bigoted statement on a number of counts. For one, over 75% of the United Nations member states – 145 separate parties – recognise Palestinian statehood. What’s more, none of that is to mention the fact that Israel itself is a settler colonial Western-imposed state, currently illegally occupying Palestinian territories.
On top of this, it blatantly played up Israel’s rancid racist propaganda painting all Palestinians and supporters as “terrorists”. Moreover, GB News failed to detail Mond’s affiliations with Israel and its Zionist project. For instance, until April 2023, Mond was also a board executive for the Zionist apartheid-enabling organisation, the Jewish National Front (JNF).
Of course, the similarity between Mond’s reaction and the Zionist theatre-goers response demonstrates the Israeli propaganda machine in action. In other words, right-wing outlets like GB News platforming Israeli propagandists has fed fuel to the fire of the racist apartheid and genocidal state’s motivated antisemitism smear campaign.
Threatening the Zionist ‘political ideology’
Given that both the Jewish Chronicle and GB News had form on this however, the antisemitism smears were completely on brand. However, even the so-called Independent uncritically regurgitated the factually erroneous report.
Again, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev owns the largest shareholding in the corporate news outlet, so it’s name is a glaring misnomer. What’s more, the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), an arm of the Muslim Council of Britain, has identified distinct media bias in the UK mainstream press’s coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Independent was among these outlets showing a clear pro-Israel bias across its reporting.
In its report on this incident, the outlet sought a comment from head of policy at the Community Security Trust (CST) Dave Rich, who told it:
Fiddler On The Roof isn’t just a Jewish musical: it’s the family story of most Jewish families in this country. Holding an anti-Israel protest there is pure antisemitism.
But as the Canary has previously noted, the CST is hardly a non-partisan organisation. In fact, director of right-wing pro-Israel group Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) Alex Hearn recently invoked a report by the CST to smear black Labour MP Clive Lewis as antisemitic. In particular, the report claimed that antisemitism had sky-rocketed after 7 October. However, as the Canary noted, the CST had purposely conflated antisemitism with anti-Zionism. We wrote that:
This has been glaringly obvious as the Western corporate media and right-wing politicians have branded pro-Palestine protest demonstrations as antisemitic on multiple occasions.
So once again, the corporate press has done this over even minor expressions of support for Palestine. In this instance however, it was simply for wearing symbols of Palestinian solidarity in public. As one of the cafe group members expressed to the Canary:
The sense is that Palestine activists seem to be designated as worthy of any kind of common assault by many Zionists who feel they have a right to abuse us because we threaten their political ideology.
Zionists’ ‘insidious’ antisemitism accusations
Ultimately, one of the cafe group customers felt that the incident showed:
how vile, aggressive, and racist Zionists can be when they simply see a Palestinian flag, and how insidious they are in accusing people of antisemitism without justification.
Already, following the verbal assault in public and the subsequent media misreporting, Zionists have doxxed one group member. In particular, they have tried to intimidate him in his private life, targeting his business. He told the Canary that:
They were trying to shock me with the news that they have “found me” obvs implied threat to business…. Haven’t checked yet but if reviews can be left I will no doubt have a few very unflattering ones to delete etc.!
Of course, it’s also precisely the corporate media’s fabricated antisemitism smears like this that have emboldened violent, racist right-wing and Zionists attacks against Palestinians, and people showing support for Palestine in public. One of the cafe group customers argued that:
It’s a similar philosophy to the recent EDL marchers who feel they can be as violent as they like if they encounter anyone who threatens their political ideology.
In that way, this racist verbal assault and corporate media antisemitism smear cannot be extricated from the violent racist pogroms fascists carried out across the UK.
If anyone was making a mockery of the meaning behind Fiddler on the Roof, it was the racist Zionists.
They viciously impinged on the social lives of the cafe customers. Wearing traditional keffiyehs and sporting Palestinian flags in public is a mark of solidarity and an expression of cultural pride, in the midst of Israel’s abhorrent genocide. As ever though, to Zionists, the only tradition that matters is Israel’s violent crusade of ethnic cleansing.
They’ll readily weaponise spurious allegations of antisemitism to silence anyone remotely showing solidarity in their public or private lives. It shows that Israel’s propaganda reaches far beyond its illegally occupying borders. Zionists and media apologists continue to prop it up in Israel’s allied Western coloniser core – while pushing pro-Palestine voices to the margins.
Feature image via the Canary
