An anti-Israel demonstration in London, England, Oct. 11, 2025. Photo: Social media.

When ‘Peace’ Activists Call for Violence: As Gaza Ceasefire Takes Hold, London Protesters Fan Antisemitic Incitement

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This analysis was authored by the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM:

On the weekend of Oct. 11-12, as the people of Israel and Jewish communities across the globe waited with nervous anticipation and hope ahead of the release of the 20 living hostages held in Gaza for the last two years, anti-Israel demonstrators took to the streets of London, England, as well as Montreal, Canada, and Sydney, Australia, for another round of hate marches.

The placards and chants of these so-called “peace activists” did not call for calm or compromise — nor did they celebrate the cessation of hostilities. Instead, they channeled unbridled rage and glorified antisemitic violence. The disconnect between the true nature of anti-Israel activism and the image its promoters deceitfully present to the world could not have been more stark.

Symbols of Hate, On Display for the World to See

The Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM recorded 16 incidents of antisemitic incitement at the Oct. 11 protest in London — a sample that offers insight into the dynamics motivating the demonstrators. These 16 incidents represented 57.1% of the 28 total incidents the ARC tallied in the United Kingdom, and 13.6% of all antisemitic incidents documented worldwide, that week (16 out of 118).

The hate on display in London involved varying manifestations of contemporary antisemitism. The “Antisemitism Symbols Since October 7” report, co-authored by the ARC and Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (ISCA), offers insight into some of these antisemitic symbols and slogans.

Protesters displayed signs and created hand signals representing the inverted red triangle, a symbol utilized by Hamas in its propaganda material to indicate the targeting of a “Zionist” for murder.

Other manifestations of antisemitism included equating Israel with Nazi Germany and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler, offensive distortions trivializing the Holocaust.

These hateful comparisons served to legitimize calls for violence against Jews either explicitly in chants — such as “Gaza, Gaza, Make Us Proud / Put the Zios in the Ground” — or implicitly — in maximalist slogans calling for the destruction of Israel, such as “Go back home” and “We don’t want no two states / We want 1948.”

Demonstrators also held signs calling for “Intifada Until Victory” and yelled “Intifada Revolution,” evoking the Second Intifada (2000-2005), when terrorist organizations including Hamas and Islamic Jihad murdered more than 1,000 Israelis in suicide bombings and other horrific atrocities.

Furthermore, protesters recited, and wore t-shirts reading, “Death, Death to the IDF.” This slogan, originating in the United Kingdom earlier this year when the music duo Bob Vylan chanted it at the Glastonbury Festival, had dangerous real-world consequences for Britain’s Jewish community. The Community Security Trust (CST), the UK’s leading antisemitism watchdog, identified a direct correlation between the emerging popularity of the chant and an uptick in antisemitic incidents.

For the full list of the 16 ARC-documented antisemitic incidents from London’s Oct. 11 hate rally:

    • A pro-Iranian regime sign bearing the image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and asserting that he was on the “right side of history” (Source)

    • An ISIS flag held by a man who, while acknowledging he was “not too educated on the history,” called for the destruction of Israel and demanded the Jews there “go back to where they came from” (Source)
    • A sign saying “Oct 7 Set Up By Zionists” (Source)
    • A sign reading “Intifada Until Victory” and including the Hamas inverted red triangle symbol (Source)
    • An Oxford University student led a chant of “Gaza, Gaza, Make Us Proud / Put the Zios in the Ground” (Source)
    • Anti-Israel activists harassed a Jewish counter-protester holding a sign saying “We Stand with Britain’s Jews” (Source)

    • Addressing the rally, far-left “Your Party” co-leader and MP Zarah Sultana urged the cutting of all ties with the “genocidal apartheid state of Israel” (Source)
    • Protesters chanted for Israelis to “go back home” (Source)
    • Protesters chanted “We don’t want no two states / We want 1948” (Source)
    • Protesters chanted “Intifada Revolution” (Source)

      • A sign equated Zionism with Nazism and South Africa’a former apartheid regime (Source)
      • A sign denounced the ceasefire, stating “We would not have negotiated with the Nazis” (Source)

    • A sign equated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (Source)

    • A protester wore a t-shirt bearing the Hamas inverted red triangle symbol and reading “Death, Death to the IDF” (Source)

  • Activists chanted “Death, Death to the IDF” (Source)
  • A protester flashed a pro-Hamas hand signal, mimicking the inverted red triangle, at a Jewish counter-protester (Source)

Hypocrisy on Full Display

Month after month, anti-Israel protesters in London claimed to be marching for “peace,” demanding a “ceasefire now” and an “end to the war.” Yet now, on the precipice of a ceasefire, what explained their lack of celebration and the  vehemence of their anti-Israel rhetoric?

While confounding, the answer is clear: it was never about a “ceasefire” as such. Anti-Israel activists called for a ceasefire mere days after the October 7th massacre, implicitly demanding that Israel accept the blow and refrain from military action against the terrorist organization that committed the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas would have emerged largely unscathed after its unspeakable crimes.

Yet, when a ceasefire seemed at hand under a deal that mandated the release of every hostage and the demilitarization of Hamas — i.e., terms that did not amount to an Israeli defeat — the goalposts moved. “Peace” took a backseat to calls for Israel’s eradication.

A Failure of Leadership 

Such hate did not occur in a vacuum. In the past few weeks alone, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has accused Israel of “genocide” and denied that the eliminationist phrase “From the River to the Sea” was antisemitic. At a conference, the Green Party called for Palestine Action to be unbanned and for the Israeli military to be proscribed as a terrorist organization.

Meanwhile, Jew-hatred in the United Kingdom has also turned deadly. Earlier this month, on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, two Jewish worshipers at a Manchester synagogue were murdered in an Islamist terrorist attack. Later that very day, outside 10 Downing Street in London, anti-Israel protesters rallied, and one protester explicitly stated the sentiment of many in that crowd: “I don’t give a f*ck about the Jewish community right now.” That their response to this dark, deadly day for British Jews was to protest Israel and express disdain for the Jewish community was shocking, but not surprising.

Rising Antisemitism Demands Action

The extent of antisemitism in the United Kingdom is alarming, confirmed not only in these recent rallies and terrorist attacks, but also in the data. Government statistics released earlier this month confirmed that Jews suffer the highest rate of religious hate crimes in England and Wales.

From Jan. 1-Oct. 9, 2025, the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM monitored 1,013 antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom, the second-highest incident count for a country behind only the United States.

A movement that employs slogans calling for the death of Jews, promotes hate symbols, and calls for the elimination of the State of Israel — all under the guise of “freedom” and “liberation” — ought to have no legitimacy in the Western world. It must be unequivocally repudiated, vigilantly monitored, and actively countered by government and law enforcement authorities at all levels to mitigate the threats it poses to public safety.