Three Jews in the British capital of London were assaulted by men “swearing in Arabic” who had overheard them “speaking Hebrew” on Saturday.
“They heard us talking and said, ‘Are you Jewish?’” said one of the victims, a 28-year-old woman named Tehilla. “I said ‘yes, I’m Jewish,’ and then they started chanting ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘F*** Jews,’ all this kind of swearing at us,” she said.
Tehilla said the harassers “started following” her group, “and then all of a sudden… they called all their friends, and 15 to 20 guys started attacking us physically.”
Tehilla said she was struck in the neck and hurt her leg, and tried to call the police, telling them: “‘I’m a girl, there’s a group of guys attacking me and my friends because I’m Jewish, please can you come, I’m scared I’m going to die.”
“They don’t really care,” she lamented. “They kept saying ‘I’m sorry, it takes some time, you are not the only one that called tonight,’” she recalled, adding she “never thought this would happen in London.”
A friend of Tehilla’s group said the police, who were called ten times but arrived at the scene of the attack only after everyone had dispersed, “never showed up” at the hospital where they were treated. “We believe there’s a two-tier police situation. The police are not tackling the weekly hate marches, they are not tackling anti-Semitism,” they said.
London police have been reluctant to challenge anti-Israel activists since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, allowing protestors to call for jihad and trample war memorials. They did manage to arrest Tommy Robinson at a rally because his mere presence on the streets could “cause harassment, alarm and distress to others,” however.
