Two of Britain’s largest police forces announced that they would arrest protesters for using the phrase “globalize the intifada,” saying in a joint statement that a “more assertive” approach was needed after the terrorist attack in Australia and a previous assault on a synagogue in England.
Palestinians and their supporters have said the phrase was a rallying cry for liberation, but many Jews consider it a call to violence invoking uprisings of the 1980s and 2000s in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The literal translation of intifada is “shaking off.”
Groups who campaign against antisemitism in Britain have long called for the police to take action against slogans, including “globalize the intifada,” at the frequent pro-Palestinian protests that have taken place since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, whose cousin was at the Hanukkah celebration targeted by gunmen in Sydney, told the BBC this week that he believed the chant of “globalize the intifada” and other phrases incited violence.
“Why is it still allowed? What is the meaning of ‘globalize the intifada’? I’ll tell you the meaning — it’s what happened on Bondi Beach,” he said, adding, “We have to be far stricter with regard to what people are allowed to say.”
The phrase became a source of fierce contention in the United States after Zohran Mamdani, then New York City mayoral candidate, declined to condemn it in a podcast interview in June. He said that although he wouldn’t use the language, “I don’t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech.” Mr. Mamdani said weeks later that he would “discourage” others from using the phrase.
Calls for action by law enforcement come amid a broader debate over free speech in Britain and the policing of language. The Trump administration has denounced Britain’s enforcement of longstanding laws against inciting hatred based on race, religion and sexual orientation, but has not extended that criticism to the arrests of peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the police chiefs of London and Manchester said that during previous discussions with prosecutors about the phrase “globalize the intifada,” they had been advised that it did not meet the threshold for criminal charges.
“Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive,” said the statement, from the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Mark Rowley, and Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police. “Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence.”
They said that anyone chanting “globalize the intifada” or displaying it on a placard, either at a protest or “in a targeted way,” should expect to be arrested, although they did not say which criminal offenses would be used.
Their joint statement referred to the shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, where 15 people were killed while celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and to a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England, that took place on Yom Kippur in October.
The perpetrators of both attacks declared their allegiance to the Islamic State. The terrorist group has been issuing propaganda calling specifically for attacks on Jews as well as for wider assaults on non-Muslims in the West.
In Britain, the two police chiefs said that antisemitic hate crimes had “surged” in the past two years, and that security measures around synagogues and Jewish schools and community venues had been increased as a result.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which decides when to bring criminal charges in England and Wales, said it was already working to identify, charge and prosecute antisemitic hate crimes.
Lionel Idan, its lead prosecutor for hate crimes, said in a statement, “Some offenses can be context specific, and where the evidence is not sufficient, we will work with police to identify what more can be done to meet the threshold for charging.”
The change in policing approach is expected to most significantly affect regular pro-Palestinian protests organized in London and Manchester by the Palestine Coalition, which incorporates several campaign groups.
The leading organization is the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, whose director, Ben Jamal, called the police announcement “another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights.”
Mr. Jamal said that the meaning of “globalize the intifada” had been wrongly interpreted as a call for the “genocidal slaughter of Jewish people” and argued that intifada instead signified an “uprising against injustice.”
“The horrific massacre in Sydney, Australia, should not be used as a justification to further repress fundamental democratic rights of protest and free speech in this country,” he said in a statement.
But the Community Security Trust, an organization that monitors antisemitism in Britain, said the announcement came “not a moment too soon.”
In a statement, the group said: “Given the wave of terrorism against Jews around the world, it is intolerable that a call for a global ‘intifada’ should be allowed.”
The first test of the police’s new approach may come swiftly, as a demonstration by the Palestine Coalition is set to take place on Wednesday evening, outside Britain’s justice department in London.
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