I lost my temper over a keffiyeh in north London - The Jewish Chronicle

A month or two ago, I was sitting in my local café, tapping away on my laptop, when a young woman walked in wearing black shorts, boots, a barely-there crop top and a red-and-white keffiyah around her midriff. She was with her boyfriend, and – kissing him luxuriantly and repeatedly – was clearly in a good mood. I suspected that she’d just been on a pro-Palestine march, and spent the past few hours in the jubilation of shouted anti-Israel slogans and waved placards about how, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

I stared angrily at her. I had seen too many overt displays of anti-Israel bile in my Jewish neighbourhood and her over-confident keffiyah-flaunting struck me as plain rude, to say nothing of what else it was. She eventually noticed my glare, and asked confrontationally what my problem was. I said across the café that I wondered if she knew that the regime she was celebrating would have her punished sorely, if not killed her, for wearing what she was and doing what she was doing, snogging and straddling her boyfriend in public and sucking saucily on the straw of an iced matcha latte.

It wasn’t long before she was red in the face, telling me she was Muslim – Palestinian – and how ignorant I was and how disgusting Israelis were. After I said it was a shame that the pro-Palestine movement was so antisemitic, she left, screaming that I was a genocidal Zionist and it was those she hated, not Jews.

I’m not particularly proud of the way I handled this. I should have stayed calm. I should have kept a friendly demeanour of open and curious questioning. But if you are someone who sees things for what they are and, in doing so, has a strong emotional response, then it’s very hard to stay calm, especially when pushed in the way that we Jews – at least those of who believe in the legitimacy of and unique challenges facing Israel – are pushed. Pushed, baited, gaslit and, even on the anniversary of October 7, mocked and insulted.

Still, I never thought I’d have such a violent reaction to a piece of clothing, not in 2024. But that clothing, along with all the insignia, stamps and stickers and graffiti, has come to symbolise a certain posture and sensibility, and it’s not the kind that projects friendliness towards those who might plausibly call Israel their homeland or – as is technically accurate – their only guaranteed shelter in case of another 1881, 1933, 1941, 1948 or, perverse as it sounds, October 7.

The quickness of my rage, though, was explained by this woman’s marauding rudeness in wearing her keffiyeh in a café in a neighbourhood that, while mixed, has always had a sizeable Jewish community and the identity to match. There are synagogues and Jewish community centres, including London’s largest. It was the area in which refugees from central Europe settled during and after the war. In short, it is not the kind of place where a Jewish woman working on her laptop in a café should have pro-Palestine gear in her eyeline.

But over the past year, vandals have torn down and defaced hostage posters, marred my ‘hood with extensive anti-Israel stickering and held ferocious and relentless rallies, where posters and chants in support of Hamas and Hezbollah are a regular feature while the police stand idly by. There is a hefty religious Muslim population here now; lots of hijabs on the streets, some niqabs.

But the explicit, in-your-face pushing of a virulently anti-Israel cause under the guise of Palestinian solidarity comes from a different crowd: an ever-expanding breed of sexually liberated young people who appear to think nothing of suspending reality in order to praise one of the most sadistic, anti-woman and repressive regimes on Earth. They have been particularly visible on university campuses and social media.

Their rallies have dominated the news, whether in central London or the manicured quadrangles of the Ivy League. Never mind what they’re rallying for, or against, it’s the accoutrements that have been scorched in our retinas. The encampment tents, seas of keffiyehs, sinister Covid masks and little markets selling Palestine-embossed bracelets, bags and other gear. Not to mention the drawings (the watermelon, the bits of Arabic, the ubiquitous green, red and black) and slogans (“From the river to the sea”, “end Zionist genocide”, “stop funding Zionist child-killing”, “resistance by any means…”, “globalise the intifada”) that decorate the pamphlets, posters, handouts, signs, and suchlike. I have seen keffiyah-patterned handbags, shoes and other merch.

All of it – every last item, drawing and slogan – means one thing. A vision not of Palestinian happiness and self-determination but of Jewish suffering, Palestinian suffering, violence, poverty, and an endless cycle of bloodshed where the Israelis are always the cause and always the bully. Never the victim. Not even on October 7.

So no. I don’t like seeing the vestments and insignia and accoutrements of that movement. Not anywhere, but especially not in an area that just a year ago still felt like home.

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Demonstration