If the Saturday marches were really for peace, I'd be there every week

I’m exactly the sort of person who would normally go on a peace march, but, and I say this with the greatest respect to those who have been attending where are the voices for peace? Because I have not seen any.

For the fifth week in a row, the Jewish community in the UK is being gaslit, told that these are marches for peace. They are not. Before the bodies of October 7 were cold, and the blood was still wet, people demonstrated outside the embassy of the country that had just endured the greatest attack on its people since the Holocaust. Nothing about that response screams peace.

And I am embarrassed for every single one of them trying to con well-meaning Brits into the idea that these marches are something innocent.

You can march in the sunshine in the crisp autumn air and have a nice day out with your friends as much as you want but for the fifth week in a row now, you have no excuse not to be aware that you are doing it alongside people that only want peace at the expense of Jewish lives.

People will say it is a few bad apples but no serious attempts have been made to make them feel unwelcome. The sort of people who march happily under swastika banners and antisemitic tropes are present week in and week out.

A very basic requirement of that call for peace would need to be just that. I'm not a philosopher, but peace is not walking alongside people screaming "Death to Jews” and not telling them to shut up. It is not something that targets synagogues, and it is not something that calls for the eradication of Israel.

I have not yet been pushed to despair in thinking the majority of the people on those marches are motivated by hate, I am clinging, albeit by a thread, to the understanding that most people are moved by the same horrific scenes I am.

But they have been hoodwinked by organisers who have the audacity to claim they are motivated by peacemaking. Because if it were a peach march chants of “cease-fire” would have to mean cease-fire for Israel, but also the genocidal terror group holding nine-month-old babies in terror tunnels.

Perhaps the reason no one is calling for that is because no one can say it with a straight face but the uncomfortable details are important here and that is what would need to happen for peace. However unlikely peace is right now, a call for it would also mean a world in which anyone with the genocidal capabilities that the Hamas butchers have, do not exist.

Peace is impossible in a world that lets men like that roam free. They are the antithesis of peace for Israelis and Palestinians. And any self-respecting peace movement has to know that.

And yet on these so-called peace marches, you can’t even hold a sign that says so.

Criticism of men that rape women at a music festival, then shoot them and cut off their breasts is met with violence on the streets of London. Thousands may well attend these protests out of the same sense of desperation for the situation I and others in my community share, but they are not on a peace march, they are on a march for some and total disregard for others.

You can point to small groups of Jews who feel happy to join you relative to the size of our community, or you can ask difficult questions about why most Jews are not comfortable alongside you.

They are not avoiding it for nefarious reasons. They are not there because peace is not being applied to them. Peace means safety and self-determination for both peoples. It is Israeli flag, alongside the Palestinian.

I would scream “peace now” through the streets of London with other like-minded citizens till my vocal cords gave out if that is what those protests were. But they are not. They are an exercise to sow division, manipulate people's feelings of despair and isolate one of the smallest minority communities this country has. Shame on every single person who knowingly takes advantage of that. Oh and if you know of a march for peace, let me know and I'll be there.