by Ismail Patel

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

When the Metropolitan Police declared it would arrest anyone chanting “globalise the intifada” after the Bondi Beach killings in Australia, it did more than just shift the boundaries of public order policing.

It blurred the crucial line between violent incitement and political expression, while openly revealing its own partiality.

Within days, two people were detained in London for simply shouting “intifada” at a protest. This is not about managing risk; it is a blunt attempt to muzzle anti-genocide activism.

Two facts should expose ministers and senior police officers’ inequity.

First, Australian investigators have identified the Bondi attack as inspired by the Islamic State group (IS), not a Palestinian-organised act. Yet, in Britain, politicians, Israeli embassy officials, and media voices have rushed to tie Bondi to a Palestinian protest slogan, offering no evidence but plenty of noise.

Second, our criminal law already contains clear thresholds for when speech becomes criminal. Encouragement of terrorism requires a statement likely to be understood as a direct or indirect call to commit terrorist offences (Terrorism Act), and prosecutions for racially or religiously aggravated public-order offences rest on harm, intent and context (Crime and Disorder Act 1998).

READ: UK police to arrest protesters chanting ‘globalise intifada’

Ambiguity as a weapon

The Crown Prosecution Service and the Terrorism Act set those tests. They are not suggestions to be ignored simply because some elite and lobby groups in the country support illegal Israeli actions.

Banning or policing a slogan by decree turns ambiguity into a weapon.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word, not an Islamic one, meaning “shake off”. In Palestine, it surged in 1987 as a rallying cry to shake off or rise up against Israeli colonial occupation.

Slogans are the language of frustration, not tidy definitions for opponents to twist. When authorities adopt the most hostile interpretation, it paves the way for racist policing and a slide toward authoritarianism.

In Hong Kong in 2019, protesters were arrested for chanting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” because the Chinese government branded “revolution” as sedition. Now, British police and the government treat “intifada” the same way.

Criminalising the word intifada is only possible because Palestinians have been racialised within the Israeli Zionist framework, which filters their language and political expression through Israeli racist and colonialist lenses.

So a slogan calling for an end to genocide and occupation – actions illegal under international law – is projected as “violent”. The slogan intifada can only be construed as violent to those determined to keep violence alive.

Banning a slogan also has a chilling effect, making it harder for peaceful campaigns to mobilise.

In fact, the repression of the right to a slogan saps organisations that rely on open, public participation while doing little to deter rogue, clandestine individuals.

The predictable result of the ban is the extermination of peaceful mobilisation and the further radicalisation of rogue individuals. Either outcome should make democratic politicians uneasy.

Deeply biased

A grotesque double standard is at play. The new policing stance echoes the demands of pro-Israeli lobbyists and Zionist interests eager to equate a vague slogan with violence.

Meanwhile, British citizens who aid genocide with weapons, money, or rhetoric are often excused as merely expressing political views or grief.

Police actions are both disastrous and deeply biased. The government is suppressing genuine solidarity with an occupied people, while tolerating rhetoric and actions that fuel ethnic hatred, genocide and daily violence against Palestinians.

This selective zeal of suppressing anything highlighting Israeli violations shatters any claim to impartiality and reinforces the charge of institutional racism.

Policing slogans hands a strategic victory to those eager to delegitimise marginalised, oppressed and underprivileged voices.

Hong Kong showed how Chinese authorities seized on a slogan, exaggerated its most alarming meaning, and used it to justify prosecutions that suffocated dissent.

London is following the same script – stoke fear, blur the line between protest and terror and make arrests routine. The end result is a democracy that punishes words while quietly supporting violence abroad.

READ: UK lawyers launch legal case against Met police for failing to halt “Crusade” protest targeting Muslims

A security game

If governments and police genuinely feared violence on our streets, they would follow the evidence.

They would investigate those British citizens who travel to fight, stop sending weapons to parties accused of international crimes and prosecute those backing illegal occupation, starvation and genocide, instead of criminalising vague political speech that calls for justice and peace.

The solution is both simple and urgent. Police chiefs must show how their new approach aligns with the legal standards set by parliament and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Ministers must resist turning politics into a security game to please powerful lobbies. Courts must remember that criminal law is not a stage for political drama.

Democracy endures because we tolerate uncomfortable, even ugly, speech. Democracy withers when the state decides which Arabic words are dangerous and whose voices are silenced.

We all agree that violent terrorism and hate must be eradicated. That is exactly why the law must be applied fairly.

Arresting people for chanting a vague slogan like “globalise the intifada”, without any plan for violence, is repression masquerading as public safety, and it is anti-Palestinian racism.

This article was first published at Middle East Eye on 23 December 2025

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.