Chants proclaiming that “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at public protests is not a criminal offense, the London Metropolitan Police said on Thursday night in response to the projecting of the phrase on the Big Ben clock tower.
"This is a chant that has been frequently heard at pro-Palestinian demonstrations for many years, and we are very aware of the strength of feeling in relation to it,” the police said on social media.
“While there are scenarios where chanting or using these words could be unlawful depending on the specific location or context, its use in a wider public protest setting, such as last night, is not a criminal offense.”
The police had responded on X to Conservative commentator Chris Rose, who had objected to the projection of the phrase on Big Ben during a Wednesday pro-Palestinian protest during a controversial parliamentary vote on a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Rose said that the police allowing this summed up “the pathetic state of the UK.”
“A genocide chant about Jewish people was projected onto Big Ben last night whilst we heard of reports of Labour MPs feeling intimidated and threatened by pro-Palestine mobs,” wrote Rose.
A vote creates chaos
The House of Commons vote had descended into chaos on Wednesday when House Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, according to him in consideration of security issues, prioritized a Labour Party amendment over the original and more charged Scottish National Party motion.
Conservative MP Andrew Percy said in a parliamentary session on Thursday that if the vote was revisited, MPs would not “vote with their hearts, because they are frightened and they are scared.”
“I actually felt safer in Israel than I do in this country at this moment in time,” said Percy, who had visited Israel the previous week, meeting survivors and victims.
Percy said that a threatening environment had been created in the UK streets because nothing had been done to address street protesters, who were calling for the death of Jews and demanding jihad and intifada, while police stood by. Percy referred to the projection onto Big Ben as a genocidal call that says “no Jew is welcome in the State of Israel or in that land.”
The chant calls for the establishment of a Palestinian polity between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel now resides, and many, such as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, believe it a call to destroy the Jewish state.
According to the Jewish News, Sunak had said in January that those chanting “from the river to the sea” are “either useful idiots who do not understand what they are saying, or worse, people who wish to wipe the Jewish state off the map.”
The projection on the clock tower has also cycled through other messages such as “stop bombs,” and “ceasefire now.”