A significant political controversy has erupted in the United Kingdom following remarks by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who asserted that the pro-Palestine protest chant “globalise the intifada” is inherently linked to terrorism and antisemitic violence. His comments, made during a BBC interview on Monday, came in the immediate aftermath of a deadly antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Australia that killed 15 people and wounded 40.
Streeting delivered a forceful condemnation of the phrase, stating, “What on earth do you think globalise the intifada means?… Can’t people see the link between that kind of rhetoric and attacks on Jewish people as Jewish people?” He characterized the slogan as being “received by and seen as support for terrorist action against Jewish people” and called for greater solidarity with the Jewish community.
These claims have been met with fierce criticism from pro-Palestine campaigners and organizers. Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), denounced the remarks as a “reprehensible” attempt to exploit a tragedy to further repress protests for Palestinian rights. Ismail Patel, Chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa, accused Streeting of cynically using the event to divert attention from the “ongoing genocide in Gaza” and silence peaceful solidarity. Both leaders clarified that within their movement, ‘intifada’—an Arabic word meaning ‘uprising’ or ‘to shake off’—is understood as a call for global solidarity to end the Israeli occupation through peaceful means, not as an incitement to violence.
The debate occurs amidst a broader governmental push for new protest restrictions, which critics label as authoritarian and a threat to free expression, particularly concerning criticism of Israel. The opposing viewpoints highlight a deep societal fracture: one side sees certain slogans as direct incitements to hatred requiring stricter regulation, as echoed by British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, while the other sees the conflation of such language with terrorism as a dangerous tool to criminalize legitimate dissent and justify the erosion of civil liberties.