A video of Metropolitan Police officers seemingly refusing to acknowledge Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation has been posted online sparking fierce debate.
The edited clip - recorded two weeks ago - was uploaded by the Campaign Against Antisemitism on Monday and has been viewed over 300,000 times.
A man approached two officers stating that the Lebanese militant group is a proscribed organisation in the UK and tries to engage them in conversation.
One police officer responded he doesn’t “take a lot of political interest” because he isn’t allowed to.
He continued: “Your opinion is up to you... your opinion is your opinion.”
At one point, one of the two officers asked why they were being filmed. But the man denies he was recording them.
The CAA claimed its “jaw-dropping footage” was from a Trafalgar Square vigil on September 28 for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nesrallah, killed a day earlier in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
But in a statement, Scotland Yard said on Tuesday: “Contrary to what was said in the video, this particular event was advertised as a ‘Vigil for Lebanon’ and not for Hassan Nasrallah, or Hezbollah, specifically.
“Attendance was limited and officers were in the area throughout in order to identify any offences, including support for proscribed organisations.”
The force also took the unusual step of embedding its statement in the CAA’s original social media post on X, formerly Twitter.
A spokesman added: “The proscribed status of Hezbollah, Hamas and other groups is included in the briefings given to officers deployed to police related events, but we recognise that this video shows we need to do more to make sure the details of those briefings are fully understood.”
In April, a row erupted when CAA chief executive Gideon Falter was threatened with arrest near a pro-Palestine march in the Aldwych area, prompting the force to apologise twice.
Mr Falter wore a kippah skull cap when he was stopped from crossing a road near the demonstration.
Days earlier, a small part of a 10-minute video of another Met officer telling a Jewish woman that swastikas displayed during a pro-Palestinian march needed to be “taken in context” was uploaded to social media by the CAA, causing anger among antisemitism campaigners.
The CAA of its latest video: “If you have wondered why the Met’s policing of antisemitism and support for terror has been so poor, here is why.
“As we have seen at recent protests, anti-Israel demonstrators are now freely showing their support for Hizballah, an antisemitic Iranian proxy that is proscribed as a terrorist organisation under British law.
“The video shows what happened when someone tried to inform the police that Hizballah is a terrorist organisation.
“How is the Metropolitan Police supposed to protect us when they don’t actually educate their officers on the law?
“While these police officers did not conduct themselves satisfactorily, we are posting this video principally because of what it says about the training and priorities of the Metropolitan Police as an institution, and we have therefore chosen to blur their faces.”
When approached for further comment by the Standard, a CAA spokesman continued: “It is right that the Met has acknowledged the need for improved briefings for its officers, but it feels like 12 months of excuses now while terror is being glorified on our streets, and British Jews are paying the price with unprecedented levels of antisemitism.”
