Jewish Bloc for Palestine statement on Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham’s conviction

Jewish Bloc on the national Palestine solidarity demonstration, London 29 November 2025

Jewish Voice for Liberation publishes the Jewish Bloc for Palestine statement on 1 April 2026:

The Jewish Bloc for Palestine is a network of 12 Jewish groups, including JVL, that has taken part in every one of the London Gaza anti-genocide marches.

We are appalled at the conviction of Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Chris Nineham of Stop the War, two incredible individuals within the Palestine solidarity movement, who we as a bloc have had the pleasure of working with for many years. On the 18th January 2025, we were prevented from marching and restricted to a static demonstration in Whitehall. We were not allowed to assemble outside the BBC because the Jewish legacy communal organisations had claimed it was troubling for those wishing to attend Shabbat services at a Synagogue some distance from the proposed assembly point. Previous marches had assembled at the BBC and there is no record of any interference with anyone attending services.

At the end of the Whitehall rally a small group, led by Ben and Chris, wished to walk to the BBC to lay flowers to mark our protest. If they were prevented from reaching the BBC, they intended to lay the flowers where they were halted. The police waved them through at the top of Whitehall and so the delegation believed they were being allowed to make this small act of remembrance. However, at the far side of Trafalgar Square, they were surrounded by police and, without being given a chance to negotiate or explain, were arrested. The arrests were carried out with the use of unprovoked and unnecessary force.

The arrests were inappropriate and the decision to proceed to charge and trial an abuse. This is a shocking miscarriage of ‘justice’. It is happening under current law; the Crime and Policing Bill which has almost completed its passage through parliament will further exacerbate the situation by giving police sweeping new powers to disrupt public protest. This decision by a state appointed judge also clearly demonstrates why reducing the right to jury trials will make matters even worse. The right to protest is fundamental and this judgement is another troubling step in the campaign of successive governments to prevent dissent from their actions being expressed.

While Ben and Chris have been given relatively lenient sentences of conditional discharge they are being charged £15,000 court costs for attempting to resist this oppressive process. Costs of this scale are a fine by another name.

We would like to be confident that the conviction will be over-turned on appeal. The appeal will be costly in money. It will be even more costly in energy that should be directed at halting Israel’s aggression. Aggression which has spread from the destruction of Gaza; to the undeclared annexation of the West Bank; to the bombing of Lebanon and Iran; to the occupation of Lebanese and Syrian territory. Belligerence marked by death and destruction in every case.

The Jewish bloc stands, unconditionally, with Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham, and with the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets to oppose British complicity in Israel’s crimes,

This statement is reproduced in its entirety