Police release images of three men after ‘anti-Semitic attack’ on Oxford Street bus

I’m glad the police are pursuing this with a bit more obvious vigour than they have put into finding the young man who slashed Christian evangelist Hatun Tash during the summer. An update from the London Evening Standard

Detectives have released images of three men they are keen to identify after a group of Jewish people suffered anti-Semitic abuse as they celebrated Hanukkah.

At around 8pm on Monday, a group approached a privately hired bus and allegedly directed abuse of an anti-Semitic nature toward the passengers. Video of the incident, which took place on Oxford Street, appears to show a group of men shouting threats, spitting, hurling abuse and banging on the bus’s windows.

Some of those involved appear to remove their shoes – with a man banging one against the window. This is, of course, a well know insult among Arabs. Other reports tell of the anti-Israel, pro-Palestine nature of some of the abuse. 

Others could be heard swearing at those inside bus, which was near the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street when the incident took place. The victims were marking the first day of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday, when the abuse started. It is being treated as a hate crime by police.

That end of Oxford Street is where Hyde Park begins and is about 5 minutes walk into the park to Speaker’s Corner. The other street at that junction is Edgware Road which is a hub of Arab and Middle Eastern Muslims (and was once a thriving Jewish community; the synagogue remains) The young men who monopolise Speaker Corner these days, and with whom Miss Tash tries to communicate, are mostly based there. 

Anyone who can name the males pictured or who has information or footage relating to the incident can call police on 101 or Tweet @MetCC quoting 6184/29Nov.