JNS
Critics said the incident involving Matt Lucas was indicative of the use of anti-Israel activism as camouflage for antisemitism.
One of Britain's best-known comedians, Matt Lucas, who is Jewish, was filmed on Sunday being harassed at a London Underground station by a man who repeatedly said “Free Palestine.”
After a few seconds of being filmed by the man, Lucas asked: “Hi, how are you?” The man replied, “You don’t like what you’re hearing?” Lucas responded: “No, I have no comment about it either way.” The man asked: “You’ve got a problem with Palestinians?” Lucas replied, “No.” As Lucas walked away, the harasser was heard saying “Zionist.”
The incident, which is not known to have been reported to police, provoked angry reactions in the United Kingdom and beyond because it underlined how the Palestinian cause is being used as justification for antisemitic abuse and discrimination.
"This has tragically become the state of Britain today. The shout ‘Free Palestine’ has developed as a synonym for ‘Kill Jews’,” Gary Mond, chair of the Reform Jewish Alliance, told JNS. Mond recently helped establish the organization, which is part of the Reform UK right-wing party of Nigel Farage. That party, Mond said, “will have the will to do anything about the direction of travel of this antisemitism and start to reverse it."
Hassan Mamadani, a British scientist of Indian descent and a gay rights activist, condemned the incident on X. He addressed an anti-Israel activist, asking her: “Do you see what you and your latter-day Brown Shirts have created? This is how it starts. You legitimise Jew hate under the fig leaf of ‘boycott Israel’ or ‘anti Zionism’.”
Tommy Robinson, a British right-wing activist, responded on X to the incident by writing: "F**k Palestine. There ya go."
Lucas is perhaps best known for starring in the satirical television show Little Britain in the early 2000s. He has not been outspoken on issues related to Israel or Judaism, and has generally refrained from airing strong political views publicly.
His Jewish identity and ancestry became well known in 2022, after he participated in a television show titled Who Do You Think You Are? which explores the genealogy and family history of its guests. Lucas’s late maternal grandmother, Margot Williams née Hillel, came to the U.K. in 1939 as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.
British Jews recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents last year, constituting a slight increase over the previous year and the second-highest tally on record, the Community Security Trust (CST) watchdog group said last week.
The 2025 tally represents a 4% bump from the 3,556 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2024. Last year’s total was 14% lower than the highest ever annual total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents reported in 2023.
In 2024, several Jewish writers, agents and publishers told The Telegraph that they are sensing signs of discrimination against them in their milieus, which tend to be left-leaning, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian. The alleged ostracization began after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel, they said.
“The general feeling of this year is of feeling outnumbered, isolated," one agent told the newspaper. “I’ve sent out two proposals by Jewish authors and I’m just not able to sell them. Neither have written books about the conflict.”
