Pro Palestine group criticised for door-knocking residents in Brighton

On Saturday February 7, a new pro-Palestine group, Brighton and Hove Apartheid-Free Zone (AFZ), launched at The Level in Brighton.

Its aim is to create an area in the city which the group is calling an apartheid-free zone, showing solidarity with the Palestinian people – but which critics say could encourage antisemitism.

Protestors set off in groups to knock on the doors of houses in the city and ask residents to sign a pledge to boycott Israeli goods.

The campaign sparked interest from Sky News who filmed the canvassing and also interviewed Vicky Bhogal, a representative from Jewish and Proud, who said the door-knocking made her feel “sick to my stomach” and argued that such methods are intimidating for Jewish people.

She said the Brighton Apartheid-Free Zone campaign has “appalled and shaken the global Jewish community”.

She told The Argus: “Having seen the posters for the launch of Brighton’s Apartheid-Free Zone campaign, I thought it best to go and observe. It was far worse than I had anticipated.”

She added: “You cannot separate anti Zionism from antisemitism, they are the same thing. The obsessive hatred of the Jewish State is just the new face of Jew hatred.”

But Ori Selkirk, one of the organisers of Brighton AFZ, said he would argue that “it is antisemitic to conflate a political entity such as the State of Israel, with Jews as a whole”.

Brighton and Hove has one of the largest Jewish communities in the UK outside London, with around 2,670 residents identifying as Jewish.

Brighton and Hove AFZ’s methods have drawn criticism from various quarters, including from Conservative city councillor Ivan Lyons.

“The Conservative group is appalled that volunteers are going round Brighton city centre door-to-door asking people to stop buying Israeli products,” he said in a statement shared on social media. 

“It should not be tolerated and we expect Brighton and Hove City Council to condemn this unequivocally.  The fact this has reached Sky News is shocking.”

Heidi Bachram, a Brighton resident, said: “We need everyone to reject it. We need those with power and authority to condemn it. Don’t leave Jewish people to deal with this hate alone.”

Josh Breslaw is a Brighton musician and member of Jewish band Oi Va Voi.

He said: “I was shocked to hear that protesters were planning to set up a zone in Brighton that discriminates against people from one country in the world, Israel, and intimidates Jewish people who are a minority group in the city.

“I feel that these actions don’t fit the values of a tolerant and anti-racist city like Brighton.”

Campaigners have been showing support for the people of Palestine affected by the bombardment of Gaza since an attack in Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023.

Ori Selkirk, one of the organisers of Brighton AFZ defended the group’s methods.

He said: “As a British Jew and an organiser of the Brighton Apartheid-Free Zone campaign, I completely reject the false and politically motivated claim that our campaign is intimidating to the Jewish community. At no point in our campaign do we mention Jews in any way whatsoever.

“Furthermore, I would argue that it is antisemitic to conflate a political entity such as the State of Israel, with Jews as a whole. I speak for many Jewish people when I say that we do not want to be associated with an apartheid state, especially when that state claims to speak for us and commit crimes in our name.

“Jews have existed long before Zionism and the State of Israel, and I will not stand for our identity and our proud history to be reduced to an apartheid state that has existed for less than 80 years.

“Boycott tactics have proven historically effective in combatting the apartheid in South Africa, and we are applying those same tactics to combat the ongoing Israeli apartheid in the present. We will continue to organise against apartheid wherever it appears in the world, and we will always stand with the oppressed.”