Police launched an appeal to identify individuals carrying potentially criminal placards at Saturday’s anti-Israel protest, however, the husband of one the marchers pictured insists that her Swastika sign was a symbol for peace, love, and aliens, not antisemitism.
Thousands rallied through central London on Saturday at the pro-Palestine protest to voice their feelings on issues related to Gaza, Hamas, and Israel. While the event has been described as “largely peaceful” there were around 100 protesters arrested during the day, and a similar number of arrests of counter-protesters from the hard-right on the day.
As has been the case with previous Palestine protests in London further arrests will follow as police follow up on intelligence gathered during the day, appearing to prefer picking people up after the fact rather than confronting them during the march. The Metropolitan Police published the images of six marchers, including those suspected to have been involved in alleged “hate” crimes that they wished to speak to.
One of those was a woman carrying a placard bearing the message “no British politician should be a ‘friend of Israel'”, underneath a blood-splattered Swastika-Star of David combined symbol. Named in two British newspapers as 66-year-old former Labour activist Kate Varnfield, her husband has come out in defence of his wife’s placard, insisting it is in no way antisemitic.
The Daily Mail reports that Terry Varnfield, who also attended the protest, said of his wife’s sign: “The message on the placard read: No British Politician Should Be A ‘Friend of Israel’ which is a statement that is not anti-semitic or offensive. The symbol used is the Raelism religion symbol, a combination of both the Star of David and the Swastika but meaning peace and love.”
Police said two people had been questioned over the placard.
Raelism is a 1970s polygamous UFO cult which believes human beings were created by aliens, who have also created a series of human-alien hybrids through history to prepare humanity for the coming arrival of the aliens. Among those alien hybrids are said to have been Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and the founder of Raelism, Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon (Raël), who claims to have personally spoken to the aliens.
The group’s symbol, a combination of a Swastika and a six-pointed star, has proven deeply controversial, but Raelians insist it is a symbol of good luck and have been attempting to “rehabilitate” the Swastika for years. The Raelian logo received perhaps its biggest public attention in years in 2022 after Kanye West posted it to Twitter, prompting him to receive a ban from Elon Musk, who said it violated rules on incitement to violence.
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