‘Who brings an Iranian flag to a pro-Israel gathering?’

As a sideshow to the bottomless trauma it inflicts on those who live in the region, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can also spur a sort of wild-eyed fervour in other people. It polarises like few other issues.

Britain, a nation currently divided over so many issues, regularly sways in the duelling winds that blow in from the Middle East. London is Britain’s most ethnically diverse city and, as a result, also its most religious one. It is also the place where the cleaving of sympathies over the war in Gaza is most on show.

The latest pro-Palestinian march to fill the streets of central London on Saturday was followed on Sunday by a smaller, but no less committed gathering of supporters of Israel in Trafalgar Square. But, as always with this issue, all sorts turned up.

The first thing I noticed when I got through the tight security at Trafalgar Square was a Christian evangelist trying to convert Jews. Everybody ignored him. It was the second thing I noticed that really caught my eye: an Iranian flag fluttering high on a pole, swishing through the sea of Israeli blue and white. Who brings an Iranian flag to a pro-Israel protest?

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The answer is Charlie Chaplin. The flag was held by a man dressed up as the silent film-era icon. His outfit was impeccable, his resemblance uncanny. As silent as his cinematic twin, he paced between the thousands of Israeli expats, London Jews and their supporters, waving his flag and making his point – whatever it was.

Closer inspection of his flag revealed that the red Nishan Rasmi religious emblem that sits on the white band was replaced with a golden lion and sun, which was on the nation’s flag before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Chaplin, it seems, is an opponent of the Khamenei regime.

Down in the far corner of Trafalgar Square, closer to Pall Mall, four more Iranians waved similar flags and chanted anti-Hamas, anti-Hizbullah and anti-Houthi slogans. They held posters of “King” Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince whose father was ousted as Shah by the ayatollahs in 1979. “Long Live Iran,” they said. “Long live Israel.”

The pro-Israeli crowd barely took notice of this curious interlude. A few grinned in bewilderment. One woman offered them Jewish cakes. But most simply got on with what they were in Trafalgar Square to do: call for Hamas to release the 136 hostages still held in Gaza, and to remember the Israelis slaughtered 100 days prior.

The mood was sombre and restrained. There were no real signs of triumphalism at the devastation wrought on Gaza by Israel since the Hamas attack. Just heartache for the victims of October 7th. Yet there were also a handful of signs – quite literally – of some of the challenging attitudes towards Palestinian civilians that occasionally rear up in Israeli society.

One man held a placard aloft: “FACT – the majority of civilians in Gaza voted for Hamas, which carried out Oct 7th.” The final line on the placard was scrawled and more difficult to read, but it appeared to say: “The majority are NOT innocent.”

The sign was a clear attempt to justify the carnage being suffered by Palestinian civilians. But it was, in fairness, also an outlier at the gathering. Still, nobody challenged the man holding up the placard.

The previous day, London’s Metropolitan Police arrested two people for holding offensive anti-Israel placards at the enormous pro-Palestinian march that swamped central London. Three more people were arrested on Saturday for handing out leaflets “inviting support for a proscribed organisation”. There is political pressure on the police to clamp down hard on anything that resembles an expression of pro-Hamas activity.

Late on Saturday afternoon, the speakers at the Parliament Square endpoint of the Palestinian march, including Sinn Féin’s president Mary Lou McDonald, had long since finished their crowd-pleasing turns at the lectern. Yet the enormous crowd was still snaking along Victoria Embankment to the beat of drums and chants for an immediate ceasefire. An hour after the speeches had ended, the back of the march was nearly a mile away.

Something noticeable at London’s pro-Palestinian marches (I have observed almost all of them in the last three months), but which is rarely mentioned, is the prevalence in the crowd of protesters whose appearance suggests an Arab ethnicity.

[ Diarmaid Ferriter: How the Irish became Britain’s oldest, loneliest ethnic group ]

In Ireland, pro-Palestinian marches tend to be dominated by local left-wing groups. In London, the same trade unions and their supporters are present in large numbers. But the driving force at the protests are people who embody the ethnic diversity that is often seen as London’s strength. The war in Gaza, however, is carving fissures.