Our joy that the Ahava store in Covent Garden is closing was tempered this week by the commemoration of the memory of Vittorio Arrigoni, who was so cruelly murdered by an insane Jihadist/Salafist group in Gaza last week.

The beneficiary and responsibility for Vik’s murder though lies lies with the Israeli state. Even assuming that the murderers, first of Juliano Mer Khamis and now Vittoria Arrigoni weren’t actually paid assets of Israel, and this is by no means certain, only Israel stands to gain. Palestinians can now be branded collectively as insane Islamist murderers, even of those who have devoted their lives to solidarity with them.

When you cage people for years on end and deliberately starve them and deprive them of life’s necessities, whilst regularly murdering and injuring them, all in the name of the Jewish people, it is not surprising that tiny fascist groups spring up who do the work of Israel for it. Although an interesting thesis, I suspect that Lauren Booth’s article is a conjecture too far.

Ahava itself is not being allowed to renew its lease in Covent Garden. Existing traders want them out, just as Ahava itself didn’t want the attentions of Hoffman and his crewe. Indeed now that we have achieved a victory over Ahava and its sale of stolen goods, we should also pay tribute to the role of Jonathan Hoffman who, more than any other single person, helped reinvigorate the protests with his tiny band of counter-demonstrators and EDL thugs.

In his Jewish Chronicle blog, Hoffman bizarrely cites the very store he is supposed to be supporting, Ahava, as a ‘guilty party’ because they were ‘pusillanimous in fighting the haters and for blaming the counter-demonstraters for the disruption to Monmouth Street.’

Tony Greenstein