The Guardian's reporter and photographer were harassed by Muslim youth who accused them of being Jewish (or possibly used 'Jew' as a curse word for anybody they didn't like), and made it quite clear they did not want Jews around.
This is how Ted Jeory of the Daily Express reports the incident:
A few more youths, all of them mid-late teens, a couple a little older, joined the group. Then one stared at me. “Are you a Jew?” he asked.
I’m not. I have a large nose; I fitted his stereotype.
I glared back at him. “What if I were? Would that be a problem for you?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “F*** off Jew, you’re not welcome here.”
(...)
Then another (white) man appeared. He had a professional camera and took a few photos of the flag. The youths surrounded him; they demanded his camera. They wanted to delete his photos. The photographer was from The Guardian. Their reporter, Rajeev Syal, appeared next to me. We know each other.
The youths asked who he was. He told them he was a journalist. “Ah,” they said, pointing at me. “So you are a journalist.”
Then one voice, then several: “F*** off Jews. We don’t want Jews here, f***k off Jews.”
The three of us then headed for the photographer’s car, parked just down the road. They followed us. More abuse, more demands for the camera, then warnings of violence unless we left. We left.
This is how Rajeev Syal of the Guardian reports that same incident:
When a passerby tried to take a picture of the flag on a phone, one of the gang asked him if he was Jewish. The passerby replied: "Would it make a difference?" The youth said: "Yes, it fucking would." Asked if the flag was an Isis flag, one local man said: "It is just the flag of Allah." But another man asked: "So what if it is?"Notice the difference between "making a fucking difference" and a clear demand that "we don't want Jews here".
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