On Saturday 18th of July 2026, Husam Zomlot walked at the head of the National March for Palestine through London. If a serving ambassador leading a domestic protest doesn’t test the limits of the Vienna Convention, it’s hard to know what would.

By the time the National March for Palestine moved off from Russell Square at 12:45 on Saturday, under conditions the Metropolitan Police had imposed the day before under the Public Order Act, Husam Zomlot was not a guest of the procession. He was at its head. Palestine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom — accredited to the Court of St James’s since January, after the government formally recognized the Palestinian state — marched at the front of the column as it moved through Holborn and the Strand towards Whitehall, chanting alongside protesters and carrying, by his own account on X, the message that “the movement for justice and accountability, in Britain and worldwide, is growing louder and stronger.” He held that position through the chant of “From the belly of the beast, hands off the Middle East” — a line aimed, unambiguously, at the British state whose invitation lets him remain in the country at all.

This is not a comment on the approximately five thousand participants who marched. The right to march for Gaza, to demand your government act differently, is not in question, and the Met’s conditions on the route and timing were generally followed. Unsurprisingly, figures like Jeremy Corbyn and........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)