Some 1,000 people marched in the anti-Israel Al Quds Day parade in central London on Sunday, calling for Israel downfall and spreading anti-Semitic incitement.
The marchers carried banners declaring that it is a “crime” or “racism” to support Zionism, and some compared Zionism to Nazism.
The leading banner at the march called for “Victory to the resistance,” meaning the terrorist organizations including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, which seek to destroy the State of Israel.
Protesters frequently chanted the rhyme “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, Palestine will be free,” essentially calling for Israel’s disappearance and its replacement with a Palestinian state.
Mick Napier, the Secretary of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPCC), told protesters that Labour Party National Executive Committee member Peter Willsman should not have been suspended in May for saying that the Israeli embassy was behind allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Napier not only alleged that the Israeli embassy was behind the “phony” anti-Semitism “smears”, but that it also held workshops around the UK where he claimed that “Zios,” using an anti-Semitic slur word, plotted to orchestrate the “smears.”
In 2017, Napier was found guilty of aggravated trespass at a protest outside a cosmetics store in Glasgow during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. The SPCC has previously been censored over many of its supporters’ extremely anti-Semitic views.
A group of anti-terrorism activists waving Israeli flags held a counter-demonstration and confronted the marchers, engulfing them in a cloud of blue and white smoke.
While in previous years the march has been a pro-Hezbollah parade with marchers waving Hezbollah flags, no Hezbollah signs were visible this year after UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid in February proscribed the entire organization as a terror group, and canceled the differentiation between Hezbollah’s “military wing” and its “political wing.” Police now can seize flags or clothing bearing the insignia of terrorist organizations.
Volunteers from the UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) arrived at the protest to gather evidence about the open anti-Semitism expressed by the participants
Prior to the parade, CAA and other pro-Israel organizations met with the Metropolitan Police Service who vowed to “intervene to enforce the law” if Hezbollah flags were flown.
At least one person from the parade was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer. There are reports that another person was arrested for allegedly assaulting an anti-terrorism activist.
CAA reported that its volunteers from its Demonstrations and Event Monitoring Unit gathered “extensive evidence,” which the CAA’s Regulatory Enforcement Unit is now considering.