Quds Day London

About 350 participants, some brought by buses from Leicester and Birmingham for the annual Quds Day demonstration in London, chanted In a thousand, in a million – we are all Palestinian.  The charismatic animateur instructed and they repeated BBC – shame on you or Who is the bloody terrorist – Netanyahu, Netanyahu, as well as one, two, three, four – occupation no more.

Mother with daughter wearing Hizbollah flag

Stop Iranophobia

A solitary young man draped with an Israeli flag tried to hand out pro-Israel leaflets. At some point, one of the demonstrators stole his flag and ran away into the centre of the demonstration. Organiser: “please be careful, there is a Zionist troublemaker around”.  Another solitary man, danced with a sign “The Soldiers of the Caliphate are sent by Christ”.

In front of the American embassy, we were informed that the Americans had sold the embassy building to the Qataris, “their slaves”.  Next year, the speaker said, we would no longer demonstrate at the American embassy. Why? Is Nine Elms (where the new building is situated) not posh enough? At least one of the speakers spoke about the eradication of Israel and a very eager blond German explained to his Iranian Radio interviewer how the media is all pro Israel and only he reported directly from Gaza and saw all the atrocities inflicted by the Israelis. The German, apparently a freelance journalist, explained that he would also be at the Berlin demonstration the next day and that he is available to interviews also by Skype.

The icing on the cake, and much feted by the organisers of the demonstration, were 4 members of Neturei Karta, a small Jewish ultra-orthodox sect that believes that Jewish exile will only end with the arrival of the Messiah. They are virulent opponents of the state of Israel and like to make their views known.

The man was unable to tell me which book in the Torah...