Just weeks after the British government spent millions on putting armed police on the streets to make people feel “safer” in wake of the recent terror attacks, authorities have taken the bizarre decision to allow hundreds of Hezbollah sympathizers to march through the streets of London on Sunday to mark al-Quds Day.
Hezbollah is a highly sectarian, anti-Semitic terrorist organization that calls for the genocide of Jews and is currently, in its own words, waging “jihad” in Syria in support of the murderous Assad regime at the behest of their state sponsor Iran.
Al-Quds Day (Al-Quds is an Arabic name for Jerusalem) was established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the immediate aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution to call for the annihilation of the state of Israel. Robert Wistrich, the late scholar of anti-Semitism, wrote that Khomeini designated al-Quds Day as one when the oppressed nations would “rise up and dispose of this source of corruption [Israel].”
The organizers of the rally, the so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission, advertised the event on its website as an opportunity for people from all over the country to unite “for the freedom of the oppressed in Palestine and beyond.” But it was nothing other than an opportunity for anti-Semites to rally behind the flag of a terrorist organization and engage in a hate fest on the streets of London with impunity.
A look at the list of speakers reveals the true nature of the event. There was Baroness Jenny Tonge, who quit the Liberal Democrats in 2016 after she was suspended for anti-Semitic comments. Tonge has long used inflammatory rhetoric against the Jewish people and has condoned acts of terrorism. In 2004, she said she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were a Palestinian. Also among the speakers was Mick Napier, chair of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who was convicted in March of aggravated trespass over allegations of intimidating the staff at Barclays Bank over its investment in Israel’s Iron Dome.
Meanwhile, marchers including young children draped themselves in Hezbollah flags and organizers distributed placards emblazoned with the slogan, “We are all Hezbollah.” A friend, who attended the counter-rally, said she could hear them chant “From the river to the sea” — a sanitized version of the genocidal fantasy of throwing the Jews into the sea. Protesters also peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and claimed the Zionists created ISIS to give Muslims a bad name. Even the horrific tragedy that unfolded at Grenfell Tower was not safe of their twisted worldview and the fire declared a Zionist plot.
The UK-based Campaign Against Antisemitism reported that the Metropolitan Police Service refused to make arrests or accept reports of hate speech when approached by concerned members of the public. One inspector even claimed “that Hizballah flags belong to a legitimate ‘state’ instead of a terrorist organisation.”
However, section 13 of the U.K. Terrorism Act clearly states, “A person in a public place commits an offence if he wears an item of clothing, or wears, carries or displays an article, in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.”
The so-called “military wing” of Hezbollah has been proscribed by the British government, but attempts to have the “political wing” of the organization banned as well have so far failed. Of course the distinction is a fantasy, one that is even mocked by Hezbollah itself.
In the words of the group’s Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem, Hezbollah does not “have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”
And if that were not enough, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is refreshingly honest about the genocidal nature of his organization: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
Despite all evidence that al-Quds Day is more than just a controversial rally that should fall under the protection of free speech, British authorities have failed time and again to block the event, even though London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan just recently promised a “zero tolerance” policy towards anti-Semitism.
His promise is difficult to bring in agreement with what unfolded in London on Sunday. While Hezbollah sympathizers marched through the streets without interruption, police demanded that anti-terrorist protesters move out of the way. The extremists were rewarded. The terrified public punished. Evidence of a truly broken moral compass.
In the wake of the terrorist attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, it was revealed that one of the perpetrators had previously flown the Islamic State flag in a television documentary. Over the weekend, the flag of another terrorist organization, one just as brutal and dangerous, was displayed again without consequence.
Until we learn, we remain our own worst enemy.
[Photo: PressTV ]