Al Quds Day speaker claims Israeli embassy runs antisemitism smear workshops

An Al Quds Day speaker has said that the Israeli embassy runs “workshops” around the country to concoct false antisemitism claims to “smear” pro-Palestine activists.

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign activist Mick Napier addressed protesters in Westminster today at the annual protest.

“There’s a guy who’s just been suspended from the Labour Party for saying the Israeli embassy is behind the whole wave of false, phoney, fake, malicious antisemitism allegations,” he told the crowd – an apparent reference to Pete Willsman, the National Executive Committee member who was suspended on Friday.

“It’s obvious. They don’t hide it. The Israeli embassy does it. They have workshops around the country where all the local zios get together.

“Christians and Muslims and Jews; they all get together, the zios. Because there are some of each. They plot how to smear those of us who stand up for the Palestinian people.

“Your crime today is to stand up for the noble people of Palestine,” Napier said.

Protesters took to the streets of London on Sunday, setting off from outside the Home Office and walking to Whitehall in a procession led by the extreme Jewish fringe group Neturei Karta UK.

This year’s protesters marched under a yellow banner marked “Victory to the resistance”.

A group of counter-demonstrators flying Israeli flags and setting off blue-coloured smoke bombs chanted “Free Palestine from Hamas.”

Uniformed police formed a guard between the two groups in order to prevent a “breach of the peace” and stopped bystanders from joining.

Al Quds Day has attracted controversy in the past, with demonstrators flying Hizballah flags before the terrorist group became proscribed in its entirety this year. There appeared to be no such flags or emblems at the march on Sunday.

Among the placards spotted, one carried the words: “From the river to the sea, single democratic state: Palestine, the only just solution.”

Another sign read “Zionism = Racism Boycott Israel”, while some called for an end to the “Gaza genocide”.

Among the protesters, one demonstrator appeared to compare Zionism to Nazism. “The world stopped Nazism. The world stopped apartheid. The world must stop Zionism,” his t-shirt read.