Statement from the We Believe Alliance (a partnership of the National Jewish Assembly and We Believe In Israel)
The cancellation, by the Home Office, of the annual Al Quds Day march in London is a welcome and long overdue step. For years this event has functioned not as a legitimate protest but as a platform for the Iranian regime’s propaganda on the streets of our capital. Established by Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 Iranian revolution, Al Quds Day was explicitly designed to export the regime’s ideological hostility toward Israel and the West, and it has consistently brought that agenda into the heart of London.
In practice, the rallies have repeatedly featured openly antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories directed at the Jewish community. Alongside this, brazen support for terrorism has also been visible, most notably through the waving of Hezbollah flags in previous years before the organisation was fully proscribed in the United Kingdom. Such scenes have long caused understandable alarm within the Jewish community and among all those concerned with maintaining public order and opposing extremism.
In the United Kingdom the march has long been organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. The organisation has itself been the subject of scrutiny, including a report by the Henry Jackson Society examining its ideological alignment with the Iranian regime and its role in promoting the narratives associated with Tehran’s revolutionary agenda. The toxic atmosphere surrounding the rally has also been illustrated by statements made in connection with the event, including the notorious claim by an Al Quds Day organiser in 2017 that “Zionists” were responsible for the Grenfell Tower tragedy — a grotesque conspiracy theory that demonstrated the deeply troubling rhetoric that has surrounded these demonstrations.
It is also important to remember the origins of Al Quds Day itself. This is not an organic grassroots expression of solidarity with Palestinians. It is an initiative created by the Iranian regime to mobilise global hostility toward Israel and to project its revolutionary ideology abroad. At a time when the Iranian people themselves have repeatedly demonstrated in favour of freedom and the removal of the regime that created Al Quds Day, it is deeply inappropriate for its propaganda to be given space on the streets of Britain.
Reports that organisers may instead seek to hold a static gathering raise serious concerns. If such an event proceeds, it will represent a clear litmus test of the willingness of the authorities to enforce the law robustly and without hesitation. The Jewish community, like all minority communities in the United Kingdom, is protected under the law from hatred, intimidation and the glorification of terrorism directed against it.
Britain should be a country in which minority communities feel safe and where extremist propaganda and support for terrorism are not tolerated in public spaces. The We Believe Alliance therefore expects the authorities to ensure that any gathering connected to Al Quds Day is policed with the full force of the law, and that the hateful ideology associated with the Iranian regime is not allowed to intimidate communities in our capital.
