(JPost) Posters with anti-Israel slogans and Israeli flags with crossed out Stars of David blanketed the streets of Berlin on Friday.
Mayor Michael Müller permitted nearly 600 Hezbollah supporters and members – and pro-Iranian regime activists – to march in the heart of the German capital, at the al-Quds Day rally calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Rogel Rachman, the head of Israel’s public diplomacy at the embassy in Berlin, writing in the legation’s newsletter, said the Social Democratic mayor’s decision was “not to be tolerated and wrong as wrong can be.
“The “al-Quds march creates a climate of aggression and of hate, in which hundreds of antisemites come together,” and “strengthens the antisemites,” Rachman wrote.
Posters with the slogan “Zionists out of Israel” were present in abundance at Friday’s event.
Pictures of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah were on display at the march. One protester draped himself in the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – a US- and EU-outlawed terrorist organization.
Khomeini initiated the annual al-Quds Day events, held in various locations internationally on the last Friday of Ramadan, in 1979, with the goal of dismantling Israel. Since 1996, there have been 21 al-Quds Day marches in Berlin.
Hier bei #AlQudsTag am Adenauerplatz. pic.twitter.com/uEyVx7oHvo
— Andreas Kopietz (@KopietzAndreas) June 23, 2017
One protestor draped himself in the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – a US and EU outlawed terrorist organization. The al-Quds Day rally was called into a global action in 1979 by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the goal of dismantling Israel. Since 1996, there have been 21 al-Quds day marches in Berlin.
“Today, like every year, tens of thousands haters of Israel are demonstrating under the disguise of anti-Zionism for the destruction of Israel… It [al-Quds Day] deals with a hate festival where flags of various terrorist organizations are waved,” said Rachman.
Israel’s embassy “appealed to the mayor to send a clear signal against this hate parade and deny permission for the annual event on legal grounds.”
A spokesman for the mayor told the Post on Friday, “The mayor does not comment on representatives of foreign groups.”
The embassy told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night that it would like “to clarify its criticism, which is directed at the [al-Quds Day] event and not the mayor or the Berlin Senate.”
