6^th August 2013
by Julie Nathan,
Research Officer,
Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry
Melbourne held its first Al-Quds Day rally this year.
The short video of the rally and march shows about fifty people gathered on the steps of the State Library, with speakers giving speeches, and protest­ors waving anti-Israel banners. The crowd then marched down the street.
In the middle of this two minute video of the anti-Israel protest several photos and cartoon images have been inserted. Some of these images are overtly anti-Jewish.
One image is of a Jewish man, iden­ti­fied as such with a kippah (skullcap) and Star of David, and with a ste­reo­typ­ic­al huge hooked nose, holding a small and limp child in front of him. The Jew is poised to take a gigantic and deadly bite out of the child.

Why is an image of a Jew eating a gentile child inserted into a video of an anti-Israel rally?

For a thousand years, Chris­ti­ans had accused Jews of murdering gentile children and draining their blood for use in religious rituals or for making matzah (Passover bread). This fab­ric­a­tion has been used against Jews to vilify and demonize them, and to incite the mobs to violently attack Jews.
Another image shows a dead Palestini­an in loin cloth draped in the arms of a sitting woman, with fighter planes overhead. The figure is trans­posed from artwork of the dead Jesus in the arms of Mary. This image elicits the mil­len­ni­al accus­a­tion against Jews as “Christ-killers”.

This accus­a­tion was used to incite the mobs to go out and massacre Jews, often whole Jewish com­munit­ies. This image in the video recon­structs the accus­a­tion and demon­iz­ing of the Jewish people as being innately murderous and abso­lutely evil, and of the Palestini­an Arabs as being mild and meek as Jesus, and innocent.

The video was made by Alaa Al, and appears in several places.
The Al-Quds Day Committee Australia, the organ­izers of the rally, posted this video on their Facebook page, with the acknow­ledg­ment of its producer, through the intro­duc­tion: “Video made by sister Alaa on the first Al-Quds Day Protest in Melbourne.” The video was also posted on the Al-Quds Day Committee’s Melbourne event Facebook page by Alaa. It also appears on Alaa’s Youtube channel.
Al-Quds Day was inaug­ur­ated by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in 1979 as a call for inter­na­tion­al protests against Israel and to promote the destruc­tion of Israel and its replace­ment with a Muslim state.
This is rein­forced by the Al-Quds Day Committee Australia in 2012 calling “Israel, the enemy of mankind, the enemy of humanity…”
So why the antisemitic images?
Anti-Zionists deny they are anti-Jewish, claiming they are only anti-Israel. They often accuse those who accuse them of using anti-Jewish ste­reo­types and imagery of using the ‘antisemitism card’ as a ploy to stifle and silence criticism of Israel. This is aimed at diverting the accus­a­tions of antisemitism away from the anti-Zionists, and of del­e­git­im­iz­ing any claims of antisemitism.
A banner at the Sydney Al-Quds Day rally had the words ‘Delete Zionists’. This goes beyond calls for the destruc­tion of a state. It is a direct call to kill people, spe­cific­ally to murder millions of Jews in Israel and around the world.
In Toronto, Canada, a speaker at the Al-Quds Day rally called for giving Israeli Jews two minutes warning to leave Palestine, and then to start shooting any Jews they come across. This is another direct call and incite­ment to murder Jews, urged at an Al-Quds Day rally. The speaker’s words were:
“We have to give them an ultimatum: You have to leave Jerusalem. You have to leave Palestine… We say get out or you are dead. We give them two minutes and then we start shooting. And that’s the only way they’ll under­stand.”
If Al-Quds Day was about protest­ing against the Israeli control of parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem, or even of Israel’s existence, then why the antisemitism?
With all their rhetoric of ’justice’ and ‘human rights’ for all oppressed people through­out the world, and espe­cially for the Palestini­an Arabs, how can they justify using and promoting racist ste­reo­types and images about one segment of humanity, namely Jews, and only Jews? How do they justify por­tray­ing Jews as innately evil, and as the enemy of humanity?
It appears as though Al-Quds Day is not about Palestini­an human rights at all, but about hatred of Jews. It appears that their problem with Israel is that it is the state of the Jewish people.
As Al-Quds Day pro­ponents have a vitriolic hatred of Jews they will oppose Jews wherever they are, whether in a Jewish state or dispersed through­out the world. Their focus for now is on where Jews are con­cen­trated most – in Israel.
To Al-Quds Day sup­port­ers, the Jews’ greatest crime is not to have re-estab­lished a state in the ancient homeland, but to survive and thrive, despite or in spite of, whatever hatred, demon­iz­a­tion, and violence is used against the Jewish people.

 

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected]