Only months after seizing control of Iran with the Islamic Revolution, the country’s new religious leaders declared that thereafter, the last Friday of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, would be Al Quds Day.
Meaning Jerusalem Day in Arabic, the event would commemorate the fanatical ideological opposition to Israel’s existence among Iran’s new clerical leaders, and in the decades since, Al Quds Day has become a mainstay of the anti-Israel movement around the world.
In 2024, amidst the Hamas-Israel war, Al Quds Day was held in global hubs, including New York City, where speakers praised the October 7 attacks and memorialized the “martyrs.”
Toronto’s Al Quds Day, held at Queen’s Park on Saturday, April 6, while billed as a day of solidarity with the Palestinians, was in reality little more than an anti-Israel hatefest.
One speaker was Khaled Barakat, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a banned terrorist organization in Canada.
Clearly undeterred by the ban of PFLP, Barakat took to the podium at the event and explicitly praised the efforts of Palestinian terrorism.
“We’re here today sending our salute to every worker in Gaza, every nurse, every teacher, every doctor and every fighter who is carrying his gun in Gaza. Today, we want to salute the leader of the Palestinian armed resistance [Al-Qassam Brigades] Mohammad Deif, Abu Khaled,” Barakat told the cheering crowd.
Barakat was far from alone in glorifying murderous violence against Israelis.
Another speaker on stage was Charlotte Kates, a known supporter of Palestinian terrorism who is a director of Samidoun, a Vancouver-based organization with ties to the PFLP.
At the demonstration, she bellowed that “Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, these organizations are not terrorists. They are liberation fighters, they are freedom fighters.”
Sheikh Shafiq Hudda, a Muslim cleric based in Kitchener, Ontario with a history of incendiary statements, used his remarks to the crowd to peddle conspiracy theories.
“The White House is an Israeli-occupied territory. The US Congress is an occupied territory…the Canadian Parliament is no less,” Hudda said, adding “our government, our politicians, our political leaders, are more loyal to the Zionist State of Israel than they are to Canada and the Canadian values…why? Because money comes from Zionism…”
Al Quds Day has been a regular scene of anti-Israel and antisemitic vitriol, and during the 2018 provincial election, then-candidate Doug Ford promised he would ban the hatefest, writing on social media that “our government will take action to ensure that events like Al Quds Day, which calls for the killing of an entire civilian population in Israel, are no longer part of the landscape in Ontario.”
However, beyond statements from Michael Kerzner, Ontario’s Solicitor General, condemning the event, the marches have continued unabated with no action from government officials.
Among the organizers of the 2024 Al Quds Day demonstration in Toronto was Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a group which has proudly glorified Hamas’ October 7 massacre. The overt pro-terrorism expressed at the rally did not stop news outlets like The Toronto Star from falsely characterizing the demonstration as “peaceful.”
Despite the huge efforts invested in the latest Al Quds Day, news media reported that roughly 2,000 were in attendance, a figure that was significantly overwhelmed by a much larger pro-Israel vigil held the next day, April 7, with thousands in attendance in downtown Toronto.
As anti-Israel marches like Al Quds Day take place in Canada and around the world, it’s imperative for news media outlets to inform the public when hate mongers speak in public, and refuse to whitewash them as peaceful rallies.
