Al Quds Day (Jerusalem Day in Arabic) is an annual event, held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, started by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, officially aimed at showing support for the Palestinian cause, but in reality, features demonstrations calling for the destruction of Israel and which is replete with antisemitism.

And each year, Al Quds Day rallies are often spectacles of anti-Israel and antisemitic hatred, including incitement to violence and glorification of terrorism against Israel.

This year’s rally in downtown Toronto even featured the speech of an individual with suspected and alleged links to terrorism.

According to the Israeli security service Shin Bet and as reported extensively by the National Post’s Terry Glavin, Khaled Barakat plays a significant role in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian terrorist group which has taken responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks in Israel, and which is listed as a banned terrorist entity in Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan, and the European Union (EU).

Barakat, who according to a 2022 news article currently lives in Vancouver, spoke at the annual Al Quds Day rally in downtown Toronto, on April 15, where in his speech, he proclaimed: “Long live the intifada (Palestinian uprising)…We are here to declare our full and unconditional support for the strategy that has been declared by the forces of the resistance…”

The intifada refers to two violent Palestinian uprisings and campaigns of terrorism which took place, one from 1987-1993, and the second from 2000 to 2005, which cumulatively claimed the lives of roughly 1,200 Israelis in attacks ranging from suicide bombings to shootings and even brutal murders by bludgeoning.

Barakat was far from the only speaker to make incendiary comments in their speech.

Moe Jabri, a member of Toronto4Palestine, told the assembled crowd that they seek the “Ultimate liberation from the river to the sea under one Palestinian state. From the river to the sea under one Palestinian state…Praising and supporting the resistance in the occupied land and West Bank is legal by international law.”

The term “from the river to the sea” is a slogan widely used by anti-Israel activists, which is a euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish State, to be replaced by a Palestinian state.

Another speaker, Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Solidarity Network, referred to all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as “freedom fighters who take up arms to struggle for freedom” and that “we will stand with everyone of those prisoners in their fight… The imprisonment of the Palestinian prisoners is not only an issue inside Palestine. No, it is an issue of the entire resistance and it is an issue for all of us internationally. It is an issue that we must take up and fight for. And so we say today: Free them all! Free them all!”

According to Kates, terrorists who have killed scores of Israelis and who have blood on their hands, should be released from Israeli jails. Kates further said that “It’s time to get the Palestinian resistance organizations off the so-called terror list of Canada. It’s time to get the Lebanese resistance of the so-called list of terror here in Canada.” For Kates, Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and Lebanese terror organizations like Hezbollah, should all be removed from Canada’s list of banned terror groups.

She also expressed solidarity with a number of convicted terrorists, saying “We stand with Marwan Bargouthi…. We stand with George Abdullah. We stand with Khadr Adnan and every Palestinian prisoner and the Palestinian resistance.”

Marwan Barghouti is serving time in an Israeli prison for multiple counts of murder, George Abdulla is serving a life sentence in France for the murder of an Israeli diplomat and an American military officer, and Khadr Adnan is a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), who has been jailed multiple times, and actively invited Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

Kates’ organization, Samidoun, is also widely alleged to be a subsidiary of the PFLP terrorist organization, which has led CIJA to call on the Canadian government to list Samidoun to its list of banned terrorist entities. In 2003, The PFLP was designated by Canada as a terrorist organization. Kates is married to Khaled Barakat, and in 2022, both were denied entry to the European Union and deported shortly thereafter.

The Al Quds Day hate fest was not limited to those making speeches; one sign visible at the event read “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” an outright justification of Palestinian terrorism and another sign carried by a protester said that “Zionism is racism,” while another poster equated the Israeli Star of David as being the same as the Swastika, and in so doing, compared Israelis to Nazis, which according to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, is bona fide Jew hatred. As well, a number of chants were repeated by protestors, including “globalize the intifada,” “viva viva Palestina, viva viva intifada,” and “long live Hezbollah,” referring to the Lebanese terrorist group, a banned entity in Canada and a number of other countries, of which, a rally participant waved the Hezbollah flag.

In years prior, and on multiple occasions, then-Toronto mayor John Tory said that antisemitic and other hateful behaviour at the rallies would not be tolerated. However, the demonstrations have continued unabated.

As Jews in Canada and across the Western world continue to face stubbornly high levels of antisemitism, what will it take for the news media to shine a critical light on the Al Quds Day demonstration and its open glorification of Palestinian violence and terrorism, to help ensure that such vitriolic antisemitic hatred has no place in Canada?