Protesters at Times Square ‘al-Quds Day’ rally call for destruction of Israel

Demonstrators at an anti-Israel protest in New York City on Friday chanted slogans calling for Israel’s destruction.

An activist identified as Nate Chase of the World Workers Party told cheering protesters that “Israel does not exist, and has not existed,” and described the “Zionist entity” as the “racist puppet” of US imperialism.

Chase was filmed leading a chant saying “We don’t want no two-state [solution]; we want all of it,” in a video of the event posted by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) monitoring group.

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The al-Quds Day rally was held in Times Square on May 31 to correspond with other rallies organized annually by Iran to coincide with the end of Ramadan. The rallies were held Friday, mostly the Middle East, but also in Europe, including in Berlin and London.

Activists at Quds Day Rally in Times Square: Israel Will Never Exist, Every Inch of It Is Palestine; Globalize the Intifada pic.twitter.com/2vewFUHrb4

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 4, 2019

Iran has marked al-Quds Day since the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, and Iran — which arms terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are sworn to Israel’s destruction — says the day is an occasion to express support for the Palestinians, although protests are generally marked by anti-Israel and anti-America slogans.

Different speakers at the New York rally called on supporters to “globalize the intifada” and “smash the settler-Zionist state,” with Joe Catron of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network chanting: “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution”

Ahead of al-Quds Day, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Thursday thanked Iran for providing his terror group with the rockets it used to strike Israel and warned the Jewish state that Tel Aviv would be struck again in response to any offensive against the Gaza Strip.

“Iran provided us with rockets, and we surprised the world when our resistance targeted Beersheba,” Sinwar said in a live TV address, referring to the weekend of violence at the beginning of the month, during which Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired nearly 700 rockets at Israel.

“Had it not been for Iran, the resistance in Palestine would not have possessed its current capabilities,” Sinwar said.