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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Moroccan Jews alarmed by antisemitism at "pro-Palestinian" rally

From Algemeiner:
Thousands marched in Casablanca, Morocco on Sunday, in a show of solidarity for Palestinians amid the recent wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, according to a video released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Demonstrators — among them teenagers and young children — wearing smocks bespattered in red paint, or the colors of the Palestinian flag, chanted, “Death to Israel,” and “We will sacrifice our soul and our blood to you, Al-Aqsa,” in reference to the holy site in Jerusalem that has reportedly been at the center of the recent terror surge in Israel.

Another part of the demonstration, also featured in a video uploaded to Facebook, shows two men dressed in Orthodox Jewish garb — albeit with obscenely tall cylindrical black hats — being led by West Bank Palestinian activists in black-and-white kaffiyehs (as opposed to the traditionally green ones worn by their counterparts in the Gaza Strip) holding toy assault rifles behind a miniature float of the Dome of the Rock.

At one point in the MEMRI video, the two “Orthodox” men are seen chipping away at the Dome of the Rock with pickaxes. They are subsequently rounded up, fake-stabbed and “executed.”


Moroccan Jews are aghast, and they have put together 3000 signatures on a petition condemning the play as well as another part of the rally where Muslim children trampled a Star of David. The petition says that people can demonstrate for whatever causes they want but to threaten an entire community like that is unacceptable.

The organizer of the demonstration defended the actions, Abdul Samad Fathi, denied that there was any anti-Semitism or incitement to kill Jews, saying that those who participated in the march were only referring to the "Zionist entity that usurped the land of Palestine and not the Jewish community that lived in peace and security with Muslims throughout the ages."

Fathi then raised the spectre of dual loyalties to the Moroccan Jews, telling CNN in Arabic: "Those who signed this petition are trying to fabricate an issue to change the subject of the debate which is to denounce crimes against the Palestinians. If the signatories are so keen on peace, why don't Moroccan Jews condemn those who join the ranks of the Zionist army and the killing of Palestinians?

He said that the play does not carry connotations of inciting the murder of Jews, but rather is aimed at Zionists


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