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Hackney council to remove ‘offensive’ intifada mural

CST urge police investigation into ‘extremist incitement’

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Hackney Council will remove graffiti glorifying intifada that CST has described as “extremely disturbing”.

The mural, which appeared near Springfield Park close to the Stamford Hill Charedi community, home to much of the borough’s Jewish population, featured the word “intifada”, Arabic for rebellion or uprising but which is widely understood by Jews to mean a call for violent resistance against Israel.

It also included the words “exist is to resist” and showed figures with their faces obscured in Keffiyehs, similar to the style of the terrorist group Hamas’s spokesman Abu Obiedah against a backdrop of what appears to be fire and a Palestinian flag.

One of the masked figures also appears to be launching an item from a slingshot.

A spokesperson for Hackney Council told the JC: “Offensive, intimidating or insulting graffiti has no place in Hackney.

"We remove tens of thousands of instances of graffiti or fly-posts every year, informed by the Council’s graffiti policy. Graffiti should be reported at hackney.gov.uk/report-a-problem or on the Fix My Street app.

“The Council’s graffiti team will investigate and remove this instance as soon as possible now that it has been reported to us."

A spokesperson for CST told the JC, “This is an extremely disturbing mural in a densely populated Jewish area.

They continued, “This kind of extremist incitement will undoubtedly frighten and intimidate the community. It should be removed as soon as possible and condemned, and the police should investigate who is responsible for it.”

The content of the mural was also condemned by Rabbi Herschel Gluck, President of Shomrim Stamford Hill. He said, “We condemn any calls to violence and inflaming of communal tensions. Constructive engagement and harmony is the way forward.”

In June, the JC reported that a terrifying message calling for an “attack” on “Zionists” had been put up in a heavily Jewish part of Hackney.

A sticker saying “Zionists F*** Off” featured a woman’s face masked by a keffiyeh along with the statements “solidarity means attack” and “Free Palestine”.

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