The chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has blamed “Zionist financiers abroad” for the far-right riots which have swept across England.

In an open letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper published on Tuesday, Massoud Shadjareh said: “Enabled by their Zionist financiers abroad, far-right elements have weaponised the tragic murder of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.”

According to the latest survey from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 63 per cent of British Jews identify as Zionists.

Shadjareh’s letter to the Home Secretary goes on, “It is now more critical than ever to tackle the racism that drenches our media, social and political discourse. This is the mood music that has emboldened the racists and brought us to the brink of national race wars.”

The IHRC chair is an Iranian regime supporter, who wrote in 2020 that “we are all Hezbollah” and that he “aspired to become like” Soleimani. This is not the first time that Shadjareh or IHRC have blamed Zionists for various events.

In May 2023, Shadjareh blamed the “papers” of “Zionist institutions” for the Charity Commission’s decision to open an inquiry into a mosque that was dubbed the “London office” of Iran’s brutal Revolutionary Guards.

“So who is complaining? Zionist Federation, Zionist institutions, Islamophobic groups, anti-Muslim groups and extreme right. They and their papers are complaining,” Shadjareh said at the time.

In 2018, IHRC published an article which claimed: “Zionists have started to implement an insidious strategy to build ties with the Muslim community in Britain in order to normalise Zionism and the brutal illegal occupation of Palestine.”

IHRC also helps to organise the notorious annual Al Quds Day march in London that the CST branded “a march predicated on anti-Israel hate”.

The group have in the past received praise from senior leaders in the UK, including former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

IHRC told the JC via email, “It is clear that since last October, the purpose of your existence seems to be to intimidate, threaten and dox people who promulgate anti-Israel opinion.”

A spokesperson for the registered charity said there was “abundant evidence circulating in the public domain [regarding] our statement that foreign Zionists have financed the far-right figures currently inciting anti-Muslim pogroms on the streets of Britain”.

The JC approached Shadjareh for comment.