Speaker at ‘peace’ festival compared Zionists to Isis

The veteran politician previously told the JC he rejects “Jewish propaganda” about the Holocaust and does not mind being labelled antisemitic.

Speaking at the conference, Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “Israel has no right to defend itself whilst it uses force to maintain a system of oppression.

"It is the Palestinian people who have a right to reist as enshrined within international law through armed resistance. They will never give up their struggle for liberation.

"You can assassinate individuals but you can never kill a spirit of resistance rooted, founded, in the principle that it is better to die on one’s feet than live a life of subjugation upon one's knees.”

Mohamed Ali Harrath, the CEO of the Islam Channel, said some people wanted to treat “genocide”-supporting Zionists as the spokespeople of the entire Jewish community.

"That’s incorrect,” he said. “That’s like coming to us as Muslims and saying Isis represents you.”

Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American academic, said that once Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza had begun Hezbollah started firing rockets at northern Israel and “people were outraged”.

He continued: “This was between Israel and Hamas, why were they getting involved? Well in the early 2000s the western liberal developed this doctrine it was called R2P: Responsibility to Protect.

“Responsibility to Protect meant that when the international institutions fail humanity they fail to stop a genocide then individual states on their own when the international community fails to stop a genocide they have their own responsibility to protect, R2P.

“And it’s simply a fact that the party of God, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen they rose to the occasion whatever you might think of their politics they rose to the occasion, they rose to their responsibility to protect the people of Gaza from a genocide that was being inflicted on them.”

Latifa Abouchakra, a reporter from the Iranain Press TV channel, said she found Palestine “beautiful” because, “they could strike at the heart of the most advanced armies in the world with handmade machines.”

She added: “We saw a biblical battle between good and evil. We saw the stone that struck the head of the enemy and it weakened them to a level that now makes the world, I think it’s reactivated this idea of the ummah.”

John Ress, a Stop the War Coalition campaigner, said: “When we are in solidarity with the Palestinians we are ensuring there is a good life for people in this country as well. Because the enemies of the Palestinians are our enemies as well.”

Last week, before the conference took place, the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and Community Security Trust (CST) called for greater oversight, while the Campaign Against Antisemitism branded the event “outrageous”.

The Metropolitan Police’s logo was included on GPU material as a “supporting partner” of the festival. Last week the force had it removed after a complaint by the Policy Exchange think-tank. However, a spokesman for the Met told the JC that they had never given “formal permission” for the logo to be used.

Lord Carlile, the former reviewer of government terror legislation, condemned the festival, demanding greater care and scrutiny from both the Excel Centre and the Metropolitan Police to ensure that platforms are not given to extremists.

“It is very important to be extremely careful not to support or give a platform to those who support Hamas or any other such extremist behaviour,” he said.

A CST spokesman said: “It is essential that the organisers of conferences such as this ensure that they do not provide a platform to anybody who has expressed antisemitic views or support for terrorism and violence, or who is likely to do so at this event.

“All respectable, mainstream organisations connected to this event, including the venue itself, ought to review their procedures to ensure that similar mistakes cannot be made in future.”

In 2020, Owainat, whose music features on a compilation album called Jihadi Hills, was accused of performing traditional songs “in the name of” Hamas in an academic paper published by Edinburgh University Press.

A video showing rockets being launched by militants was accompanied by his lyrics: “Strike, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you, oh fire, make the enemies drink humiliation… The lands are forbidden to enemies… Allah is the greatest, proclaim it, all the Jews will pay.”

Another of his lyrics runs: “Know me, O Son of Zion: no matter how strong you are, for my country, blood is cheap… We throw stones, small and big, at the Jewish demons.”

Owainat denies all allegations of extremism.