Participants in a Rotterdam rally co-organized last month by a Hamas operative and promoters of a boycott against Israel shouted in Arabic about killing Jews, leaders of Dutch Jewry said.
The incident occurred on July 22 during a rally advertised by a newly-formed organization called the Palestinian Community in the Netherlands, or PGNL, according to a statement Wednesday issued by the Dutch Central Jewish Board. The Rotterdam branch of the BDS movement, which also advertised the event on its Facebook page, was the real organizer of the rally, according to the statement.
On July 21, BDS Rotterdam shared on Facebook a call to attend the rally by Amin Abou Rashed, a senior operative of the Al Aqsa Foundation, which the Dutch secret service and judiciary in 2003 flagged as a Hamas front and banned.
Participants in the rally, which was to protest the use of security measures by Israel around the Al Aqsa mosque following a deadly terrorist attack there, shouted in Arabic: “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.” The cry relates to an event in the seventh century when Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia. The event, including the anti-Semitic chants, were broadcast live by the Shebab News Agency, an organization banned by the Palestinian Authority over its alleged ties to Hamas.
The Jewish board filed a complaint with police for racist incitement to violence, the statement read. Earlier this year, a Belgian court convicted a Palestinian who shouted the same words in 2014 in Antwerp. Leefebaar Rotterdam, a right-wing faction on the Rotterdam city council, asked last month in a query to the mayor to specify what measures will be taken against the people who shouted about Khaybar at the Rotterdam event. The municipality gave no concrete answers.
BDS Rotterdam in a statement responded that the chants came from “one group of a coalition of several groups” that came together to protest against Israel, and that organizers “noted that the chants were not welcome.”
None of the participating groups, the BDS Rotterdam statement also said, “intended to call for violence or discrimination against Jewish people generally."