Israel’s ambassador to Britain has criticised an Islamic conference where speakers hailed the October 7 attacks as a ‘heroic adventure’, and said the recent death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar made Palestinians ‘so proud.’
Tzipi Hotovely said the comments made during the recent Global Peace & Unity (GPU) event in London – which was attended by 50,000 – were ‘deeply shocking’, and she hoped police were investigating the speeches.
During the conference, attended by a Mail on Sunday reporter, one speaker said it was ‘so beautiful’ to see a ‘refugee population under occupation strike at the heart of the most advanced army in the world’.
Ms Hotovely told the MoS last night: ‘The October 7 massacre was the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Openly supporting gratuitous acts of terror is not only deeply shocking but is actively dangerous. We trust the relevant authorities in the country are looking into the matter.’
The Hamas attack – which left 1,200 dead and more than 250 kidnapped – was the worst terrorist act committed against the Jewish state since it was founded in 1948. As Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK law, praising the October 7 massacre could be a terrorist offence, experts said.
Lamis Deek, a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist, is seen during mass crowds are gathered in front of the general consulate of Israel and taking streets in Manhattan
Latifa Abouchakra (left) and Lamis Deek speak at the Global Peace and Unity Festival at the Excel centre, London
Last night, the Metropolitan Police asked the MoS to hand over its dossier of evidence and would assess any ‘potential offences’.
The GPU ‘festival’, held at London’s Excel Centre, was broadcast live on a Sky satellite station called Islam Channel, which was also the main organiser.
During a seminar entitled Palestinians Are Humans, Not Heroes, one of the panellists, Lamis Deek, a Palestinian-American lawyer and activist, said: ‘October 7 was one of the most heroic, if not the most absolutely heroic, adventures against the most oppressive entity we have seen, not just in modern history, but in all history.’
Ms Deek, 48, added the atrocity made ‘more progress against the de-humanisation not just of Palestinians, but of Arabs and Muslims in one year than has been made in 40 years’.
Another speaker, Naema Aldaqsha, 30, a British-based activist, said the war in Gaza was ‘not conflict, but a colonial project’, and the death of Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli troops in Gaza last month, ‘makes Palestinians so proud of him as a person and so proud of their entity as Palestinians.’
Latifa Abouchakra, a journalist at the Iranian state-backed channel Press TV, said Palestinians were ‘justified a revenge, a retaliation, of such levels that will very easily annihilate the entity’.
She added that the October 7 attacks were ‘so beautiful, because you see a refugee population, under occupation… strike at the heart of the most advanced army in the world’.
Ms Abouchakra added: ‘Anyone who is not talking about armed resistance, as a pro-Palestinian organisation especially, they are all Zionists, cowards.’
Latifa Abouchakra, a journalist at the Iranian state-backed channel Press TV, said the October 7 attacks were ‘beautiful’
Jewish leaders expressed their horror at the comments. Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: ‘The comments demonstrate that for some, ‘global peace’ depends on the annihilation of Israel and its inhabitants. Questions must be asked as to how open support for terror was able to be promoted at a conference in our capital.’
Gideon Falter, of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: ‘Describing the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust as ‘heroic’ is the sort of rhetoric one would expect from a white supremacist. Today, this rhetoric comes from Islamists.’
A spokesman for Islam Channel said: ‘We were completely unaware of these comments until you brought them to our attention. The Global Peace & Unity Foundation does not condone violence and condemns all forms of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.’
When contacted for comment, Ms Deek, Ms Abouchakra and Ms Aldaqsha did not respond.
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