Berlin cancels auto show for Iran rally to destroy Israel

The “Classic Days” auto show in Berlin’s main shopping district was cancelled because “the anti-Jewish Al-Quds day demonstration was permitted by the authorities at the same time.”

BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

FEBRUARY 23, 2020 03:15
Cars of the Iranian delegation are parked outside a building of the at Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing, 2018 (photo credit: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS)
Cars of the Iranian delegation are parked outside a building of the at Diaoyutai state guesthouse in Beijing, 2018 (photo credit: THOMAS PETER/REUTERS)

Berlin authorities pulled the plug on a scheduled  May Old-Timer auto show in favor of an Iranian regime rally  that calls for the obliteration of the Jewish state.

The B.Z. paper reported on Saturday that the “Classic Days” auto show in Berlin’s main shopping district was cancelled because “the anti-Jewish Al-Quds day demonstration was permitted by the authorities at the same time.”

The “Classic Days” organizer Frank Peppel told the paper that on May 16 a hate demonstration will take place. “It’s a shame for Berlin,” said Peppel, adding “Several hundred thousand visitors have to give way to radicals who protest against Jews.”

Peppel told the paper that he applied for a permit in May 2019 for the Classic Days and heard nothing from the authorities for six months. In early January, the authorities told him that the Al Quds Day has priority.

The founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, launched the Al Quds Day in 1979 calling for the destruction of Israel. Al Quds is the Arabic word for Jerusalem. The Berlin Al Quds demonstration has been held each year since 1996 in the capital.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Berlin mayor Michael Müller have ignored appeals over the years from the Israeli and American governments, as well as Germany’s Jewish community, to ban the antisemitic rally.

The Jerusalem Post reported that in 2019, Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, spoke at a demonstration against the al-Quds march attended by some 400 people. He wrote on Twitter: “Speaking in Berlin against the Al Quds Day and its Iranian sponsors. This blatantly antisemitic and hateful event should be banned. Iran as the leading sponsor of terror, a serial abuser of human rights that seeks to undermine any chance for ME [Middle East] peace has no place in Berlin.”

Al Quds in Berlin is attended by members and supporters of the EU and US designated terrorist organizations Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In addition to the operatives from Iran’s chief proxy, Hezbollah, German neo-Nazis have participated in the event.

Germany’s government refuses to ban all of Hezbollah in the federal republic, where 1,050 Hezbollah members and supporters raise funds and recruit new members, according to German intelligence reports reviewed by the Post.

The Federal Republic has merely banned Hezbollah’s so-called “military wing” in Germany. The Arab League, Israel, Britain, the US, Canada, and many Latin American countries have classified Hezbollah’s entire movement a terrorist entity.

In January, President Reuven Rivlin urged Germany during his Bundestag speech to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day to outlaw all of Hezbollah.

Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism/Berlin-cancels-auto-show-for-Iran-rally-to-destroy-Israel-618447.