Protesters on the Place du Chatelet in Paris demonstrating against Israel, April 1, 2017. (Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Amid deadly rioting in the West Bank, the Paris branch of the far-left Antifa organization appeared to call for Israel’s destruction and for violent protests in that city against the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The call to arms by the Antifa organization in Paris, or Antifascist Action by its full name, came Friday amid rioting in Israel and the West Bank over President Donald Trump’s declaration two days earlier on Jerusalem. At least one Palestinian was killed and 100 others were injured during clashes with Israeli trips.
Palestinian, Arab and European leaders had warned that the Jerusalem proclamation would trigger riots.
Noting that CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, “is asking President Emmanuel Macron to also recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, we can strike a blow against the imperialist West from within the belly of the beast,” the Paris Antifa group wrote in a call on Facebook inviting supporters to a demonstration at Republique square on Saturday “against the colonization of Jerusalem.”
The invitation ended with the words “Al Quds belongs to the Palestinians, Palestine stretches from the sea to the Jordan River.”
Macron has said that France “does not approve” of Trump’s policy on Jerusalem.
Israel’s western maritime border is the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan is its eastern border. Al Quds is the Arabic-language name that many Arabs use to refer to Jerusalem.
In 2014, dozens of Arab men besieged 150 congregants at a Paris synagogue during a wave of riots over Israel’s strikes in Gaza against Hamas.
On Thursday, a man waving a Palestinian flag was arrested outside a kosher restaurant in Amsterdam after he broke its windows and forced his way in as passers-by and two police officers looked on. The man, a 29-year-old with a temporary residence permit, has been released pending further investigation of his actions, police said.
Palestinian medical services recorded hundreds of injuries in total on Thursday and Friday in the riots in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, including a total of nine due to live ammunition in Ramallah and Gaza, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported. The fatality, a 30-year-old man, occurred near Gaza’s border with Israel, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, hundreds demonstrated outside the U.S. embassies on Friday to protest the Jerusalem recognition.
