Mick Hartley

From MEMRI TV:

British Islamic scholar Asrar Rashid spoke at a March for Palestine organized by the Workers Party of Britain in Birmingham on July 12, 2025. He said that Palestinian armed struggle is justified because they are resisting oppression and the “banker state” of Israel. Rashid stated that Muslims take up armed struggle and are not ashamed of it, as the concept of Jihad exists in the Quran.

He said there have been attempts to “malign” Jihad by equating “real Jihad” groups with terrorists, explaining that this has existed since 9/11 through Al-Qaeda, “which was formulated by the West” for this purpose. Rashid called on the British government to arrest those in the Israeli embassy in the UK, but he said they will not do so because “they control your capital, they control your finance, they write down the policies for you.”

Other speakers at the march included former British MP George Galloway, musician Lowkey, and sociologist David Miller.

He certainly knows which buttons to push before he sets off on his jihad rant: the “banker state” of Israel….“they control your capital, they control your finance".

Did none of the young Workers Party members wonder, just for a moment, what they were doing cheering on this relentless antisemitic bile, coming from such a reactionary, misogynist, would-be theocrat? Well no – that's what they were there for. George Galloway, Lowkey, David Miller.

The absolute state of the British left…