American “Global March to Jerusalem” Activist Interviewed by Hezbollah

During an interview last week with Hezbollah’s satellite television station Al-Manar, Sarah Ann Marusek, an American organizer of the upcoming “Global March to Jerusalem” (GMJ), discussed the goals of the campaign.    

Marusek told Al-Manar that her participation in the GMJ is intended to “not only to provoke the American government, but to provoke those Americans who claim to support the Palestinians while at the same time support a solution that eliminates the right of refugees to return.”

Marusek added, “Decision makers in the U.S. are living in fear because of the Zionist lobby; if they made a decision that supports the Palestinians, they will be condemned and lose their jobs and the support they have.”

The interview with Al-Manar followed a press conference at the Journalists Union in Beirut, Lebanon, which was attended by various Palestinian militant factions in Lebanon. Hassan Zaidan, head of the Committee to Support the Resistance in Palestine, a group closely associated with Hezbollah, spoke before Marusek, stating that “to count on Western and American intentions in order to free Jerusalem and achieve the return of refugees is pathetic.”  

Marusek is currently a PhD candidate Syracuse University and a political analyst for Iran’s English-language propaganda television station Press TV. She maintains a website that offers English translation of Hassan Nasrallah speeches.

Marusek also works with the Right to Return Committee in Lebanon, which co-organized a July 2011 rally with Hezbollah in Mar Ilias refugee camp in Lebanon to honor wounded Palestinians who participated in the May 2011 “Nakba day” march. The march was organized in part on social networking sites calling for a “Third Palestinian Intifada,” or violent uprising against the State of Israel.

Revealing Images of “Global March to Jerusalem” in Tehran

The Union of Islamic World Students, an international Iranian government sponsored student group, released pictures on its website of the Asian delegation of the Global March to Jerusalem’s (GMJ) visit to Tehran last week.

The delegation left Indonesia on March 10 and plans to cross Israel’s borders and enter Jerusalem on March 30. The Asian delegation met with the president of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during its visit.

The pictures were taken during the delegation’s visit to the former U.S. embassy building in Tehran, which was raided in 1979 by the Islamic revolution supporters. Below are two pictures:  

GMJ members use images of Israeli officials with crosshairs superimposed over their faces as dartboards. Officials included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and President Shimon Peres.



A child wearing a Hezbollah cap at a reception for the GMJ delegation at the former U.S. embassy building.



Senior Iranian Officials Endorse “Global March to Jerusalem”

The Asian wing of the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) arrived Saturday in Tehran, where a delegation from the convoy met with the president of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Asia GMJ convoy began its journey to Iran in Indonesia on March 10.

According to Iranian news sources, Larijani welcomed the delegation of 120 convoy members and affirmed Iran’s supportive stance towards the Palestinian cause. “We as Iranians, cannot ignore the Palestinian issue,” he said, adding, “The Palestinian people have their legitimate rights; the West and America instead of recognizing these rights are trying to obliterate and ignore them.”

Iran’s controversial nuclear program was among the topics Larijani discussed with the delegation. Accusing “the enemies” of Iran of deliberately generating an international outcry over the program, he asserted, “The U.S. is wrong if it believes that it can still impose its domination over Muslim countries, because Muslims have been awakened and the recent revolutions are an example of this Islamic Awakening.” Larijani also rejected homosexuality as immoral and deviant, charging that “the world is heading towards the end because of them.” Challenging Western criticism of Iran’s human rights record, he added, “[The enemies] accuse us of not taking human rights into account, while they ignore human rights violations committed by their cronies in the [Gulf] region.”

On Sunday, GMJ members held a brief meeting with Ahmadinejad, where he described the GMJ as a “historic movement.”

“Global March to Jerusalem” Meets With Militant Islamic Group in Lebanon

GMJ Meeting at Ain Al-Hilwa

The Lebanon Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem held a meeting last week at Ain Al-Hilwa Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon with representatives of various Palestinian factions, including members of militant group Anssarullah, according to the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon website.

Anssarullah, reportedly a “religious radical group” with a few hundred fighters in its membership, has been described by some observers as a Palestinian faction loyal to Hezbollah inside Ain Al-Hilwa. Its first reported attack took place in 2003 when two of its members, Hassan Suleiman and Ayman Zaidan, were reportedly killed in a suicide raid on an American convoy in Iraq.

The Global March to Jerusalem campaign seeks to coordinate efforts by international activists to cross Israel’s borders on March 30, 2012, and enter Jerusalem to “demand [its] freedom.” The campaign’s North American chapter, which is accepting tax-exempt donations through the California-based Free Palestine Movement, stated on its website that their “legal advisers in US have determined that it is better for them to operate separately from the main coalition.”

The Ain Al-Hilwa meeting was also attended by leaders representing the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Islamic Brigades and the Palestinian Alliance. During the meeting, Isam Halabi, Secretary General of the Gathering of Palestinian Martyrs, said “it is important to hold activities in support of our people inside the homeland who are facing an extermination war.”

Anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon to Speak at "Global March to Jerusalem" Benefit in Oakland

Update: The Malonga Center decided not to host the event because of a permit issue and the event was ultimately held at a nearby Islamic Cultural Center.”

Gilad Atzmon, an anti-Semitic author, writer and musician based in London, is scheduled to speak in Oakland, California, on February 25, at a “benefit for the Global March to Jerusalem – North America.”

According to a flyer publicizing the event, Atzmon will appear with Dennis Bernstein, producer and co-host of KPFA news program, Flashpoints Radio, at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, which is administered by the City of Oakland and its Department of Parks and Recreation.

The “Global March to Jerusalem” campaign seeks to coordinate efforts by activists from around the world to cross Israel’s borders and enter Jerusalem to “demand [its] freedom” on March 30, 2012. The “Global March to Jerusalem” Facebook page is rife with anti-Semitic and other extreme content. 

While Atzmon rejects being characterized as an anti-Semite, the following remarks from his writings reveal an almost obsessive hatred of Jews and Jewish identity.

·    “Tolerance, democracy and liberalism, are foreign to Jewish political precepts which are all racially orientated and supremacist to the bone.”

·     “I like to fight alone; I take responsibility. Along the years, there have been a lot attempts to destroy the few of us who have stood up against Jewish power.”

·     “We are all subject to Zionist global politics. According to my model, the credit crunch is in fact a Zionist ‘punch’.”

·     “Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus.”

·     “If the Left wants to stop Israel for real, then it must openly question the notion of Jewish Power and its role within Western politics and media. But can the Left do it? I am not so sure.”

·     “I'm not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.”

Rampant Anti-Semitism on “March to Jerusalem” Facebook Page

Update – February 14, 2012: Gilad Atzmon, an anti-Semitic author, writer and musician, is scheduled to speak in Oakland, California, on February 25, at a “benefit for the Global March to Jerusalem – North America.”

The Facebook page of the “Global March to Jerusalem” campaign, which is coordinating efforts by activists to cross Israel’s borders and enter Jerusalem to “demand [its] freedom,” is rife with anti-Semitic and other extreme content.

The designated date for the “Global March to Jerusalem” (GMJ) is March 30, 2012, or “Land Day,” which commemorates six Israeli Arabs who were killed while protesting against Israeli soldiers in 1976.

The Facebook page features what it describes as “worldwide Jewish lobby news,” which links to an anti-Semitic Web site that features Holocaust denial. One of the news items reposted to the Facebook page calls Tel Aviv’s status as a gay-friendly destination consistent with “historical Jewish efforts to spread corruption and perversion among all human societies.”

In early January, a poll was posted on the GMJ Facebook page with the question, “Are what the Zionists doing to Palestine and its people with expulsion and killing similar to Hitler’s Holocaust?” The poll choices were, “Yes,” “No,” or “Even Worse.” 

Among the extreme comments found on the page is one that reads: “We will not go to Jerusalem as if we are going to Paris or as if we are going for tourism…This is our land. This is our country and we shall return to it through blood and martyrs. We will liberate it from the Jewish impurity by God’s will…By God we shall not enter it other than conquerors, this is God’s promise and God shall not forsake his promise.”

The administrator of the page posted a picture of the Ka’aba [the holiest shrine for Muslims] in Mecca with the message, “The alarm bells are ringing for over 65 years…the Zionist entity is demanding Jewish property in Saudi Arabia dating to the prophet’s time.”