The Central Council of Jews in Germany and several other organisations, including the STOP THE BOMB campaign, have called for a ban on the anti-Semitic ‘Al Quds’ march in Berlin on Saturday as it calls for the destruction of Israel.

The so-called "Al-Quds Day" (Quds = Arabic for Jerusalem) was established in 1979 by the Iranian revolutionary leader Khomeini as a political struggle for the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of Israel. It is held every year at the end of Ramadan. In Berlin, too, participants call for the destruction of Israel and wave flags of Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group. is called for.

Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called it "shameful" that the Al-Quds Day rally would again be allowed to go ahead in Berlin. He urged Berliners to join a counter-protest.

Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community in Munich, said the fact that such a rally could take place on German streets 70 years after the Holocaust was a sign that the fight against anti-Semitism was not led robustly enough.

Ulrike Becker, spokeswoman for STOP THE BOMB, sated that ''Islamic associations promoting Islamism and anti-Semitism and participating in calls for the annihilation of Israel are courted by politics. The (German) state support for Islamic associations, which are controlled by Iran, is de facto an aid to Islamism and must cease both in domestic policy and in foreign policy," she said. ​

The Berlin state government decided to ban Hezbollah symbols to be shown at rally. The Berlin Interior Minister, Frank Henkel, acting on the advice of the police, said that the flags would be added to the propaganda material whose public display was prohibited during the al-Quds Day parade.

"The display of these flags and symbols can be tantamount to incitement to hate, in that they prompt people to chant hate slogans against a part of the population, namely Jewish fellow citizens,” said Thomas Neudendorf, spokesperson for the Berlin police.