Dueling protests remain peaceful Friday night at City Hall

Police say two opposing protests were largely uneventful after roughly two hours of demonstrating on Municipal Plaza.

The site was originally given to the Al-Quds rally, a group demanding peace for the oppressed and protesting what they see as the “Zionist occupation” of Palestine.

Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem and it’s typically held on the last day of Ramadan.

A second group which involved members of the Jewish Defense League and the Worldwide Coalition Against Islam or WCAI Canada protested what they called a “hatefest” being allowed to take place on municipal property.

In between the two gatherings was the Calgary Police and its Public Safety Unit.

Each time a person from one group tried to approach the other they were confronted and turned away by an officer in uniform.

Al-Quds organizer Riyaz Khawaja says some of the anti-Islam posts on social media kept some of their participants from coming into the core.

Overall they were happy with the response.

“It’s not just Palestinian people but all the oppressed people around the globe,” he said. “The country we live in, we have a right to speak, we didn’t have any concerns that they (the JDL) would be here, the only concern was nobody gets violent.”

Khawaja says they have no problem with the Jewish or Israeli people but the government and Zionist forces who are killing Palestinian people are no better than Daesh or Isis.

“I requested to them (the JDL) to stay and listen to what we’re talking about because you cannot make assumptions,” he said.

“We have to look at the deep roots into who is supporting the operation and who is supporting terrorism, this city is united and can stay peaceful forever,” said Khawaja.

Jewish Defense League President Don Sharpe disagreed with the Al-Quds rally calling it a hatefest and told reporters anti-Semitism is on the rise in Calgary.

His chapter opened in the city within the last year to combat what they see as the rapid increase of anti-Semitism.

“Quds day is a hate rally sponsored and created by the Ayatollah in Iran, the only purpose of this rally was to inspire hatred against Jews,” he said. “This is a jew hatred rally, they can disguise it as anything they want, but that’s what it is.”

Sharpe says the people that make up his group are normal Calgarians and to permit this type of hatefest in a public plaza is insane.

“We’ll always show up to confront this kind of hatred,” he said. “We do pro-rallies all the time, the reason there is no Jewish festival in the centre of the city every year is because it’s not safe.”

He says they’re not standing on the sidewalk because they were afraid of being run over and “Jew-hatred” is real.

“These pro-Palestinian protestors will tell you that they’re victimized but it’s simply not the case, not in anywhere near the numbers the Jewish community is.”

After an hour, the JDL group left the plaza to the Al-Quds group.

Both men believe they got their message across.