British Islamist rhetoric crossed a dangerous line in late January when a Birmingham-based cleric publicly called for the destruction of Israel’s democratic institutions and the seizure of one of its major cities. In a video posted on January 24, Shaykh Asrar Rashid did not speak in slogans or abstractions. He named targets, demanded outcomes, and framed his language as a religious obligation. At a moment when antisemitism is surging across Europe and Jewish communities are under increasing threat, Rashid’s words deserve to be examined carefully, factually, and without euphemism.
Speaking from Birmingham, Rashid declared that Muslims must prioritize the dismantling of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, over opposition to the Iranian regime. He went further, explicitly calling for the “re-occupation” of Tel Aviv by Palestinians. This was not careless phrasing. Tel Aviv is not “disputed territory,” not a settlement, and not land captured in war. Founded in 1909, north of Jaffa, Tel Aviv was established on land with no Arab villages and no Arab ownership claims. It was built by Jews, legally purchased, developed, and continuously inhabited as a Jewish city. To describe Tel Aviv as “re-occupied” is to erase history and replace it with ideological fantasy.
Rashid’s claim regarding Tel Aviv collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Long before 1948 CE, Tel Aviv was already a thriving Hebrew city, with Jewish schools, newspapers, cultural institutions, and self-governance. It absorbed Jewish refugees from Arab pogroms in Jaffa in the 1920s and 1930s, when Jews were murdered and expelled from mixed cities. There is no legal, historical, or moral framework under which Tel Aviv can be described as Arab land. The demand to “re-occupy” it is a call to ethnic cleansing, plain and simple.
This video does not exist in isolation. Rashid has a long record of incendiary and openly antisemitic statements. He previously argued that Israel should have been established in Germany because, in his words, “Germany killed the Jews, not the Palestinian Muslim.” This statement does not merely distort history. It absolves centuries of Islamic antisemitism and reframes Jewish self-determination as collective punishment imposed on Muslims, rather than as the restoration of an indigenous people to its homeland.
In 2007 CE, Rashid drew international attention when governments in Pakistan and Iran protested his public positions, including his call for Muslims not to serve in the British armed forces because of Britain’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. More recently, footage emerged of Rashid threatening Maccabi Tel Aviv fans ahead of a scheduled match against Aston Villa. Speaking in Amsterdam on October 1, he warned, “When the Tel Aviv fans come to Birmingham in a few weeks, we will not show them rahma (mercy) in Birmingham.” This was not a theological critique. It was a threat.
When the video circulated and public concern mounted, Rashid doubled down. On X, he defended himself by referring to IDF soldiers as “shameless murderous foul beings” and dismissed criticism as “Judeo-Christian Zionist propaganda,” claiming the clip was spread by “Mossad MEMRI TV.” This language is standard in extremist discourse: dehumanization, conspiracy accusations, and the targeting of Jews as a collective.
Rashid is not a fringe internet personality shouting into the void. He serves as the resident scholar at the South Birmingham Central Masjid and commands a substantial online audience, with tens of thousands of followers across platforms. His words carry weight, and his fixation on Tel Aviv and the Knesset reveals something crucial. This is not about borders, policies, or governments. It is about denying the legitimacy of any Jewish sovereignty, anywhere in the Land of Israel.
Calls to dismantle the Knesset and seize Tel Aviv are not political speech. They are incitement. They erase history, legitimize violence, and place Jewish lives at risk in Europe and beyond. There is nothing symbolic or theoretical about them. They are direct assaults on the Jewish right to live as a free nation in its own land, including in cities that were Jewish before the modern conflict even began.
Strong words are necessary here because the threat is real. Jewish sovereignty in Israel is not temporary, negotiable, or dependent on the approval of Islamist ideologues in Birmingham. It is rooted in history, law, and covenant. Those who call for its destruction are not challenging a policy. They are declaring war on an unmovable reality.
