Quds Day and Other Iran-Related Protests Nationwide Platform Support for Terror, Conspiratorial Hate

Thousands of protesters, including many affiliated with prominent U.S. anti-Israel groups, have taken to the streets in hundreds of demonstrations since the start in late February 2026 of the U.S.-Israeli military operation against the Iranian regime. While many were framed as anti-war activism, these protests have frequently mixed in overtly antisemitic, conspiratorial, and pro-terror messaging with their condemnation of the U.S. and Israel.

This rhetoric culminated this past Friday during the March 13 Al-Quds Day demonstrations, bringing the conflict’s domestic dimension into sharper focus. (Al Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.) As the military operation enters its third week, the weekend rallies shifted the focus from supposed anti-war dissent to explicit veneration of the Iranian regime and its regional proxies.

In cities from New York to Houston, Quds Day events coupled defense of the Iranian regime with open support for designated terror organizations, explicit glorification of violence, and virulent antisemitism. In New York City, protesters paraded portraits of the recently assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while chanting "Marg bar America" and "Marg bar Israel" (Death to America; Death to Israel). Participants also invoked the "Khaybar" slogan — a chant that references the 7th-century battles in which Jewish communities in Arabia were subjugated and massacred. Today, the chant functions as a direct threat of violence against Jews.

This on-the-ground activity follows an immediate surge documented by the ADL Center on Extremism at the conflict’s outset of antisemitic and conspiratorial commentary across the ideological spectrum. These narratives have rapidly energized segments of the anti-war movement, delivering messaging that repackages classic antisemitic tropes for the current geopolitical moment.

 (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Protesters gather in Times Square in NYC for the annual Quds Day rally, held on the last Friday of Ramadan.

Key themes include claims that "Zionist actors" exercise illegitimate control over U.S. foreign policy and forced the U.S. into war. Some activists have weaponized the release of the Epstein files, claiming Israel and the U.S. engineered the conflict as a distraction from the scandal. In New York, displays featured the Israeli flag with Epstein’s image replacing the Star of David, while Houston protesters decried an "Epstein Axis vs. Resistance Axis." 

These claims linking Jewish “elites" to child exploitation and government control are being used to advance a conspiratorial worldview that mirrors the Iranian regime’s own antisemitic narratives.

Quds Day: Anti-U.S. Chants and the Export of Iranian State Ideology

Quds Day rallies were formally established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, drawing on an initial proposal from the Islamic Republic’s first foreign minister, Ebrahim Yazdi, to export the ideology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution by designating the last Friday of Ramadan as an annual, anti-Zionist day of protest across the Muslim world. These rallies have come to regularly serve as a global platform for antisemitic rhetoric and support for violence, in particular violence used by the regime and its proxies. 

At this year’s Quds Day protests, the atmosphere in some U.S. cities mirrored the Iranian regime’s state-sanctioned demonstrations. In addition to the “Death to America” chants, the rhetoric extended to the explicit endorsement of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and U.S.-designated terror organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Houthis (Ansar Allah).

In multiple cities, Quds Day protesters expressed their hope for Iran to inflict violence on U.S. and Israeli targets. In Chicago, attendees chanted “IRGC make us proud, bomb these genocidal clowns” and “Iran, Iran make us proud, turn another ship around.”

Speakers in both Chicago and New Yorkiv celebrated recent Iranian strikes on Israel as a continuation of the “heroic Al-Aqsa Flood,” Hamas’s name for its October 7, 2023, terror massacre across southern Israel.

In NYC, protesters chanted “We support Hamas here” and “We support Hezbollah here,” and carried a banner that read “Glory to the Axis of Resistance” that featured PFLP, Hezbollah, and Hamas logos alongside photos of Hamas figures like Yahya Sinwar and Abu Obaida, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and other terrorist leaders.

 (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A child joins protesters as they gather in Times Square for a Quds Day rally on March 13, 2026, in New York City. The sign reading ‘Israel weaker than a spider’s web’ is a reference to a comment by former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who frequently compared Israel to a spider's web to encourage further attacks.

Quds Day rallies also featured extreme characterization of Israel rooted in antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. Protesters used the recently released Epstein files as "proof" that Zionists control politics, are in cahoots with the ruling class, and that Israel and the Mossad are part and parcel with pedophilia. A speaker in New York City referenced “Operation Epstein Fury,” a conspiratorial rebranding of the official US name for its military operation in Iran, Operation Epic Fury.

Other Quds Day rally speakers referred to Zionism and Israel as a “cancer,” a comparison that echoes the language of the Iranian regime and plays into dehumanizing historical tropes that associate Jews with disease. A speaker in Houston stated, “There is a common cancer that’s behind every single war. This cancer is the Zionism.” In Chicago, a Quds Day rally speaker said Israel is a “cancer of oppression [that] needs to go.”

The rallies on Friday follow two weeks of events nationwide that have featured similar rhetoric. 

Antisemitic Tropes and Conspiracy Theories

On March 5, 2026, a collective of Washington, D.C.-area anti-Israel activists known to engage in openly antisemitic “street theatre” protests hosted a demonstration outside of the White House, incorporating a wide array of antisemitic and conspiratorial elements. Demonstrators donning masks of President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Jeffrey Epstein sat at a table and pantomimed “eating” babies and “drinking” blood; a menu labeled “Israel's Pedophile Blackmail Dinner” listed options like “cannibalism special,” “the smaller the better,” and “trafficking special”; and signs showed text and images connecting phrases such as “Epstein files” to “Gaza genocide,” “Hollywood,” and “Satanic elite.” 

This group of activists, led by Hazami Barmada and Atefeh Rokhvand, is known to engage in these types of provocative, openly antisemitic demonstrations. They were behind a notorious “Friendsgiving” demonstration outside of Union Station in D.C. in 2025 that drew significant media attention, and a months-long demonstration they dubbed “Kibbutz Blinken” outside of former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s northern Virginia home in 2024.

Some of those same D.C.-area activists also displayed explicitly antisemitic and conspiratorial signs about the military operations in Iran, Epstein, and Jared Kushner during a rush hour protest along a highway median in Tysons, Virginia, on March 4. Protesters there promoted numerous antisemitic tropes, including alleging that Jews control media and governments, are greedy and deceitful, and are secretly working to destroy America and harm Americans. 

Some signs referenced the false claim that the operation was launched for Israel’s benefit at the cost of American lives. “Let Goyim die for Israel; American taxpayers pay,” read one sign. The word “goyim,” a disparaging Yiddish and Hebrew word for non-Jews, is often used ironically by antisemites when depicting Jews as malevolent puppet-masters, manipulating the media, banks, and even entire governments to their benefit and to the detriment of others.

(Screenshot/Instagram)

A protester holds a sign with antisemitic language reading, “Let Goyim die for Israel; American taxpayers pay” and “Pro-Israel Pedophile billionaires secure the world America 1st destroyed,” on March 4, 2026, in Tysons, Virginia.

Language about Americans being forced to “die for Israel” is a common rhetorical trope that often surges in both overtly antisemitic and more mainstream spaces during conflicts between Israel and its adversaries.

In New York City, a protester participated in multiple protests against the military operations in Iran on February 28 and March 7 while carrying a sign that read “Operation Epstein Fury,” with imagery depicting dollar bills and drops of blood, Epstein’s face superimposed over a heart, and an American and Israeli flag.

(Screenshot/Instagram)

An antisemitic sign seen at multiple protests in New York City in late February and early March 2026 referencing “Operation Epstein Fury,” a conspiratorial rebranding of the official US name for its military operation in Iran, Operation Epic Fury.

In Santa Ana, California, on March 2, protesters displayed overtly antisemitic and pro-Iranian regime signs that read: “They can’t turn on a light during shabbat, but they can bomb a school #israhell #longlivetheislamicrepublic” and “‘Their leaders are killers & rapists while ours are revolutionaries’ #sayedkhameneiforever.”

(Screenshot/Instagram)

Antisemitic signs displayed by protesters in Santa Ana, California, on March 2, featuring overtly antisemitic and pro-Iranian regime messaging that included, “They can’t turn on a light during shabbat, but they can bomb a school #israhell #longlivetheislamicrepublic” and “‘Their leaders are killers & rapists while ours are revolutionaries’ #sayedkhameneiforever.”

Classic antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish political control featured on a sign at a Boise, Idaho, protest on March 7 that read: “Idaho’s politicians are Israel’s puppets” with puppet and burning money imagery.

The New York City, Santa Ana, and Boise protests were part of the national "day[s] of action" led by the ANSWER Coalition. Co-sponsors at the national or local levels included American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), CODEPINK, Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Green Party, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), The People’s Forum (TPF), and more.

Pro-Terror Messaging and Calls for Violence

On March 6, a coalition of left-wing anti-Israel groups hosted a “vigil” for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in New York City’s Washington Square Park. Materials promoting the vigil online and rhetoric on the ground at the event expressed unconditional support for terror and extreme calls for violence.

The protesters displayed images of Khamenei alongside materials that included a Hezbollah flag, a Hamas headband, a flag bearing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) logo, and a shirt featuring an image of Sinwar with the caption, “Sometimes history needs a push, a flood” (a reference to “Al-Aqsa Flood”).

Protesters chanted pro-terror and pro-violence slogans in Arabic and English that included "Khamenei, oh beloved: Strike, strike Tel Aviv" ["Khamenei, ya habib, edrab edrab Tel Aviv"]; "Al Qassam, oh beloved: Strike, strike Tel Aviv" ["Al Qassam, ya habib, edrab edrab Tel Aviv"]; "Al Qassam, you make us proud; Kill another soldier now"; "Death, death to the IDF"; "U.S. drones in the sky, Iran’s missiles will reply"; and "From the belly of the beast, we will honor Khamenei."

One of the protest leaders engaged in a call-and-response from the crowd with the phrases: "We mourn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, we mourn IRGC General Qasem Soleimani, and we mourn President Ebrahim Raisi...We stand in full solidarity with the IRGC…Resisting Zionism, resisting US imperialism, through armed struggle — the highest form of struggle...We defend their right to resist by any means necessary.”

That protest was hosted by a coalition of far-left anti-Israel groups, including Bronx Anti-War Coalition (BAWC), Crown Heights Bites Back (CHBB), Arm the Dollz, Bronx Mutual Aid, NYC Anti-Repression Group, Palaver Collective, Proliberated Freedom Campaign, and Sudanese Resistance Front (SuRF). A “vigil” for Hezbollah leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine in Washington Square Park in February 2025 involved some of these same groups.

(Screenshot/Instagram) 

The announcement for the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, protest on March 9, 2026, featured imagery of the notoriously antisemitic banner of the Houthis that reads, in part, "Death to America, Death to Israel, A curse Upon the Jews" in Arabic.

 

Pro-terror and pro-violence messaging also featured prominently at a March 9 protest in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Rittenhouse Square. Protesters carried photographs of Khamenei and Soleimani, with each image also bearing a large text caption in Arabic that read, “Death to America,” and waved flags with images of Yahya Sinwar and Abu Obaida.

As they marched, the protesters chanted numerous extreme slogans, including: “Keep bombing Tel Aviv”; “Hezbollah/Resistance/Iran, you make us proud; Take another soldier out”; “Land of the free, home of the brave; Iran will send you to your grave”; “Iran, we’re with you, send your bombs and missiles too”; “No peace, no harmony; Burn the settler colony”; “Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]” and “Death, death to the IOF [‘Israel Occupation Forces’]” (a name often used by anti-Israel activists to denounce the IDF); “Crush the settler Zionist state”; and many others.

The protest was organized by groups known for sponsoring anti-Israel protests that incorporate extreme rhetoric and terror group paraphernalia, including the Philly Palestine Coalition, Workers World Party (WWP) Philly, and Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) Philly.