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Announced as a “mass demonstration,” the rally on September 26, 2026, in Düsseldorf fell far short of expectations in terms of numbers. In terms of content, it was far less harmless: The monitoring project DEMOC documented conspiracy rhetoric about alleged “Zionist control” of Germany, the equation of Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto, the slogan “Israel is Arab” and religiously charged insults directed at Israelis. WDR additionally reported a genocide accusation from the stage, insults, an assault and prohibited symbols. What presented itself here as solidarity with Palestine clearly crossed the line into antisemitic and Islamist agitation at several points.
Nationwide mobilization used the slogan “We will not forget Gaza” and the addition “Back to the Roots,” in German “Zurück zu den Wurzeln.” The Berlin initiative hayhat explicitly advertised its own bus trip to Düsseldorf as a journey to the “Mass demonstration – Back to the roots.” According to the WDR reporter on site 5,000 participants had registered for the march. At times, police had expected up to 15,000. These are two different figures: 5,000 were registered, while up to 15,000 were expected by the authorities.
Am 26. September 2026 fand in Düsseldorf eine israelfeindliche Demonstration statt. Angemeldet waren 5.000 Personen, tatsächlich kamen nur wenige hundert. Auf Schildern wurde Gaza mit dem Warschauer Ghetto gleichgesetzt. Ein Berliner Redner bezeichnete Israelis als „Schweine“. pic.twitter.com/eVsSL277WL
— democ (@democ_de) September 29, 2026
In fact, according to the Düsseldorf police the demonstration reached around 800 participants at its peak, and thus only a fraction of the expected scale. Which organization constituted the entire network of organizers behind the mobilization remained publicly unclear. The Tagesspiegel reported, citing media reports and information from the authorities, that the demonstration had formally been registered by a private individual with a German name.
The announced mass mobilization thus failed. That does not, however, make the political content disappear. On the contrary: The speeches, banners and slogans documented by the DEMOC monitoring project show an environment in which hatred of Israel, antisemitic conspiracy patterns, Islamist identity politics and the instrumentalization of the Holocaust intersect.
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Aus dem SCHLAGSEITE X-ArchivThe journey there already spoke volumes
The political environment was evident even before the stage program. In the run-up, what appeared to be an AI-generated promotional poster circulated for a joint journey from Berlin to Düsseldorf on a so-called “Intifada bus.” Among others, Tagesspiegel and BILD reported on it. The poster announced that women and men were to travel separately. Beside it was the sentence: “You call them terrorists, we call them resistance.”
The attribution must be kept precise: Tagesspiegel was unable to independently verify either the originators or the authenticity of the appeal, or its direct connection to the actual organization of the demonstration. The poster is therefore not proof that the official registrant issued these messages. But it does document which vocabulary circulated in the environment surrounding the mobilization. “Intifada,” terrorism as “resistance” and gender separation on a single promotional image are a fairly clear political calling card.
“Peaceful” describes the operational situation, not the content
The police’s final press release summarized the day’s demonstrations as predominantly peaceful and without any special incidents. That describes the overall operational situation. It does not mean that there were no incidents at all.
WDR reported, citing the police verbal altercations and insults between participants in the demonstration and counterprotesters, particularly at Graf-Adolf-Platz. An assault was also recorded. According to WDR, partially prohibited symbols were displayed at the closing rally. Police prohibited their display and filed reports.
There were two counter-events, each with slightly more than 100 participants. Police kept the different camps apart with a large deployment. A counter-banner bearing the words “Palestine, shut up” additionally caused friction. The fact that this did not result in a larger escalation does not undo the specific violations.
Antisemitism does not require a paving stone. Islamist agitation does not require a burning barricade. A demonstration can proceed without street battles and still spread content that is antisemitic, conspiratorial or Islamist.
This distinction is precisely what matters in Düsseldorf.
“Zionist control”: Antisemitic conspiracy narrative
According to the DEMOC documentation on site a speaker called for “freedom for Germany” and suggested that Germany was subject to alleged “Zionist control.” A political debate about Germany’s support for Israel is thereby transformed into a conspiracy narrative about hidden Zionist power.
This pattern is by no means new. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition expressly lists conspiracy notions about alleged Jewish control of governments, the media, the economy or other social institutions as a possible example of manifestations of antisemitism. Germany has supported this working definition since 2017.
Anyone claiming that Germany’s political decisions are the result of “Zionist control” is not simply criticizing foreign policy. They are drawing on the old notion that a hidden Jewish or Zionist power stands behind democratic institutions. The vocabulary has been modernized. The conspiracy pattern has not.
Criticism of Germany’s Israel policy is of course possible. The claim that Germany is subject to hidden “Zionist control” is something else: It shifts the debate away from specific political decisions toward a conspiratorial image of power.
“Gaza = Warsaw Ghetto”: The Holocaust is turned against Israel
According to the DEMOC documentation participants carried a banner reading “Gaza = Warsaw Ghetto.” The comparison places current Israeli policy in a direct conceptual line with the Nazi policy of extermination and ghettoization.
The Warsaw Ghetto was a central site of Nazi persecution. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were deprived of their rights there, starved, deported and ultimately, for the most part, murdered. Turning its history into a political instrument of comparison against the Jewish state blurs the historical particularity of the Nazi murder of the Jews while simultaneously reversing images of perpetrators and victims.
Here too, the antisemitic dimension is not some arbitrary political attribution. The IHRA expressly names the comparison of current Israeli policy with that of the Nazis as a possible example of antisemitism.
One can criticize Israel’s government. One can criticize military decisions. No one needs the Warsaw Ghetto for that. Anyone who nevertheless reaches for precisely this image chooses the maximum historical demonization of the Jewish state.
“Israel is Arab”: Slogan against Israel’s right to exist
Among the slogans documented by DEMOC was “Israel is Arab.” DEMOC interprets it as a denial of the existence of the State of Israel. Regardless of what specific political idea each individual chanter associated with it, the decisive difference is obvious: This was not criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu, a coalition, a law or a specific military operation.
The statement is directed at the identity of the state itself.
Israel is the Jewish state and an expression of Jewish national self-determination. The IHRA also names the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination as a possible example of antisemitism. Anyone who replaces political criticism with the linguistic dissolution of Israel leaves the level of ordinary criticism of a government.
From the Middle East conflict to religiously charged enemy labeling
According to DEMOC, the rhetoric was not limited to political slogans. According to the monitoring documentation a speaker from Berlin referred to Israelis indiscriminately as “pigs” and subjected them to religious-moral condemnations. He also asked Allah to grant victory to Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
This shifts the level of discourse. A specific political conflict becomes a religiously charged juxtaposition of collectives. Israelis no longer appear as citizens of a state with differing political views, but are collectively degraded on moral grounds.
That is precisely one of the dangers of such mobilization: People are not judged according to their actions but assigned to a hostile collective. Israel is no longer treated as a political opponent but as the morally corrupt counterpart of a religiously defined community.
hayhat, Iranian flags and the strange concept of freedom
According to DEMOC’s documentation, numerous flags of the Islamic Republic of Iran were visible at the demonstration. One group visibly involved in the mobilization was the Berlin initiative hayhat. On its own website it describes itself as an open initiative for humanity, freedom and peace founded in 2026, and explicitly promoted a joint bus trip to Düsseldorf’s “Mass demonstration – Back to the roots.”
DEMOC classifies hayhat by contrast as part of the pro-regime Iranian exile spectrum, dates its founding to spring 2026 and describes the group as a supporter of the Islamic Republic and an organizer of events hostile to Israel. This assessment comes from DEMOC’s monitoring and is not a finding by the police or a security agency.
The initiative mobilized for Düsseldorf, among other things, with “Free Palestine,” “Free Lebanon,” “Hands off Iran” and “Hands off Yemen.” Gaza was thus embedded in a larger political narrative even before the event, one in which several conflicts and states are linked into a common resistance narrative.
The contradiction is plain to see: Freedom and human dignity are invoked while flags of an Islamist regime are simultaneously carried through Düsseldorf. One can formulate this in complicated terms. But one can also state that freedom apparently becomes a remarkably elastic concept as soon as Tehran enters the picture.
Hanna Hansen and the Salafist environment
According to DEMOC, Hanna Hansen also took part in the demonstration. This must be distinguished from her role in the mobilization. Media had already reported beforehand that Hansen had promoted the rally on social networks. This does not mean that she organized the demonstration, nor that she was responsible for its entire ideological orientation.
Her classification within the Salafist spectrum, by contrast, is officially documented. The 2025 North Rhine-Westphalia Office for the Protection of the Constitution reportdescribes Hansen as currently Germany’s most far-reaching Salafist influencer. He describes how, within a short period of time, she developed into a significant activist in the Islamist scene and established contacts with Islamist institutions, groups and Salafist actors.
The North Rhine-Westphalian state government had already described Hansen in 2025, in an answer to the state parliament as an extremist-Salafist influencer and defining figure in the corresponding scene.
Her participation does not automatically make every demonstrator an Islamist. Such a blanket generalisation would be wrong. But it does show that the event was accessible to actors from the Salafist spectrum. Together with the religious speeches, the ummah rhetoric, the Iranian regime symbols and the documented slogans, this is not an insignificant detail.
On stage: Genocide accusation and weapons charge
Independently of DEMOC, the WDR also documented the political rhetoric on stage. One speaker accused Israel of “the worst genocide of this century”.
Wa’el Jaber of the Palestine Alliance NRW explicitly directed the accusation at Germany as well. According to WDR, he said: “We supply Israel with weapons, knowing that it uses them to kill Palestinians.” This means that at least this part of the rhetoric from the stage is not known solely from a monitoring report, but was independently documented by a public-service broadcaster’s on-site report.
Ongoing proceedings before the ICJ are not a genocide judgment
The accusation of genocide is made with maximum certainty. Legally, this certainty does not exist.
South Africa is pursuing proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice over alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. These proceedings have not been concluded. In an order dated 21 May 2026, the Court set further deadlines: South Africa has until 22 November 2027 to submit its reply, and Israel until 22 May 2029 to submit its rejoinder.
This does not mean that the accusation may not be made or examined legally. It means something much simpler: an accusation is not a judgment. The International Court of Justice has not yet ruled that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Anyone who turns an ongoing legal dispute into an established fact from a demonstration stage is not practising legal precision. They are engaging in political mobilisation using one of the most serious terms in international law.
ℹ️ Legal status
The proceedings South Africa v. Israel before the International Court of Justice are continuing. As of 29 September 2026, there is no final judgment on the alleged violation of the Genocide Convention.
The convenient shield of “criticism of Israel” does not work here
Anyone who wants to avoid any discussion of such slogans by saying that this is simply particularly sharp “criticism of Israel” is taking the easy way out.
Criticism of Israel is directed at decisions, governments, laws, social developments or military measures. It can be sharp, polemical and even unfair without automatically becoming antisemitic.
An alleged “Zionist control” of Germany, Nazi comparisons, blanket religious insults against Israelis and slogans aimed at abolishing Jewish self-determination work differently. Here, Israel is not being criticised like any other state. The Jewish state is demonised, portrayed as a conspiratorial power factor or fundamentally delegitimised.
Stating these differences is not a restriction on political criticism. It is the prerequisite for being able to distinguish political criticism from antisemitism in the first place.
March on 26 September 2026: Far smaller than expected
The attempt to turn Düsseldorf into a nationwide “mass demonstration” failed. Instead of the 5,000 registered and, at times, up to 15,000 expected participants, around 800 people attended at the peak.
The scale of this decline is also shown by looking at the previous year. At another major pro-Palestinian demonstration in Düsseldorf on 27 September 2025, police counted up to 12,000 participants, according to WDR. The comparison does not make the two events the same. But it does show that mobilisation in September 2026 was significantly smaller.
Nevertheless, one should not be reassured by the low number of participants. Political extremism does not become insignificant merely because seats on buses remain empty at a single event.
What matters is which ideas become publicly acceptable. In Düsseldorf, the notion of alleged Zionist foreign control, Holocaust relativisation, the delegitimisation of Israel, religiously based enemy labelling and actors from Islamist milieus were not hidden somewhere at the margins of a digital platform. They stood at the centre of a real political demonstration in a major German city.
This is the real finding from Düsseldorf: not every participant was an Islamist, and not every criticism of Israel is antisemitic. But where, according to documented observation, the Shoah is turned against the Jewish state, “Zionist control” is invoked, Israelis are collectively insulted and Israel’s Jewish existence is delegitimised, the term “criticism of Israel” is no longer an explanation. It becomes a cover for something that must be called by its name: antisemitic and Islamist agitation.
The announced mass march failed to materialise. The documented ideology did not disappear as a result. Düsseldorf shows how easily antisemitic conspiracy patterns, hostility towards Israel and Islamist rhetoric can come together under the label of “solidarity with Palestine”.
ℹ️ Factual basis and primary sources for the article 📑
▶️ Düsseldorf Police:
Assessment of the gatherings of 26 September 2026
Official information on the number of participants and the overall course of the gatherings.
▶️ Westdeutscher Rundfunk:
Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Düsseldorf significantly smaller than expected
On-site report on participant numbers, two counter-demonstrations, Wa’el Jaber, statements from the stage, insults, bodily harm and prohibited symbols.
▶️ DEMOC:
Islamist agitation and Holocaust relativisation at pro-Palestinian demonstration
Monitoring of the demonstration with documented speeches, slogans, banners, Iranian flags and participating actors.
▶️ Tagesspiegel:
Incendiary appeal with “Intifada bus” circulating on social media
Report on the bus flyer circulated in advance, gender segregation and the unresolved authorship of the appeal.
▶️ hayhat:
Bus trip to Düsseldorf – 26 September 2026
The Berlin initiative’s own account and its own mobilisation for the Düsseldorf demonstration.
▶️ International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance:
Working definition of antisemitism
Working definition and examples concerning, among other things, conspiracy myths, Nazi comparisons and the denial of Jewish self-determination.
▶️ Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia:
2025 North Rhine-Westphalia Report on the Protection of the Constitution
Official classification of Hanna Hansen and her activities within the Salafist and Islamist spectrum.
▶️ North Rhine-Westphalia State Parliament:
State government’s response on Salafist structures and Hanna Hansen
Additional official classification of Hansen as an extremist-Salafist influencer and nationally active actor.
▶️ International Court of Justice:
Order of 21 May 2026 in the proceedings South Africa v. Israel
Procedural status and deadlines for further written submissions in the proceedings concerning the Genocide Convention.
▶️ WDR on the comparison year 2025:
Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Düsseldorf: 12,000 participants in the city centre
Comparative figure illustrating the scale of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Düsseldorf in September 2025.
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