Description

Quds Day (Jerusalem Day; Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem), officially called International Quds Day (Persian: روز جهانی قدس‎‎), is an annual event held on the last Friday of Ramadan that was initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 to express support for the Palestinians and oppose Zionism and Israel's existence, as well as Israel's control of Jerusalem. Nominally it is opposed to the Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) celebration instituted by Israel in May 1968, and which Knesset law changed into a national holiday in 1998. In Iran, the government sponsors and organizes the day's rallies, and its celebration in that country has had, down to at least 2012, a decade-long tradition of voicing anti-Semitic attacks. Quds Day is also held in several other countries, mainly in the Arab and Muslim world, with protests against Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem.