At a “Free Palestine, Death to Zionism” protest held in Basel, Switzerland, last weekend, demonstrators defended Hamas as a “resistance organization” and called for the State of Israel’s destruction.
The rally coincided with the 129th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, convened by Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl in Basel in 1897.
Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) Executive Director of European Affairs Shannon Seban went undercover to document Saturday’s event firsthand, interviewing participants.
Watch Seban’s video HERE:
“Zionism is like fascism,” one demonstrator told Seban. “A very genocidal ideology.”
“It’s an ideology that should be illegal, or just abolished in general,” another asserted, equating Zionism with “ideologies in the Second World War, like Nazism.”
In a letter to Basel Mayor Conradin Cramer, Seban called what she observed at the protest “deeply disturbing.”
“The atmosphere was confrontational, with demonstrators defying police instructions,” she noted.
Seban cited a report by the Basel-Stadt Cantonal Police that “174 people were controlled, while a baton, protective goggles, face-covering equipment, and propaganda bearing Hamas symbols were seized.”
“I commend the police for their intervention,” she wrote. “But these events raise a broader question — how can Basel, a city with such a unique place in Jewish and Zionist history, ensure that calls for hatred, violence, and the glorification of terrorism are not normalized in its streets?”
Seban went on to ask Cramer for an “opportunity to discuss what further action the city can take and how CAM could cooperate with Basel in combating antisemitism and extremism.”
A total of 2,962 antisemitic incidents were monitored across Europe by CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) in 2025, nearly a 50% rise from 2024.