Pro-Palestinian campaigners call for Jimmy Carr shows to be cancelled after secret Israel event

Campaigners have said that they will protest in Scotland if performances by British comedian Jimmy Carr go ahead, after he attended a secret event celebrating Israel’s so-called Independence Day.

The "Independence Day" celebration earlier this week was hosted by the British Museum and was attended by several right-wing to far-right politicians and figures, amid outrage.

It came two days before Palestinians commemorated the 77th anniversary of the Nakba – Arabic for catastrophe – when at least 750,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced by Zionist militias to establish the State of Israel.

Carr, a regular fixture on UK comedy panel shows, was filmed leaving the event and ignoring questions from a protester.

The 52-year-old is set to perform at a number of venues in Scotland this year, including in Glasgow and Aberdeen.

'Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card', which campaigns against Israeli participation in cultural and sporting events, is calling on these Scottish venues to cancel the comedian’s shows, saying they will organise protests if they go ahead.

Carr previously sparked outrage in 2022 when he made a joke about the murder of hundreds of thousands of Gypsies being a positive thing about the Holocaust.

Show Israeli Genocide the Red Card also said they will protest pro-Israel American comedian Chelsea Handler during her upcoming show in Glasgow on 25 May.

The New Arab reached out to the campaign for comment.

The Nakba commemoration this year comes as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip, which dozens of nations and rights groups have labelled a genocide.

The 19-month war has killed over 53,000 people, with thousands more unaccounted for and believed to be buried beneath the rubble. Most of the casualties are civilians, says Gaza’s health ministry.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the past few days - 125 of them on Sunday.

Much of the territory has been laid to waste, and Israel’s far-right government recently approved plans to expand its operations, seeking to force the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants into divided zones or outside Gaza altogether. On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had begun a wide-scale ground operation in both the northern and southern Gaza Strip.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel continues its military raids and home demolitions, also displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians since January. The government has sought to annex more land there to make way for settlements – illegal under international law.