People are rushing to defend Dame Helen Mirren after video went viral of her being accosted on a London street and called an “evil zionist b*tch” by someone upset with her public comments on Israel.

In video posted by London & UK Street News on Thursday, Mirren, 80, and her husband, 81-year-old director Taylor Hackford, were approached by a man in the East London neighborhood of Tower Hill. The clip went viral this week though it’s a resurfaced clip that was first shared in November, though that didn’t stop people from finding renewed outrage in it.

“There is Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist. You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust,” the activist shouted at the pair of filmmakers.

“F*ck off,” Hackford screamed back.

The man filming and accosting Mirren appeared to be referencing 2023 comments made by the Academy Award-winning actress.

“I believe in Israel, in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future, for the rest of eternity,” she told Channel 12.

Mirren added at the time, “I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.”

Mirren was promoting her role as Golda Meir, Israeli’s first prime minister, in the film Golda.

The man accosting Mirren said she was “happy” Palestinians’ houses are “gone,” likely referring to Israel’s strikes against Gaza which have led to thousands of deaths and structures being leveled. Israel struck Gaza in response to the terror group Hamas attacking Israeli civilians in the infamous October 7 attack in 2023. Mirren’s comments were made a couple months before the Hamas attack.

“You’re an evil Zionist b*tch!” the man yelled at Mirren as her husband continued telling him to “f*ck off.”

Hackford is also an Oscar-winning filmmaker, known for movies like An Officer and a Gentleman and Ray.

“This is absolutely appalling,” the group Campaign Against Antisemitism posted on Thursday in response to the clip. “We are now at a point where public figures can be screamed at and abused simply for being perceived as being sympathetic to the world’s only Jewish state or unwilling to conform to an ideological litmus test. This is not activism. It is intimidation, mob behaviour and extremism masquerading as moral virtue.”

“For all that I wish Dame Helen had not had to experience this verbal assault, a part of me hopes the video is widely circulated. That’s because it shows the mindset – deranged is the word I would use – of those who spend their lives hunting out Jews and those who have no animus against Jews, ostensibly in support of Palestine,” Stephen Pollard wrote in a column for The Telegraph.

“This is disgusting. What has become of London? Tonight Dame Helen Mirren, who is not Jewish, was harassed and called a ‘Zionist b*tch’ on the street,” Israeli-American journalist Emily Schrader posted in a message shared by actor and activist Michael Rappaport. “This is what happens when Islamist terrorist ideology is emboldened and excused. ENOUGH.”

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