After Decades of Denial, Progressives Begin to Realize the Real Antisemites Are in the Heart of the Movement

Mostly Peaceful Hamas Supporters are, get this, mobbing and harassing Jews in New York.

Last night, I went to New York City's Union Square to cover a rally against the "massacre in the Nuseirat Camp regions of Gaza." That's what pro-Palestinian protesters are calling the operation that freed four Israeli hostages and killed at least a hundred Palestinians--a mix of Hamas combatants and civilians caught in the chaos as Hamas fired RPGs at the hostages. All around the country, similar anti-Israel protests sprung up to rouse those furious at the hostage rescue operation.

I had been at this particular protest in Union Square for about 45 minutes, watching and taking notes, when a man wearing a neck gaiter, sunglasses, and a Hezbollah flag fashioned as a headscarf suddenly pointed at me. "She's a Zionist!" he shouted. "Get her out of here."

Immediately, dozens of protesters swarmed me, hoisting their keffiyehs high in the sky and boxing me in to block my view. Many of them were completely shrouded in keffiyehs and masks. A chorus of voices surrounded me, shoving me. "Get the fuck out," a woman yelled into my ear. "The people are saying we don't want you here."

A man holding a sign that declared "Long Live October 7th" shouted over the crowd, "Get in her face, make her leave."

One man fired an air horn into my ears. A girl lurched at my notebook, grabbing it and ripping apart the metal spine. "You're not writing anything down," she said, tearing the pages and throwing them into the air. "Get the fuck out--get the fuck out!"

In the context of these protests across the country this week, this was very mild. For anyone visibly Jewish who happens to be near one of these mobs, or anyone like a security guard trying to keep peace, the interactions are often much more harrowing. Here are a few data points of the escalation over the last 24 hours.

Yesterday at UCLA, a crowd of pro-Palestine protesters, most with makeshift shields, swarmed a security guard. As he tried to flee, one smacked him over the head with a smartphone, causing him to bleed.

Later that night on campus, a masked protester berated UCLA Chabad Rabbi Dovid Gurevich, calling him a "pedophile rabbi," adding that "Israel is full of pedophiles." When Gurevich asked why he wouldn't reveal his face, the man replied, "If I show my face, I'll have to fucking kill you." Other protesters shouted at the rabbi and others: "Go back to Poland or Ukraine," "Go back to Europe," and "Death to fucking Zionism." Twenty-five protesters were arrested.

More scenes were captured on video in Union Square in New York. One man yelled at a small crowd that had come out to support Israel, "I wish Hitler was still here, he would've wiped all you out."

On Wall Street, the protest mob chanted "Israel go to hell" outside an exhibition memorializing the Nova Music Festival, where Hamas murdered 364 innocents. As the crowd took its "citywide day of rage for Gaza" downtown via the subway, one protester proclaimed on the train, "Raise your hands if you're a Zionist. This is your chance to get out."

Anti-Israel protesters, who have been marching regularly in major cities across the world ever since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,200 civilians, claim they are for peace. And yet, they find creative ways to justify the violence of Hamas. I've been to 18 of these protests so far, and it's not unusual to spot the symbols of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and even Nazi swastikas.

Mostly Peaceful Protesters are mobbing and harassing Jews -- wait, they say "Zionists" -- in Hamas sympathizers harassed Jews at a music festival in Manhattan.

If you thought they'd avoid harassing Jews at music festival to avoid the obvious parallel with the Hamas terror attack on the Israeli festival, wrong. They didn't avoid it -- they leaned into it.

Attendees at the Nova Music Festival exhibition were harassed in Manhattan, my colleague was mobbed while trying to report at a protest, and a masked thug on the subway barked in a train, "Raise your hand if you're a Zionist. This is your chance to get out." And that's only what made the news. In New York. That was all Monday.

Yesterday, I woke up to a text from an old source. He sent me pictures of the outside of his apartment building in Brooklyn Heights: it was covered in red paint, including red arrows meant to symbolize that the people inside are targets. A sign, punctuated with red handprints, was addressed to his neighbor, the director of the Brooklyn Museum. It read, "Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White Supremacist Zionist." He told me the act of vandalism happened around 2:30 in the morning, and that there was now an NYPD squad car stationed outside the building. "It's pretty disgusting," he texted. Other Jewish members of the museum's board live in the building too.

From AOC to Brad Lander--the liberal comptroller who once defended the antisemite Linda Sarsour--New York's leading progressives finally seem to realize they have a problem on their hands. As they issue condemnations of antisemitism, it's tempting to dismiss it as too little too late.

"You built this, @bradlander! Enjoy the fruits of the Jew-hatred you harvested," wrote my old colleague Karol Markowicz. Noah Pollak wrote, "This is 100% the fault of the Democratic Party."

The attack on Pasternak's home was doubly irresistible. "I hate that this is happening but I hate even more that the progressives who run the Brooklyn Museum advocated for the rise of woke that led directly to this moment," The Post Millennial's Libby Emmons posted on X. Anne Pasternak is a liberal Jew, director of one of New York's great cultural establishments who once told New York magazine, "white staff and trustees have to do the work of learning about our nation's history and looking at their own education, conditioning, and biases, before we can lead meaningful change. That work is deep, hard, and essential." She's championed exhibits on themes of gender and race, lynching, and one that examined Picasso's misogyny through the critical eye of comedian Hannah Gadsby. Her programming is like a woke Mad Lib.

Even so, her own museum has been mobbed twice since her tenure began, by members of the Decolonize This Place movement in 2018 and by pro-Palestine protesters affiliated with Within Our Lifetime just last month....

...

There should have been plenty of wake-up calls for the progressive left that the antisemitism was coming from inside the house. Often, they're footing the phone bill. But if the alarm is finally rousing them out of their slumber, we shouldn't pour cold water on their heads. We should welcome them back to reality. But an apology would be nice.

The world's loudest, most annoying AWFL, Sheryl Sandberg, who was an executive at FaceBook and won't ever let you forget that, now realizes that maybe her progressive allies kind of want to kill her because of her religion.

When people think of Sheryl Sandberg, they think of a girlboss, corporate feminism, and coastal politics--wearing a power suit and campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

I think of someone who wants to be perpetually congratulated for the Historic Breakthrough of having a job. For a few years.

And for pretending her sex was a barrier to her "success," when in fact she got the job because of it.

She is, in other words, a normal Democrat. A normal liberal.

A feminist narcissist hag, in other words.

But as major parts of the left side against Israel, and downplay or ignore or actually foment antisemitism, a lot of people who consider themselves normal liberals are asking themselves: What happened to liberalism?

The position that Sheryl finds herself in is relatable to many Americans, people who feel betwixt and between in a post--October 7 world where the very people they thought were their friends are proving themselves to be just the opposite.

She's made a documentary called Screams Before Silence about the rapes of women by Hamas -- and the left's denial about it. She talks about the rapes with Bari Weiss, and the denial of the left of the rapes, and the antisemitism of the left.

She brings up the horrifying possibility -- or probability -- that Hamas has raped some of the girls they're holding captive and gotten them pregnant, and now, I guess, they're holding them until they give birth.

BW: In the past few weeks, a new video [from October 7] came out of Naama along with four other girls around the age of 19 and 20, and one of the terrorists says, "These are the girls that can get pregnant." We're sitting here basically nine months since October 7. Is it possible that there are hostages who are right now sitting in Gaza about to give birth?

SS: Yes. I interviewed Agam [Goldstein], who was 18 years old when she was taken captive. The terrorists broke into their home. They shot her father. When her sister passed out, they shot her in the face in front of her. And then she and her mother are taken into captivity. She says that of all the hostages she saw, half of them were being sexually assaulted. So yes, it is very possible that we have people who are pregnant in captivity.

Why isn't Michele Obama on Twitter posting #BringBackOurGirls as she did in 2014?

BW: The title Screams Before Silence comes from a woman who hid for seven hours in a trailer at the Nova Music Festival, but there's a meta level at which the title also works, which is that on October 7, the only Jewish state in the world had a primal scream. And then there was silence from the world. I can't help but think about someone like Michelle Obama, who in 2014 campaigned to #BringBackOurGirls when Boko Haram, an Islamist group in Nigeria, stole 276 schoolgirls. And everyone in the world cared about those 276 girls because of the leadership of Michelle Obama. And everyone fell like dominoes to follow her moral leadership on that issue. Where is she and people like her in this moment?

SS: I think everyone should be screaming, "Bring back the hostages." But do you know that about half of those girls are still not back? And I actually haven't heard anyone talking about it for a while. I remember when Afghanistan happened. Some girls are committing suicide, I think, regularly now. Can you imagine everything being taken away from you because you're a girl? And I don't feel like we're talking about that. I do think it's very hard to stay focused on these issues, and I really think we need more focus, and we need many more voices on this one.

If you think any of this has changed her vote, boy, you do not understand leftwing feminists:

BW: You've been a Democrat your whole life. Obviously, your worldview has sort of shifted a little bit. Will you be donating to Biden this cycle and supporting Biden?

SS: I did donate and I do support.

Below, a family home in Brooklyn is painted with red triangles, which Hamas uses as a symbol to mark targets.

Jake Wallis Simons @JakeWSimons

These red triangles, daubed on Jewish homes in New York, are symbols of targeted killings, used in Hamas propaganda. The past is back

In the below video, if you freeze on the paper flags the women are carrying and expand the video, you will see the swastikas.

Are we Culturally Enriched enough yet?

Confirmed: Israel killed Hezballah's most senior terrorist leader.

In retalliation, Hezballah is doing what it does in non-retalliation-strikes, launching rockets at civilian homes and killing children.

Update: that last account is a parody. Oddbob points out the handle is @iloverooftops, I Love Rooftops.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:20 PM

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