The incoming West Hollywood mayor, who was elected by the Californian City Council on December 16, was the founder of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter and is a leading member of an anti-Israel and radical activist guidance group.
Vice Mayor Chelsea Byers, who was elected to serve as mayor as part of the City Council members’ annual rotation of positions and will be sworn in on January 13, is listed as a member of Beautiful Trouble, which provides materials and education on protest and activist tactics and best practices to create a world without “capitalism and classism; racism, white supremacy, Zionism, and colonialism; patriarchy, sexism, and heterosexism; ableism, ageism, sizeism, and other forms of oppression.”
Byer’s old West Hollywood city biography describes her as a “core team member with Beautiful Trouble,” but by December 18, mention of the group was removed from the official background. Beautiful Trouble lists Byers as a former director of operations and as a current editor of its study guides and strategy card deck.
According to an independent search by The Jerusalem Post on the Internet Archive, Byers continued to be listed as director on the website until at least September. Byers was elected to West Hollywood City Council in 2022 and became Vice Mayor in January.
“As a facilitator, Chelsea has led hundreds of hours of training and curated countless professional and leadership development programs,” reads her current Beautiful Trouble biography.
Incorporated anti-Israel activity
The activist tactics taught by Beautiful Trouble often incorporate anti-Israel activity as an example or use stories of pro-Palestinian protest to highlight strategies. One such story, shared on the day after the October 7 massacre, explained how activists would fly to Ben-Gurion Airport and unfurl “Welcome to Palestine” to draw attention to Israeli denial of entries to anti-Israel actors.
Beautiful Trouble recommends the tactic of flotillas like the one involved in the MV Mavi Marmara incident, in which activists attacked naval commandos when they were boarded. Nine activists were killed and several IDF soldiers were wounded in the clash. In another tactic, Beautiful Trouble advocated for activists to engage in “currency hacking” using the example of anti-Israel activists defacing Israeli currency with the slogan “free Palestine.”
On October 19 and 23, 2023, the group shared on Instagram insights to guide action by anti-Israel activists. In February, it advised seeking divestment as a long-term campaign strategy in the vein of the BDS movement.
In May, it shared a “guide for lawful encampments” as a resource for activists who wished to start their own campus protest encampments. The group said that it drew upon its own experience from encampments in front of the Israeli embassy.
Besides encampments, Beautiful Trouble maintains a “resistance hotline” in collaboration with BlackOut Collective to provide tips and tools for organizing or doing effective actions. The “Get Up, Rise Up, Direct Action Fund” is a grant by Beautiful Trouble for initiatives that push for “a ceasefire, a safe return of Israeli hostages and release of the over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners detained in Israeli prisons” and “an end to the blockade of Gaza, US (and other foreign) military aid to Israel, and the Israeli colonial and apartheid system.”
Byers’s anti-Israel activism far predates her involvement with Beautiful Trouble. According to the Northern Arizona University Students for Justice in Palestine Facebook page, the Vice Mayor is one of the founders and administrators.
“Northern Arizona University Students for Justice in Palestine is a diverse group of faculty, students, and community members who work in solidarity with, not on behalf of, Palestinians and Israelis that together continue to struggle for justice, human rights, self-determination, and liberation. Through educated discourse, advocacy, peaceful demonstration, and community engagement, we seek to shed light on the policies of discrimination and give voice to the silenced,” Byers declared the group’s mission statement in 2011.
While NAU SJP claimed to have been “pro-Palestine” and “not anti-Israel” during “Israel Apartheid Week,” and the group described how it engaged in cross-community events with pro-Israel groups, it called for the boycott of Sabra and Tribe Humus from NAU and created projects like a magazine for IAW.
In another 2011 NAU SJP boycott, the group on X called on consumers to avoid purchasing Ahava beauty products, presaging Beautiful Trouble’s own advice about the “Stolen Beauty” campaign against the Israeli company.
In 2011, Ynet reported that an Arizona student named Chelsea Byers had protested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech.