Anti-Israel protesters waved a Hezbollah flag and called for intifada and the destruction of the State of Israel outside a synagogue in Queens on Sunday, according to pro-Palestinian organizations, despite the fact that the Israeli real estate seminar they ostensibly rallied against was no longer being held at the site.
Activists led by Palestinian Assembly for Liberation New York and New Jersey (PAL-Awda) had descended on the Congregation Charm Circle in the Kew Gardens Hills neighborhood on Sunday evening to protest a real estate seminar, but according to social media statements by Jewish neighborhood watch group Queens Shmira and New York State Assembly member Sam Berger, the venue for the event had been changed. Shmira had promised in a Friday statement that the synagogue would remain open for worship.
“The event changed venues but the protesters didn’t care, harassing Jews for the crime of going to pray,” said Berger.
Despite Shmira calling on Jewish residents of the area not to counter-protest, the anti-Israel activists were met with demonstrators waving Israeli and American flags. In an Instagram story, PAL-Awda gloated that activists from the over 40 endorsing organizations outnumbered the counter-protesters “in their own neighborhood.” Activists chanted, “We don’t want no Zionists here” in the neighborhood with a large Jewish population.
Footage of the protests showed physical clashes between the Jewish community members and the anti-Israel activists. PAL-Awda alleged that some pro-Israel activists hurled stones, homophobic slurs, and called members of an ultra-orthodox anti-Zionist Jewish sect “Nazis.” Police separated the two groups with a buffer zone dozens of meters wide, having been in coordination with Shmira and Berger prior to the protest.
Protesters wave Hezbollah flag and chant “long live the intifada” outside a queens synagogue, though an Israeli real estate event was reportedly no longer being held at the site. pic.twitter.com/tjHOVMkHpz
— Michael Starr (@StarrJpost) July 15, 2024
'From the water to the water, Palestine will be Arab,' call protesters
Anti-Israel activists waved Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, chanting slogans that included “long live the intifada,” and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution.”
“We don’t want two states, we want ‘48,” sang protesters, calling for a return to before the establishment of the state of Israel rather than a two-state peace solution. “From the water to the water, Palestine will be Arab.”
Berger on X described the protest as anti-American as well as anti-Israel, sharing a photograph of a sign reading “F**k Israel and US all the way until the end of time.” A New York City provocateur wore a bloody former president Donald Trump mask.
Pal-Awda said in their Saturday call to action that the real estate seminar was meant to screen-out non-Jews, secular Jews, and anti-Zionist Jews, by requiring photo ID, to where in Israel inquirers were interested in residing and translating sentences for them from Hebrew to English.
“Zionists are now hiding these stolen land sales events in small synagogues disguised as homes, in residential neighborhoods,” Pal-Awda said on X.
The anti-Israel group said that Zionists were plotting to expand settlements, emboldened by a claim of genocide in Gaza facilitated by such real estate events.
“It is our duty to ensure that anyone orchestrating or participating in the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine does not rest and that the rage of the people is made clear,” said Pal-Awda. “The time for Zionist impunity (sic) is over.”
Major protest groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Palestinian Youth Movement endorsed the protest.
Shmira said that since October 7, land sales events have drawn the attention of anti-Israel groups, and have “created loud protest at the venues hosting.”
The riot at the Los Angeles Pico-Robertson Synagogue Adas Torah on June 23 was sparked by a demonstration over an Israeli real estate event.