By Bobby Panza
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered Saturday afternoon at Columbus Circle, chanting slogans critical of Israel and the U.S. as they marched north and eventually reached the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West.
“Israel bombs, U.S.A. pays. How many kids did you kill today?” chanted the crowd, some of whom carried Palestinian flags or signs that read: “Cease Genocide” and “Free Gaza.” The marchers interrupted traffic at some points, and police along the route occasionally intervened in disputes between onlookers and the protestors as they made their way to the front of the museum at West 80th Street.
Saturday’s rally took place on the second day of a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, to allow the exchange of Hamas-held Israeli hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, and to enable larger deliveries of food, fuel, and other aid to civilians in Gaza.
Nerdeen Kiswani, 29, a representative of Within Our Lifetime, one of the organizers of Saturday’s demonstration, told WSR that her group did not see the exchange deal as a genuine humanitarian pause. Since the conflict began, with Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack on Israeli civilians that left 1,200 dead and about 240 taken hostage into Gaza, an estimated 14,800 Palestinians, including thousands of children, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza. “Many are still being found dead under the rubble. Entire cities, villages, towns, refugee camps, homes, and neighboring blocks have been decimated,” said Kiswani.
Kiswani also said that Palestinians attempting to return to northern Gaza during the pause in fighting continued to face Israeli gunfire. “So, despite this so-called pause, our protests won’t cease,” she said. “We will persist as we have in the past weeks.”
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This article makes no mention of destruction of public property nor the barricading of police inside any building, which is a satisfactory way of protesting.
Anything involving any of the above, whether it be BLM or MAGA at the Capitol, is completely unacceptable.
Imagine marching through a neighborhood steeped in Jewish culture while arguing for the creation of yet another Islamist theocracy.
And people, certainly the media, SUPPORT this. Unfathomable.
The creation of an Islamist theocracy? I missed that bit in the article. At some point people need to stop trying to stifle opinions by yelling terrorist, anti-Semite, and supporter of Islamic theocracy!
If you believe that Jewish people around the world are bound to support all the domestic policies of the Israeli state, that’s an opinion I won’t argue with, but the UWS is not a Jewish territory, much less an Israeli one, where criticism of Israeli policies cannot be aired.
thank you Sarah.
Nice to hear from you old Bruce. Cheers
So the fact that Jewish women were raped and murdered. That doesn’t disturb you at all
What about the tens of thousands of women men and children that are arrested abused and beaten and jailed for no reason by the IDF.
You realize plenty of non-Jews live on the West Side, and plenty of Jews on the West Side are NOT supportive of Israel?
How do you know there are “plenty of Jews on the West Side” who are anti-Israel.
Did you take a survey?
I live here, Otis. I grew up here. I speak to my friends and neighbors.
Not everyone likes being forced to identify with a society that practices Apartheid in their name
And why I wonder do you claim Israel is an apartheid state?
20% of Israel’s population are Arabs. They have the freest life of any Arabs in any Arab country. They live in a democracy where they vote, have their own political parties which are seated in the parliament. The previous government had the Arab party as members in the coalition. One of the judges on the Israeli supreme court is an Arab. The Arab population in Israel has the highest standard of living, schools and freedom of any other Arabs in any Arab country. It will behoove you not to spout words that have no base to be spouted.
This is apartheid ?
I don’t think so.
Nice deflection. That 20% figure carves out the West Bank and Gaza, which are effectively under Israeli military control in the end, and Israeli military law.
The Mossad’s own former deputy director has called Israel an apartheid regime. So have the most respected human rights groups in the field (Amnesty, HRW).
Deny all you want.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/14/israel-apartheid-state-west-bank-nazi-germany-amiram-levin/
By the way, you do realize that the 20% figure is referring to the Arabs who live in Israel proper, right? Two million Arabs live INSIDE of Israel, both in cities with Jews and in their own separate villages. They are full citizens of Israel with all the rights and privileges of Jews living in Israel. But that’s because they choose peace, not war. Imagine what amazing things could happen in the Middle East if Hamas laid down their guns.
It’s 5 million. 2+million in Gaza and 3 million on the West Bank.
Calling what happens in Israel APARTHEID is an insult to the people of South Africa who actually lived through Apartheid. You should ask them if they think what is happening in Israel is apartheid.
At some point, this fad will fade. Until then, our tolerance should not become acceptance.
The more, you know.
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/nerdeen-kiswani-and-within-our-lifetime-united-palestine-what-you-need-know
Thank you. People should really be paying attention to the platform of Within Our Lifetime. Their goal is quite simply the destruction of Israel, but they make it sound like it’s a banal and reasonable goal.
The two state solution is too moderate for Within Our Lifetime.
It’s remarkable that these protesters are still being called “pro-Palestinian”.
Someone who is pro-Palestinian would be anti-Hamas, and yet these protesters never mention Hamas.
The protesters are pro-Hamas, not pro-Palestinian.
Yep. Looks like a Hamas flag on Kiswani’s armband…
That’s green duct tape.
Get a grip people
And why do you think she is wearing green duct tape on her arm as an armband? Do you think she ripped her sleeve?
Cars on west 63rd street were damaged and the Starbucks at Broadway and 63 was vandalized. No arrest for these Terrorist sympathizers.
This article does not mention that the protesters entered the mall at Columbus Circle and protested loudly in there. Additionally many of the protesters covered their faces, hiding themselves, and they also graffitied the Lincoln statue outside the New York Historical Society.
I think the WSR should also be reporting about the peaceful walk/run around the Reservoir in Central Park each Sunday with hundreds of people there each week peacefully advocating for the release of the hostages.
I have heard nothing about the Sunday peaceful walk/run around the Reservoir in support of hostage release — what time does it start? I would love to join.
They meet at 90th Street and CPW on Sundays at 11:00 A.M.
I am interested in this as well. I hadn’t heard of it!
They meet at 90th Street and CPW on Sundays at 11:00 A.M.
We can’t expect more from people who celebrate murderers, killers of gay people, and subjugators of women. They are violent people who do bad things.
If you wish to see a peaceful demonstration where the protesters don’t hurt people and damage property, you’ll have to go to a pro-Israel rally.
Yes. 290,000 people showed up and thanked police on their way out…Not a water bottle left behind on the National Mall. Not a flag burned. Not a negative word said about another creed, group, culture, or tradition except terrorism…I am not sorry to show my bias on this one.
I was there. I was impressed. And, I will stand, forever, in gratitude to be a participant of peaceful advocacy for human beings.
These ” peaceful ” protesters also caused over $ 75,000 in damages at the Main Library ( google it for the article)
why is no one suing these organizers for these riots?
Awful – https://nypost.com/2023/11/26/metro/ny-public-library-facing-75k-cleanup-after-pro-palestinian-protesters-vandalism/amp/
police closed off cpw at 81 to allow these protesters to glue themselves to the street in front of the museum. personally, I would have wanted the street to stay open
It must be remembered how the current situation started.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists and other gangs from Gaza infiltrated Israel and butchered well over one thousand Israeli people, including babies, women, elderly people and disabled ones as well. They raped women, killing most after the rapes, beheaded children and babies, and burned down homes with people inside. And, they kidnapped close to 250 people, including babies, women and the elderly back to Gaza.
This needs to be remembered, as this is what started the current events.
Israel retaliated as it must. Such high crimes can not be let go or forgotten.
When the demonstrators for Palestine shout their slogans, they call for the elimination of the state of Israel, and of Jews in general.
It’s scary to see who marches with them, as most of the non Arab and non Muslim demonstrators could not find Israel or Gaza on a map. Their knowledge about the history of the region is minimal or zero. This is becoming the 2023 version of the 2020 BLM and its protests. And look how that ended.
Basically, these demonstrators hate America and what it stands for, and their idea of how to change or replace America is enough to say – get a life, learn about history and try to calm down. Israel will nor cease to be. Jews survived worse than this. What needs to end is hatred for hatred’s sake. Ignorance can not win over knowledge. And as the old adage goes:
If Israel puts down its arms, it will be eliminated.
If the Arabs put down their arms, peace will be born, instantly.
Thank you Joe its like i’m in a history class reading your comments.
Thank you Joe. I think it’s highly unlikely that these protesters will ever read a book so history’s violet acts of hate based on ignorance marches on. I feel terrible for the suffering of the innocent Palestinian people caught in the middle of this disaster. But when a terrorist organization attacks the innocent citizens of Israel, it’s up to the Israeli government to prevent such a future attack. That’s what any government would do in the same situation, especially if hostages are taken, including babies, young children and the elderly. It’s a nightmare for all involved but I think we learned on September 11th that you can’t expect reasonable behavior from terrorists.
thank you, Joe.
Do most people marching endorse the principles of the group Within Our Lifetime? I hope they at least check the website and see that it proclaims “by any means necessary” and all Jewish Israelis are settlers among other violent and radical platforms.
Yes, it is good to be in the know about these groups and their intentions. WOL and the People Forum are sponsoring many of these protests that are disrupting life and vandalizing places. Everyone needs to understand their true intentions. The People Forum which was responsible for the October 8 protests with a person holding a swastika and the “shut it down protests” that have been happening almost every week is connected to Marxist Communist owner who is connected to China. The objective is to create discord and unrest in the west. They also use language to eliminate Israel and Jews. WOL published the despicable map of NYC jewish, media, finance, and transportation hubs as targets.
The People’s Forum hosts classes like “Lenin and the Path to Revolution,” praising countries like China and Cuba that have “smash[ed] the shackles of Western imperialism,..”.
See https://nypost.com/2023/11/16/opinion/meet-the-american-millionaire-marxists-funding-anti-israel-rallies/
So an explicitly genocidal organization is organizing disruptive protests where the participants are wearing Hamas armbands. The toolkit on the Within Our Lifetimes website includes the following chant – من المية للمية فلسطين عربية – From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab.
How do you think the vast majority of Americans react to this sort of thing? All of these absolutely insane demonstrations are effectively Trump campaign ads.
That (and their chant) actually translates to “From water to water Palestine is Arab.”
They take us all for fools.
Cos playing halloween radicals incapable of independent critical thought. These buffoons are the conesequence of an educational system that has spoon-fed them ideas like intersectionality and other intellectual garbage promoted by academic charlatans and grifters. These people have no idea what they are doing but are incapable of doing anything meaningful or productive so they engage in this.
These are pro-Hamas hate filled disruptions, not peaceful protests. Kiswani is wearing a Hamas armband as she leads the crowd. Never forget Hamas is pure hate filled terrorism, as we all saw by their vicious brutality on Oct 7. Hamas is pro-Hamas and destruction, not pro-Palestinian. Hamas murders Palestinians who want peace. On Oct 7, Hamas killed and kidnapped Israeli Bedouin as well as Jewish Israelis. Where are the NYPD arrests for destruction of property and not obeying police ?
Palestine is not Arab. It is a multicultural territory which has been governed by many different cultures over the centuries, the Egyptians (who enslaved the Levantines), the Hebrews (who wrote the Old Testament), the Assyrians (who deported Levantines to other parts of the Near and Middle East), the Persians (who allowed the construction of the 2nd temple), the Greeks (who Hellenized the culture), the Romans (who changed the name from Judea to Palestina as a way of punishing the Jews who fought anti-colonial wars against the Romans), the Arabs (who conquered the area c. 732 CE and created a form of apartheid (the dhimmi: some legal protections yes, but not full-fledged citizens, not many people know that it was the Arabs who first implemented the yellow badge for Jews (and Christians)), the Normans (who were fighting a holy war known as the crusades), the Ottoman Turks (who built the walls of the current Jerusalem), and others. Now there is a part of that land that is governed by Hebrews, controlled by the same means that all the other cultures mentioned above did so: by force. That is the reality. There are ways that the cultures of the areas could co-exist on the entire territory but not if any one of the groups seeks to eliminate the other.
Correct and well studied and informed, but – the Jews were there 4,000 years ago. King David was there 3,000 years ago. The second Temple was destroyed in 70AD, the Jews were there. Until 300AD there were no people identified as Christians in Palestine. The Christians were in Rome. Until 700AD there were no Muslims in the world. The Jews were in Palestine then. The only group out of the three that ever claimed and ruled this land was the Jews. This is historical facts. Do I think it will be wonderful to share the land with others now? Indeed I do, but reality bites us all in the rear and it’s not happening, yet.
Excellent recounting of history, except Israel did not take the land by force. After the UN partitioned the land, Israel declared independence and then the 4 surrounding Arab countries attempted to take the land by force. But they lost.
Yes. They tried in 1948, the 1950s, then expelled all the Jews from Arab lands, and most of them settled modern Israel. The Arab League tried again in 1967, and then again in 1973. There were no “Palestinians” until Yasser Arafat coined the term in the late1960s. I remember it. They were referred to Arabs before that time. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. No one in the Middle East at all cares about a bunch of entitled Westerners spewing crap on the upper west side of Manhattan. These rallies are as useless as the graffiti they inspire. Erasable and temporary and meaningless.
The sad part is there are Muslims that condemn Hamas and condemn the vandalism and sabotaging of the Thanksgiving Day Parade, yet they’re the ones that get profiled and stopped by police and put into databases for more harassment while those intent on causing trouble get away with it. Where’s Gale Brewer on this, where’s Linda Rosenthal, where’s Brad Hoylman?
And we thought removing the TR statue would appease the woke mob. Nope. Calling the wonderful AMNH a symbol of “white supremacy” is the first step in shutting down the entire museum. And so it begins….
They stopped right in front of our UWS building and burned an Israeli flag in the middle of the street. My youngest son was incredibly scared. My mother was with us too and was also horrified – especially as we immigrated from Kiev to escape antisemitism.
Why are these protests against violence so violent?
From the In Our Lifetime website: Zionism is a settler-colonial white supremacist ideology built on the genocide and dispossession of the Palestinian people. We therefore reject all collaboration and dialogue with zionist organizations through a strict policy of anti-normalization. The liberation of Palestine requires the abolition of zionism.
This is not a peace protest but a protest that wants to ignore that there are at least two groups of people who live in the region.
I wish the people using the word ‘GENOCIDE’ would actually look up what the word means. Then they would see, no matter what they think about Israelis or their government, that the word does not apply. Co-opting a word to a cause, and using it incorrectly, especially when it is an extremely heinous word and is used in a way the diminishes the meaning, is extremely insulting to those people who have actual experience with those words. But that is asking too much of some people.