Protester unfurling Kahanist flag at Queens counter-rally
UPDATE: I’ve just published a new piece at the New Arab, Netanyahu’s cynical embrace of Iran’s protesters Please give it a read.
Last week, a Young Judea synagogue hosted an event whose participants sought to buy land in occupied Palestine. In case anyone has any doubt, there is nothing in the Torah or liturgy that commands Jews to buy land owned and inhabited by another people for centuries. This is not a Jewish tradition by any stretch of the imagination; or normative Judaism as recognized by the vast majority of American Jews.
The Palestinian group, Pal-Awda, sponsored a protest attended by several hundred protesters. This unleashed an anti-Semitic panic among Israel Lobby groups like the ADL and American Jewish Committee and their political water-carriers:
Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel and intentionally targets civilians. This is antisemitism pure and simple. https://t.co/SAkFyySGkH
— Rep. Nadler (@RepJerryNadler) January 10, 2026
Hamas is a terrorist organization that calls for the genocide of Jews.
No matter your political beliefs, this type of rhetoric is disgusting, it’s dangerous, and it has no place in New York. pic.twitter.com/Uz74y6uHBB
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) January 9, 2026
Even so-called progressive Democrats fell all over themselves to criticize the Palestinian protest. Their response indicates they’d fallen under the spell of the Lobby:
Hey so marching into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and leading with a chant saying “we support Hamas” is a disgusting and antisemitic thing to do.
Pretty basic! https://t.co/Zx4wJPCPfP
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 10, 2026
Let’s be crystal clear: this is vile antisemitism. This should not have to be said: you can oppose land sales in the West Bank, without supporting terrorism & the mass murder of Jews. https://t.co/Fp1WEqdrf0
— Brad Lander (@bradlander) January 9, 2026
Mississippi’s oldest and largest synagogue, and two of their Torah scrolls, were burned yesterday on Shabbat in a horrific antisemitic attack—days after protestors chanted “We support Hamas”, here in NYC.
These chants are antisemitic and deeply harmful. You can oppose land…
— Shahana Hanif (@ShahanaFromBK) January 12, 2026
This tweet from an Arab-American NYC council member is a betrayal–especially troubling for not only falsely accusing the Pal-Awda protest of being anti-Semitic, but linking it to the Mississippi synagogue arson. These events have nothing to do with each other and should never be linked. One event involved people protesting, another involved burning a synagogue to the ground. They are not equivalent.
Lost in the debate and news coverage, was that many of the pro-Palestine demonstrators were ultra-Orthodox Jews (on the right side of the image above). They are anti-Zionist. Not anti-Semitic. Nor was the rally.
Further, none of tweets acknowledge that there was a group of pro-Israel counter-demonstrators, one of whom brandished a Kahane banner (see video). So who were the terrorists here?
🟢 After Thursday’s protests in Kew Gardens, Queens, multiple elected officials condemned the pro-Hamas chants heard at the demonstration. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Gov. Kathy Hochul, NY Attorney General Letitia James, and former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander,… https://t.co/dbaP7u5Blv pic.twitter.com/ZwEPTF2oIF
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 10, 2026
Right-wing Jews, for some reason, take umbrage at protests outside synagogues, claiming they attack Jewish places of worship and therefore are anti-Semitic. My first response is: what’s worse, a protest or a bombing? Because neo-Nazi bomb synagogues and kill Jews. Palestinians don’t do that.
Anyone attending these “land auctions,” which have been held at synagogues in Los Angeles and New York, promotes the settler movement. But the buyers of Palestinian land never consider the irony of repeated settler acts of arson and vandalism against churches and mosques in the West Bank. These are not non-violent protests, but rather acts of desecration fully or partially destroying sacred Muslim shrines. Invariably, the perpetrators are handed sentences amounting to a slap on the wrist.
To put it another way: how would these Zionists react if mosques held auctions for land in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem? Or if churches held auctions for the purpose of buying buildings in Jewish neighborhoods in Paris or London? While this irony may make sense to most of you reading it, it’s clearly lost on these shmegeggies. For Judeo-supremacists like these, the only thing that matters is Jews. Not all Jews though. Just Jews like them: settlers, messianists, animal sacrifice devotees, Temple priests, etc. Everyone else can go to Hell.
At the Queens synagogue, the Palestinians began chanting pro-Palestine slogans. The one that riled up Zionists far and wide was “We support Hamas here!” Subsequently, politicians, the ADL, AJC, Jewish federations, and wise men everywhere, vented their outrage at what they declared an anti-Semitic provocation.
This is part of a campaign I call the Anti-Semitism Scare, referring to the historic 1950s Red Scare. It exploits a legitimate issue for partisan political interests, waging a campaign of intimidation against Israel critics under the false flag of fighting anti-Semitism.
Would such a protest be troubling to many Jews? Yes. Ordinarily, no one likes to hear people shouting at them, even if its across a city street. But the hysteria accompanying these responses ignores the context: these were Palestinians looking on helplessly as Jews bought their land, their patrimony; thereby stealing a part of their existence and erasing them. Human beings tend not to take well to such measures against them. Peaceful, though boisterous protests like those in Queens should be the least of it.
The upshot is: if you provoke someone, at a synagogue or anywhere, they will respond–and you’re liable not to like it. But the facts are that you incited the response. Feigning outrage when it happens is disingenuous, as is much of the anti-Semitism-mongering from Israel Lobby groups.
But the Constitution…
The righteous indignation of the Zionists ignores a bedrock constitutional principle: the right to free speech. Chants and banners may annoy or disturb you. But you have no right to abrogate the speech of others due to your objections to it. You have no right to expect anyone will curtail such speech. You also have no right to demand the state outlaw such expression as Gov. Hochul proposes doing in her next legislative agenda. These are protected rights and a core value of American democracy.
Under the guise of protecting religious, health, and abortion clinics, Hochul’s bill would restrict protests, forcing them to maintain a distance from these institutions. Such limitations violate the First Amendment right to free speech. They also limit the right of citizens to voice their opinions on matters of vital public interest. Not to mention, that Hochul is pandering to the Israel Lobby and its powerful donors. It’s a terrible idea to formulate public policy based on the whims of the moneyed few.
Hamas: who’s the real terrorist?
Many of the Zionists who raged against the protesters also mischaracterized Hamas. Though the Treasury Department has designated it a terror organization, Hillary Clinton removed that designation from the Kahanist movement, when she was secretary of state. Nevertheless, Kahanists like Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and virtually the entire Israeli cabinet uphold this violent, hateful ideology. Even the Israeli attorney general has filed a petition to expel Ben Gvir as a minister. Yet the US has not sanctioned any of them. Nor have any of the pro-Israel politicians who attacked the protesters criticized the settler event in Queens. This is the characteristic of media myopia and the hypocrisy of the pro-Israel politariat.
Another misconception of the protest critics: Hamas does not call for the destruction of Israel and has not done so since 2006. It calls for a Palestinian state and full, equal rights for Palestinians. That does not mean the elimination of Israel. It means its transformation from a racist state into a democratic one. And no, Israel is not a democracy, just in case anyone’s wondering.
Finally Hamas, whether we like it or not, is the only Palestinian movement offering resistance to Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing. There is no other. There is no other Palestinian group representing the people of Palestine. Declaring Hamas persona non grata means dismissing the only group which can negotiate any resolution of the carnage. Thus sentencing both sides to eternal butchery.
Rising from the midst of this manufactured outrage, Jewish Voice for Peace responded with a statement reflecting its progressive values:
As Jews, we strongly object to the use of synagogues to enable the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. That events supporting the theft of Palestinian land, in full violation of international law, are occurring at all is unconscionable. That they are occurring in our…
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) January 9, 2026
Mississippi synagogue arson
A few days ago, a 19 year-old Christian nationalist burned down a historic Mississippi synagogue. It was a historic place of worship which was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era. Its rabbi was a champion of social justice whose consorting with African-Americans angered the local white population. The Klan also bombed his home.
With this latest terrorist act, history came full-circle: hatemongers returned to the scene of their original crime and repeated it, this time with greater destruction. It will take months and millions to restore the edifice.
Some among the Israel Lobby and its followers rushed to judgment, blaming Palestinians and the anti-Zionist left for the attack. Deborah Lipstadt, one of the most vehement anti-Semitism-mongers didn’t disappoint:
This is a major tragedy. But it’s more than that. It’s an arson attack and another step in the globalization of the intifada. https://t.co/BTRdykYePG
— Deborah E. Lipstadt (@deborahlipstadt) January 11, 2026
In a subsequent interview, Lipstadt doubled down on her smear:
“It may have been inopportune of me to say that…[but] I was not saying this was a leftist attack. Clearly it’s not.” Nor did she “mean to suggest that this was an Islamist attack.”
She offered that the phrase [because it] could be interpreted as hatred toward Jews coming from all sides.
“If ‘globalize the intifada’ means ‘attack Jews everywhere,’ then it certainly fits,” she said. “So it depends on how you want to interpret the sentence.”
Of course, this rallying cry for the Palestinian resistance does not mean “attacking Jews.” So her interpretation is sheer fabrication–her ideological forte.
An NYU law professor echoed Lipstadt:
It began with BDS. Some said, it’s just words. CUNY Law speech: “globalize the intifada.” Still, just words? Recent pro-Hamas chants. Words again? And now the violence in Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Sydney, Jackson, Mississippi and more. As the Left used to say, words matter!
— Marc Edelman (@MarcEdelman) January 11, 2026
Similarly, the ADL is always quick to denounce Palestinian activism as anti-Semitic and smear it with the term “terrorism.” You will read many times more statements attacking anti-Zionists than you will neo-Nazis. But it had no choice in this case, given the uproar and massive media coverage of the devastation.
The suspect is a Christian nationalist who spouts the rhetoric of Nick Fuentes–someone who’s graced Tucker Carlson’s podcast and supped with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. A deformed version of Christianity destroyed this synagogue. These are the true enemies of the Jewish people. Not Palestinians. Not anti-Zionists.
Why does it amplify what it calls “left anti-Semitism?” Because it has made common cause with the MAGA right, the political movement of the moment. The ADL’s true goal is not fighting hatred, racism or even genuine anti-Semitism. Rather it is to ally itself with power and wealth. It sets its agenda based on these priorities.
The organization is run by its white, wealthy, right-wing donors. CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is their mouthpiece. He issues a predictable series of social media content promoting an agenda equating critics of Israel with anti-Semitism;. He attacks Palestinians and Muslims as dangers to America. He even smears Jewish groups as supporters of terrorism.
Norman Finkelstein once called these groups the Holocaust Industry. Today, they’ve become the Anti-Semitism Industry. They exploit this very real threat for the purposes of fundraising. Smearing the Palestinian left and defending Israeli genocide is good for business. While the real anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, are of secondary importance.
Consider this: billionaire MAGA Zionist, Bill Ackman, defended Elon Musk in the face of claims of anti-Semitism (as did the ADL), and donated $10,000 to the GoFundMe for Renee Good’s murderer. Like the ADL, he blares claims of anti-Semitism on campuses and against university presidents. He also clearly favors, or at least apologizes for the neo-Nazis among us. This confluence between Zionists and the MAGA/white supremacist right will lead American Jewry to a dead end.
Perhaps the words of the wise hero of mine, much missed Uri Avnery could straighten out the anti semitism nonsense once and for all. – link to france-palestine.org Theoretically, Arab anti-Semitism is an oxymoron, since Arabs are Semites. And it may even be that the Arabs are more Semitic than the Jews, because the Jews have mixed with the non-Jews for many centuries.
But, of course, the German journalist Wilhelm Marr, who probably coined the term ‘anti-Semitism’ in 1880 (after coining the word ‘Semitism’ seven years earlier) never met an Arab in his life. For him the only Semites were Jews, and his crusade was only against them.(Adolf Hitler, who took his racism seriously, applied it to all Semites. He couldn’t stand the Arabs either. Contrary to legend, he hated the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had fled to Germany. After meeting him for a photo organized by the Nazi propaganda machine, he never agreed to meet him again.
Misuse in antisemitism: The term “antisemitism” was coined to falsely portray hatred of Jews as a scientific concept, despite there being no “Semitic race,” notes American Jewish Committee.
In essence, a Semite is a speaker of a Semitic language, a label that historically encompasses diverse Middle Eastern and African peoples, and its conflation with “Jewish” is a product of historical misuse, say Britannica, Wikipedia, and My Jewish Learning. And of course jews spoke Yiddish for centuries which is not semite it is Germanic.
Call for genocide … memorial stone in The Hague
Personal: family of my godfather lived in the street … I shopped @Mouwes often.
link to joodserfgoeddenhaag.nl
Respect your courage in writing ✍️ just too few with historical knowledge … and vision of the consequences for tomorrow.