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Los Angeles, California – A peaceful protest aimed at opposing Israeli sales of illegal West Bank properties inside a synagogue turned violent after a group of Zionists attacked on Sunday.
Despite horrific scenes and evidence of Jewish-led brutality now circulating across social media, President Biden instead chose to condemn what he called “antisemitism” and referred to the battered pro-Palestine activists as “un-American.”
Multiple fights broke out between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrators today near a synagogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of LA. Looks like some live-streamers/journalists were also attacked as a phone was kicked out of one man’s hand. @kcalnews pic.twitter.com/JApVUC180U
— John Schreiber (@johnschreiber) June 24, 2024
“Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” said Biden on X, formerly Twitter. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship—and engaging in violence—is never acceptable.”
Joining the president in his staunch opposition to the protest was prominent progressive icon, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who called the demonstration “antisemitic hatred” and implied that organizers’ true goal was to “target(ing) a house of worship.”
Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the incident was “abhorrent,” while the California Legislative Jewish Caucus—a group responsible for a recent package of bills aimed at fighting antisemitism on college campuses—stated that it was “horrified.”
“Targeting a synagogue or any other house of worship is reprehensible, and those who are responsible must be held fully accountable,” read a statement on Monday. “This funding is vital to protecting the Jewish community and others targeted by hate.”
Newsom and other leaders in the state legislature had released a budget agreement on Saturday, one day before the protest. The agreement included an exorbitant $5 million to expand the state’s already robust Holocaust education program and an additional $80 million annually for a “nonprofit security grant program.”
Violent clashes broke out near the Adas Torah synagogue in the Pico-Robertson area as pro-Palestinian protesters encountered counter-protesters.
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) June 24, 2024
What started as heated verbal confrontations escalated into physical fighting. Videos posted to social media showed punches being… pic.twitter.com/ZBtwUWy9m5
In an official statement, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ LA branch called the Jewish sale of Palestinian land on American soil “deplorable.” It also referred to Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as a cut-and-dry case of “ethnic cleansing.”
“The demonstration…over the weekend was in response to the blatant violations of both international law and human rights from agencies that seek to make a profit selling brutally stolen Palestinian land as the Israeli government continues its eight-month-long genocidal campaign and ethnic cleansing in Gaza,” the statement read.
“The decision…to host events promoting racially segregated settlements, where only Jewish people are allowed to live, on illegally occupied Palestinian land is deplorable and antithetical to the morals that faith institutions should uphold,” it continued.
The condemnations were sparked after the LAPD was dispatched to a protest at the Adas Torah synagogue in Pico-Robertson on Sunday, an Orthodox neighborhood described by the Daily Forward as one of the quote, “largest pockets of Jewish life in the country.”
The protest was said to be organized by activists with the Palestinian Youth Movement to oppose a “real estate seminar” aimed at selling swaths of land to prospective Jewish American buyers. The event itself was hosted and advertised by “My Home in Israel,” a controversial Zionist organization that markets land both in Israel and the illegally occupied West Bank territories in Palestine.
Israeli salesmen bill the homes to their American counterparts as being located in safe “Anglo neighborhoods,” a term for Israeli towns whose wealthy, English-speaking residents predominantly hail from diaspora Jewry in America or the United Kingdom.
While many of the homes for sale on My Home In Israel’s website are within Israel’s pre-1967 border, at least one property was said to be located inside the “illegal” West Bank settlement of Efrat. The organization sells these homes to American Jews for prices between $435,000 and $4.1 million.
Pro-Palestine activists view these land sales as theft meant to perpetuate Jewish settler expansion, a practice that violates international law and further degrades the rights and sovereignty of the Palestinian people. At the time of press, 20,000 Jews are said to be living in illegal “settler outposts” in the West Bank, according to the Israel Policy Forum.
On Sunday, Protestors peacefully marched to disrupt sales like these after a group of Zionist counter-demonstrators—some waving the yellow flags of Chabad messianism—attacked, beating their opponents with closed fists, deploying pepper spray, and pelting them with eggs.
In videos, LAPD riot squads could be seen lining the streets but did little to intervene.
Took me two seconds to find one of their publicly listed properties for sale in Ariel, an illegal settlement in the West Bank. Selling condos on stolen land in a shul is beyond the pale. Nobody wants to see protests at a synagogue but this is a shanda of the highest order. https://t.co/lxTl2wY3q8 pic.twitter.com/qiVTDEdBx9
— stuart hall & oates (@riseandgrindcor) June 24, 2024
After pro-Palestine protestors had been pushed away from the synagogue, swarms of Jewish counter-protestors reportedly gave chase, subjecting activists to further attacks and brutality. Zionists could also be seen beating a journalist, as well as using violence to disrupt a secondary protest in front of a nearby Kosher restaurant.
By the end of the day, the incident would closely mirror the events of a bloody and brutal attack against an anti-war sit-in at UCLA on April 30th. Violence at that protest—which saw the use of blunt force objects, makeshift weapons, and fireworks— culminated in broken bones and what some claimed was at least one un-prosecuted case of attempted murder.
Sources with the Daily Forward alleged that several Jews who had taken part in the violence at UCLA were also present during the brawls in front of the Adas Torah synagogue on Sunday. Participants at the UCLA riot were previously identified as active duty members of the Israeli Defense Forces—a foreign military—and the leader of a progressive, pro-Israel nonprofit seeking to court Black and LGBTQ support for Israel’s war aims in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian activists held a protest Sunday outside a synagogue in the heart of Pico-Robertson, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in Los Angeles, where Israeli real estate companies were promoting their properties to potential American buyers.
— The Forward (@jdforward) June 23, 2024
🎥 @thislouis pic.twitter.com/NqyOjJsN5j
In the United States, those who march to raise awareness of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people continue to face bipartisan violence, repression, and precarity in a post-October 7th world.
In April, US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) encouraged American drivers to use vigilante methods to “put an end” to pro-Palestine protests, up to and including throwing them from bridges. He would be joined by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whose constitutionally fraught executive orders were said to attack free speech, which he views as an “enemy.”
In May, a bombshell report by the Washington Post unmasked a coordinated pressure campaign by Jewish billionaires to force NYC Mayor Eric Adams into launching a violent crackdown on pro-Palestine activists at Columbia University. The leaked group chat was also said to involve elements of the Israeli Defense Forces and even offers of monetary assistance in order to secure their removal from campus.
In November, a group of Zionist extremists used violence against a group of peaceful protestors outside of a screening of the Israeli war propaganda film Bearing Witness. Key instigators of the attack were later revealed to be a pair of Jewish Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, a subsect of the violent “Antifa” movement, who attended the screening.
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