A pro-Palestinian protest in the heavily Jewish New York City neighborhood of Borough Park descended into brawls and epithets Tuesday night as demonstrators clashed with pro-Israel counterprotesters.
Police said one person, named as Anthony Frausto, was charged with third-degree assault for punching someone in the face at the scene.
The clashes were the latest to erupt surrounding fairs advertising Israeli real estate. Similar events in other cities have drawn protests that claim the fairs are pitching property in Israeli West Bank settlements. Last year, an event due to take place in another Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood was canceled due to what an organizer called “serious threats.”
None of the locations advertised on the website of the organizer of Tuesday’s event, the Getter Group, were located in the West Bank, though the company could inquire into property in the settlements on behalf of its clients, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The pro-Palestinian protest’s organizer, Pal-Awda, called on its followers to “flood Borough Park,” an allusion to Hamas’ name for its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and to “show up in the masses to oppose the sale of stolen land, especially when it is happening in our own backyards!”
The Pal-Awda statement, which included an inverted red triangle, a Hamas symbol, also called for “a complete end to the settler-colonial project of Israel and its goal of expansion.”
Borough Park is a heavily haredi Orthodox neighborhood, and politicians had warned of unrest ahead of the protest. Betar US, a right-wing pro-Israel group that urges its followers to “fight back” against anti-Israel protesters, counterprotested at the event. “We cannot guarantee the safety of those who threaten Jewish synagogues,” it posted on social media following the event.
At first the groups were separated into two areas. The pro-Palestinian protesters chanted, “Settlers settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone,” as well as “Zionists go to hell,” according to the Times of Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported that Betar members called the pro-Palestinian activists “terrorists.”
Violent clashes broke out between the two sides. Footage on social media shows people fighting in the street as police try to separate the brawlers.
New York City politicians decried antisemitism at the incident.
“The vile and antisemitic rhetoric directed at Jewish residents in Borough Park is unacceptable and unconscionable,” Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic minority leader, said in a statement Wedensday. “We will not tolerate the egregious behavior on display that was clearly designed to intimidate and harass Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood.”
Republican City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, an outspoken pro-Israel advocate who is Jewish and represents a Brooklyn district, called the pro-Palestinian protests “terrorists” and members of Hamas, and praised the pro-Israel counterprotesters.
“Never since the pogroms of the past have we seen such blatant and open hatred towards Jews,” she tweeted. “These terrorists came to Boro Park for one reason only: to incite violence and fear in one of the largest Jewish communities in the United States. I am proud of the Jews and our allies who showed up and stood up to the HAMASNIKS.”
Bronx Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is a vocal pro-Israel presence on social media, posted a video of a brawl and also said the anti-Israel protesters were Hamas supporters.
“It should come as a shock to no one that the pro-Hamas mob targeting Jews and promising to ‘flood’ Boro Park has descended into violence,” he tweeted. “Violence is not a bug but a feature of the so-called ‘Free Palestine’ movement, which has no desire to free Palestinians from Hamas.”
Brad Lander, the city comptroller who is running for mayor, also called the comments antisemitic.
“Calling Orthodox Jews in Boro Park ‘filthy Zionist assholes,’ shouting ‘you’re so gross, you’re disgusting,’ and chanting ‘settlers go back home’ to people whose parents & grandparents were killed in the Holocaust is antisemitism, plain and simple,” tweeted Lander, who is Jewish. “We cannot tolerate it. I condemn it in the strongest terms.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
