Anti-Israel protesters plan to ‘flood’ Christmas tree lighting — and it’s despicable
How to win hearts and minds — especially at the holiday season?
Step 1: Do not do what the chaos merchants behind organizations like Within Our Lifetime are doing with increasing frequency and impunity.
That is, interrupt our commutes by squatting on highways and bridges and at train stations for hours; destroying property; and orchestrating chaos during our cherished holiday traditions.
Within our Lifetime (which bills itself as a Palestinian-led community organization) and other agitators are proudly Scrooging their way through the festive calendar and screwing over hard-working New Yorkers and tourists in the process — all in the name of activism.
They really revved up their holiday offerings by gluing themselves to Sixth Avenue during the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
They splashed red paint all over the beloved New York Public Library flagship, causing $75,000 of disgusting damage.
And an anti-Zionist organization shut down the Manhattan Bridge on the holiday weekend.
And for the latest act de résistance?
On Wednesday, Within Our Lifetime plans to throw the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting into disarray. “Flood the tree lighting for Gaza” reads the call to the group’s 135,000 Instagram followers.
“Flood” — the same word Hamas used to describe the October 7 attack in which some 1,400 innocents in Israel were killed and more than 200 kidnapped.
It’s a new war on Christmas and the West.
The annual televised tree-lighting spectacular, which draws families and tourists from near and far, is a worldwide symbol of the Christian holiday and reverberates with people of all faiths.
Some of the enthusiastic comments on the Within Our Lifetime post urge people to bravely “mask up” and “disrupt.” Those are their values: mayhem, done with the privilege of anonymity.
We saw it when masked marauders tried to kick in Grand Central Station and climbed street poles — replacing American flags with Palestinian ones — on the eve of Veterans Day.
WOL’s Instagram happily brags about the group’s Thanksgiving wilding spree, in which members tossed fake blood on the NYPL and “specifically, around the engraving of Stephen Schwarzman,” the building’s namesake philanthropist who they call a “Zionist billionaire.”
They also boasted of “disrupting shopping, transportation and ultimately the celebration and normalization of the genocide of … the indigenous people of Palestine, both carried out by settler colonies the United States and Israel.”
No wonder these lunatics had an open calendar on Turkey Day. Who’d want them at their dining room table?
This is America, and these groups are entitled to demonstrate and broadcast their message, however convoluted.
But it’s the method that’s objectionable. They could lead sanctioned, peaceful protests to bring eyeballs and empathy to their cause.
However, that’s not their aim. They want to intimidate and bully into submission as they uproot law and order.
It’s been the preferred mechanism since the summer of 2020, with the BLM riots that included protesters surrounding cars, stopping traffic, and swarming diners demanding fealty to their cause.
Similar acts have unfolded on our college campuses and even high schools, most recently at Hillcrest High School in Queens where radicalized teens rioted after seeing a teacher’s Facebook profile photo showing her holding a poster saying, “I stand with Israel.”
And these organized mosh pits appeal to the worst actors, the bored and the brainwashed.
Lost sheep and destruction enthusiasts are seduced by the social justice religion which includes any cause matching up with their binary view of the world: black against white, oppressors versus the oppressed.
Meanwhile, the police have found themselves emasculated by an unsupportive DA and demoralized by budget cuts and understaffing — unable or unwilling to intervene (who can blame them?).
Perhaps that’s why the French nun, aka Our Lady of Linebackers, who tackled an eco protester trying to make off with building materials became such a viral sensation last month.
But law enforcement standing by as protestors receive a slap on the wrist — or worse, a giant payout from the city — is only inviting vigilante responses in kind.
It’s permission to let this tactic become the norm.
I am also in favor of the Palestinian people having freedom, health, and opportunity. That self-determination is in the hands of Hamas — a terrorist organization these protest groups do not condemn.
Rather, they scream words like “genocide” and “apartheid” and call for the eradication of Israel with anti-semitic phrases while putting innocent people in danger.
And that type of organized disorder won’t make any friends here.
