Pro-Hamas Rally Turns Ugly And Anti-Semitic In New York City

Pro-Hamas demonstrators filled Columbus Circle in New York City on November 25, and at one point dragged a burning Israeli flag down the street. A protest organizer shouted into a microphone, "For those who support genocide in the U.S. your days are numbered and are coming to an end.” “U.S. government is the #1 funder of Israel terrorism,” was also heard.

At around 2 pm, about 300 people started walking from Columbus Circle and headed to the American Museum of Natural History. Crowding into the The Shops at Columbus Circle, chanting, “Bombs are dropping while you’re shopping,” and prompted the stores to quickly close. prompting store owners to quickly run to shut their doors.

Protesters also harassed a woman carrying a pro-Israel sign, snatching it away, along with a sign held by a man nearby, and screaming at them. The woman was able to run to police, who escorted her a few blocks away. A statue of Abraham Lincoln was also wrapped in a Palestinian flag and its hat was slapped with a sticker that read, “Every time the media lies, a neighborhood in Gaza dies.”

The museum was barricaded by the time protesters arrived nearly three hours later, and around 30 officers were lined up blocking the entrances. Protesters demanded the police move aside and permit them entry, “One, two, three, four, open up the museum’s doors.” The museum closed two hours early Saturday in anticipation of the protest, claimed protester Nerdeen Kiswani, of the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, which organized the rally with others in NYC. “The museum makes over a million dollars a day, so the fact that they are willing to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to not be associated with Palestine really shows a lot, what cowards they are,” she claimed. “All we planned on doing was entering inside as regular New Yorkers, to look at the colonial exhibits… it looks bad for you to lock out a bunch of people just because they support Palestine,” she said, adding, “The board of the museum have people on there that are Zionists.”

Kiswani said, according to The New York Post, that protesters were taking a stand after Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul showed support for Israel.“Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today?” she chanted, before a now common refrain at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, “Joe Biden, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”