As politicians both nationally and globally insist that the path forward to peace in the Middle East is a “two-state solution” with Israel making many concessions, Palestinian supporters are making clear they have no interest in such an outcome.
At rallies around the globe they have called for “Palestine” to be free “from the river to the sea,” with some of the protesters confessing that they don’t know what river or sea they were referring to.
But if anyone believed there was any gray area as to what the demonstrators want, the truth was laid bare for spectators in Montclair on March 8 as protestors carrying Palestinian flags stood on street corners and chanted “Palestine is ours alone” and “We don’t want no two-state, we want 48,” a reference to the area before the modern State of Israel was established.
Videos of the group and their protests were circulated via social media, though it is unclear who took the images, which were captured after Shabbat began.
Just a few hours earlier, a group of Jewish residents stood in the same area to show their support of Israel and remind the world that there are still more than 130 hostages, including 19 young women and two toddlers, being held by Hamas.
Among them was Yonatan Beker, a native of Israel who lives in the area with his young family.
“When I see an angry mob in New Jersey chanting, ‘The only solution is intifada revolution,’ and ‘We don’t want Zionists here,’ it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out the end goal of these protests,” he said. “We would be wise to take these pro-Palestinian slogans and the increasingly violent rallies and harassment of Jews at face value and issue our own clear call-out to our community that we must be vigilant and stand up to hatred using every legal means at our disposal.”
Beker added: “As an Israeli who lived through multiple terror waves over the past 30 years, I know firsthand what an ‘intifada’ looks like. It looks like daily suicide bombings, stabbing and ramming attacks, and countless drive-by shootings targeting largely civilians.” All of which, he said, no one wants to see come to the United States.
Moshe Glick of the MetroWest Israel Action Committee said the protests show that antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments are no longer confined to fringe portions of American society.
“It’s no longer the antisemitism of when we were kids, when someone drew a swastika on a park bench or yelled “ki—” from a passing car,” he said. “It’s in our very backyard, overt, unabashed and in our faces. It is no longer something that we can afford to ignore. We need to actively combat it, and we need to do so together.
“Turning our back, ignoring it, is not going to make it go away. We have seen that movie and it doesn’t end well for the Jews,” Glick continued. “We need to actively combat antisemitism and Israel hatred. We need everyone actively engaged and on the front lines.”
Faygie Holt is an award-winning journalist, whose articles have been published worldwide and translated into several different languages. She is also the author of two middle-grade book series for Jewish children, “The Achdus Club” and “Layla’s Diaries,” both available from Menucha Publishers. A third series is set to be released later this year. Learn more at Faygieholt.com.
