‘Hamas Is Comin’: Following the Money at C and 3rd Streets NW

Last week, a protester clad in a red t-shirt spray-painted slowly and deliberately onto a wall behind a fountain at Columbus Circle, a traffic island in front of Union Station, in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. 

“H-A-M-A-S,” he began, continuing with “I-S” and ending with “C-O-M-I-N,” before running out of room for the last letter. 

He took a step back to study his work, satisfied: “HAMAS IS COMIN.” 

Not far away, a crowd pulled down the American flags flapping in the wind and hoisted Palestinian flags, burning the American flags to shouts of “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” by Muslim activists. Some activists even accosted officers of the U.S. Park Police, resulting in the police using tear gas against the crowd.

Soon after, Reuters reported “thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters” had “gathered” outside the U.S. Capitol to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he spoke to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. BBC chronicled “thousands of people gathered” to protest Netanyahu. The Washington Post wrote “thousands protested.”

There was not a word about the organizations who had organized the bus caravans of “thousands” to the rally that even expected Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris condemned for the vandalism on D.C. monuments.

Living in northern Virginia, I heard reports of police tear gassing the protests. I got in my Subaru to drive to Union Station yesterday. I saw the ashes of the American flag, black graffiti still staining the American Legion Freedom Bell and monument outside the train station, and rats scurrying across the courtyard’s tile as the sun set.

Another scrawl of graffiti read: “END ISRAEL. I COMMEND HAMAS.” 

Another: “DEATH 2 AMRIKKKA,” the “KKK” now in the middle of the nation’s name.

Another: “A NATION LED BY MUHAMMAD WILL NOT BE DEFEATED.”

As an American Muslim feminist and reformer whose Wall Street Journal colleague and pal, Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and beheaded by militants in the name of my faith, I found all these messages disturbing. But my reporting didn’t end because the protesters were headed home. It was just getting started.

In my 40 years as a professional journalist, I have long known that there is an essential, important quality of a Nancy Drew or a Hardy Boy: curiosity. And not being afraid of where the reporting leads you.

Unfortunately, mainstream journalists are afraid to say the “s” word — socialist — for the movement that I have discovered is leading these anti-Israel protests with Islamists.

Unfortunately, mainstream journalists are afraid to say the “s” word — socialist — for the movement that I have discovered is leading these anti-Israel protests with Islamists.

Earlier in the week, when I had heard the news of the protest, I clicked through an email from American Muslims for Palestine, being investigated by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares for allegedly improper fundraising, and I found the portal to get bus tickets on the website for the ANSWER, a coalition of self-described socialist, Leninist, and Marxist organizations, led by the cofounders of the National Party for Socialism and Liberation. ANSWER instructed protesters: “wear red shirts,” with red the color of communism. 

I’ve binge watched scores of their presentations, talks and webinars, archived in years of YouTube videos. ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine, pro-China, pro-North Korea, pro-Cuba, and pro-Venezuelan socialism. It’s all over their videos. They also tout Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin and their ideologies of Marxism and Leninism. 

They are not ashamed of their identity, so why do journalists erase them from their reporting about these protests?

As the sun began to set, I thought: let me find their buses as they head home and talk to them. Pulling over off Constitution Avenue, I found another email from American Muslims for Palestine for the drop-off spot for the buses that were bringing the protesters in from around the country and taking them home. It was at the corner of C Street and 3rd Street NW in a neighborhood called Judiciary Square for the D.C. and federal courts in the area. 

There, I saw buses from three companies – Algonquin Buses LLC, in western Massachusetts; Urban Express Charter, based in Ohio; and Boston Luxor Limo (ironically, a “premier” Massachusetts bus line) – heading back to cities from Columbus, Ohio, to Portland, Maine, with the protesters wearing the red shirts they were asked to wear for the protest. They had their organizational name splashed across the front: Party for Socialism and Liberation.

I met friendly “comrades” from the party, and they told me that they had worked with Students for Justice in Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine, and a nexus of other leftist and Islamist groups to hold the rally. Thus the shouts of “Allahu Akbar” as the American flag burned.

One leader from Columbus, Ohio, whom I met was a well-spoken trans activist and party member who told me the Party for Socialism and Liberation had filled the busses from across the country for the protests, but it wasn’t their place to decide what governance looks like for Palestinians. Rather, it was simply their job to fight “in the empire” for an anti-capitalist America.

One leader from Columbus, Ohio whom I met was a well-spoken trans activist and party member who told me the Party for Socialism and Liberation had filled the busses from across the country for the protests.

As the activists settled back in their homes, I went to the U.S. National Park Service and got copies of the permits requested for the day’s protests. No one else has reported this, though it is simple to get, because the media today stops at reporting “thousands protested.”

What I have learned: three organizations got permits for the day. Brian Becker, a lifelong socialist leader who speaks about himself “as a Marxist,” received one permit, NCA-NAMA-EVNT24-1278, on behalf of the ANSWER coalition for the space at Columbus Circle. His permit was scripted carefully for the protest to start at John Marshall Park, not far from FBI headquarters, snake across Pennsylvania Avenue NW, between 3rd and 5th Streets and end at Columbus Plaza, in front of Union Station.

 “Anticipated number of participants: 5000.” 

Purpose: “Stop the genocide in Gaza.”

Not mentioned: the flag burning and alleged assaults on cops.

As his person in charge, he listed Benjamin Zinevich, a controversial young activist who gained notoriety leading campus protests against Israel at New York University. 

Becker listed three on-site contacts. One was Layan Fuleihan, education director of The People’s Forum, a self-described socialist group. A day after the Oct. 7 attack, she hosted a rally, “All Out for Palestine,” and declared (in a video shared proudly by The People’s Forum): “Comrades and friends, yesterday, the world woke up to incredible news…the oppressed people of Palestine broke out of the open-air prison they have been subjected to.”

Other contacts were Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo. co-founders of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which sues law enforcement agencies in “defense of social justice activists.” When I went to their office on Florida Avenue, an organizer for an effort to support the socialist movements in Cuba and Venezuela was putting a second Cuban flag out beside the front door steps for a fundraiser that night for Cuba.

The second permit went to Eric Lee, an attorney (also known as Eric London) for the Socialist Equality Party, a self-described “Trotskyist political party” founded in 1995 and inspired by Soviet ideologue Leon Trotsky. On the timeline to speak: Joseph Kishore, a self-described American Marxist and the party’s 2024 presidential candidate and party secretary; Jerry White, the vice-presidential candidate and the labor editor of the World Socialist Web Site; and, thirdly, Will Lehman, who has run for president of the United Auto Workers as a socialist. 

The third permit went to “DC Supporters of Standing Together- Peace and Justice Bloc,” with the point of contact listed as Aaron Shneyer. His permit was for a swath of land behind the U.S. Capitol, where an estimated 400 people would “express our disapproval of Benjamin Netanyahu.” His equipment list included “Three (3) banners (6’ x 3’ Each)” and “One (1) Shade Canopy (10’ x 10’).”

Shneyer, a musician, said his rally had no connection to the other two permitgoers and his organization, DC Supporters of Standing Together, emerged as an alternative to the rhetoric of “genocide,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” used by others to describe Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. “We also weren’t comfortable entering into spaces like the ones that gathered at Columbus Plaza,” the other name for Columbus Circle, he said. “We saw too much willingness in those spaces to either condone what Hamas did or to tolerate a dangerous level of ambiguity about what the future of Israelis would be for what they want,” such as the future existence of the state of Israel.

The takeaway from the bulk of the day’s protests: this wasn’t an organic, grassroots, spontaneous event. It was coordinated and orchestrated. While many people may be well-intentioned and sincere, this was an AstroTurf event.

Too many media outlets are too afraid or lazy to name the organizers, only writing that “thousands” marched, as if it was organic. 

Why the subterfuge? 

These leftist and Islamist groups brag about their organizing work on their social media accounts and websites. Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour was there in all her glory with CodePink founder Medea Benjamin. And they posted a video afterward, calling each other “heroes.”

White House candidates from the Party for Socialism and Liberation — Claudia De la Cruz for President and Karina Garcia for Vice-President — were at the protest to denounce American capitalism and Zionism. They are running to be U.S. president and vice president. And they don’t support Harris for president. 

Why does the media not report on these key leaders? These leaders are unashamed and unapologetic. They’re not hiding anything. They are proud of their work. What is their endgame and do any foreign governments fund their efforts? Stay tuned. I’m reporting that question out.

I shared a video of my reporting on X, the social media previously known as Twitter, and many expressed gratitude for the reporting. In much the same way, I wrote a book, “Woke Army,” to capture the long history on how we got to this point where support for Hamas is scrawled across the Freedom Bell. The best way to inoculate ourselves from the political theater and propaganda of these activists and their movement is to know the nitty-gritty of how they work: from the buses that drive them in from Ohio and Maine, to the permits they snag. 

The next day, U.S. Park Service workers power washed the graffiti off the Freedom Bell and scrubbed the ashes, but the “thousands of protesters” had left their indelible mark on the consciousness of America.

Asra Q. Nomani is a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and cofounder of the Muslim Reform Movement. She is cofounder of the Pearl Project, a nonprofit initiative investigating antisemitism, inspired by the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, murdered by militants. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com. Readers can support the Pearl Project’s work with a tax-deductible donation.