Anti-Israel Protesters Disrupt LGBTQ Event With Chants of ‘From the River to the Sea’

A group of anti-Israel protesters disrupted a LGBTQ event over the weekend, which included chants of “from the river to sea, Palestine will be free.”

According to Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a group of anti-Israel protesters took the stage at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s Creating Change conference on January 24. One of the protesters accused the conference of censoring the pro-Palestinian message because “donors might get mad.”

“Right now, our content is being censored, our liberation is being silenced and our voices are being shut down because the Task Force is too cowardly to have a conversation on one of the leading social justice issues of our time: Palestinian freedom,” the speaker said.

The speaker also accused the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of perpetuating “acts of severe violence against the queer and trans liberation movement,” which the ADL denied.

“These accusations are false and absurd,” an ADL spokesperson told the Journal in an email. “ADL has a long history of fighting for LGBTQ rights.”

Another speaker, identified as Mina Aria, advocated for the Task Force to stand up to “pinkwashing,” a term used by anti-Zionists to argue that Israel’s touting of LGBTQ rights is nothing more than a distraction from the Israel –Palestinian conflict.

The disruption lasted for 13 minutes and included chants of “from the river to sea, Palestine will be free” and “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go.” There were no attempts made by the Task Force to quell it, according to JTA.

The Task Force posted a statement from their executive director, Rea Carey, on their Facebook page that acknowledged the “concerns” about the disruption.

“As we have before, the National LGBTQ Task Force firmly condemns anti-Semitism. We firmly condemn Islamophobia,” Carey said. “We firmly condemn attacks on each other’s humanity. The perpetuation of white supremacy is harmful to all.”

Carey added that they “are committed to staying in respectful conversation as we move forward towards Creating Change 2020.”

The Facebook comments in response to the statement criticized it for not adequately addressing the disruption.

“By ‘condemning’ routine concepts without specifying what took place at your event, or who you consider to have been in the wrong, your statement is meaningless,” a commenter named Eric Steiger wrote. “Your organization either does, or does not, consider chants of ‘from the river to the sea’ to be anti-Semitic and genocidal, and you need to unequivocally state which, so that those who understand its historical meaning and intent can make the informed decision to stay away from your events.”

Another commenter, named AJ Campbell, wrote, “But what are you going to do about it? If you cant [sic] manage this then we should not support the Task Force. Right now it is nothing but a hiding place for anti-Semitism.”

This is not the first time such a disruption has occurred at the Task Force’s conference; in 2016, a group of 200 pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a reception held by the Jewish LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge. The protesters attempted to bar people from entering the reception, stormed the stage and shouted down Tyler Gregory, A Wider Bridge’s executive director, when he attempted to talk about the organization.

“Anti-Semitism, slander, and chants calling for the erasure of Israel must not go unchecked at Creating Change,” Gregory and Congregation Kol Ami founder and Rabbi Denise Eger told Carey in a letter. “If so, what kind of change are we creating? Are we truly building the inclusive future the National LGBTQ Task Force claims to be working to achieve?”

Gregory and Eger called on Creating Change to “develop a permanent solution that excises this festering problem from our community.”

Roz Rothstein, CEO of StandWithUs, condemned the protesters’ use of “from the river to the sea” as “an anti-Semitic dog whistle.” 

“It is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel, and the resulting subjugation of its nearly seven million Jewish citizens to vulnerable minority status, or even expulsion and murder,” Rothstein said. “Calling for Israel’s destruction is not mere criticism of Israeli government policies It is an explicit call for the denial of the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination, as a historically oppressed minority.”

Rothstein called on the Task Force “to enforce their own policies” in cracking down on disruptions.

According to JTA, the Task Force deals with disruptions by letting them “run their course.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvnRwtL0B7Q