The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report on Aug. 14 highlighting various instances of anti-Semitism that occurred during the recent Days of Resistance protests, which included chants of how “Zionists have got to go.”
The Days of Resistance protests, which were organized by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Al-Awda and American Muslims for Palestine, occurred from Aug. 7-9 in at least eight cities throughout the United States, the report states. The report acknowledged most of the protests didn’t feature anti-Semitic rhetoric, “a notable segment crossed the line into extremism and antisemitic tropes, including expressions of support for terrorist groups or allegations that Zionists control the Middle East or U.S. law enforcement.”
One of the examples cited in the report was during the New York protest, participants started to chant, “Hey-hey, ho-ho, Zionists have got to go” and, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab” in Arabic. A few protesters also held Hezbollah and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flags, and a speaker called for Palestinians to take “up the armed struggle of revolution because they have no other choice.”
The Las Vegas protest featured a speaker alleging that Zionism undermines Judaism and urged people to “fight tirelessly side by side with all marginalized peoples until Israel is eliminated from the river to the sea,” which was met with applause from the crowd, the report said. The Dearborn, Mich., protest, the report said, featured a speaker alleging that Zionism “privileges white-skin Ashkenazi Jews at the expense of dark-skinned African Jews, Sephardi [and] Mizrahi Jews. So when we say that Zionism is white supremacy, Zionism is racism, we aren’t saying they’re like each other, they are the same thing.”
The report stated that the extremist rhetoric used at some of these protests “has the effect of upsetting and antagonizing American Jews, as polls reveal that a majority of this community considers a connection to Israel a part of their cultural, social or religious identities.”
In July, the ADL published a report highlighting instances of anti-Semitism occurring at the Days of Resistance protests against Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. Some of the examples listed included chants of “Death to America, Death to Israel” and “Genocide in ’48, we don’t want your two states.”
