Hundreds RAGE at “Free Gaza” Rally When They Saw This Sign
Recently, the “Student” organization rumored to be funded by Muslim Brotherhood front groups, organized what they claimed was a “Free Gaza” rally. Naturally, Jewish community leaders warned their congregants to steer clear of these rallies – understanding them to be hotbeds of antisemitism and violence.
Just as naturally, this was like an activism “Bat Signal” to me. Though I went with several Jewish women who recorded from afar (each of these women who would not fit the normal phenotypic expectations the “Free Gaza” outrage hounds. Ironically and humorously, each of these women, diverse in appearance, would be told to “stay away from the Jew” as they recorded my interactions with hundreds of foaming-at-the-mouth “protesters.”
But first, let’s look at who the “student” group that organized this Pro-Hamas rally actually is…
At first, it struck me as odd that this group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), was able to assemble throngs of protesters the day after the October 7th Hamas Pogrom. I was in Columbus then, as in the case of the counter-protesting described in this article, as I am most Sundays – training with one of my martial arts instructors (this one having been my instructor for the better part of two decades). After training, my wife and I went to pick up some vegan burgers and almond milk shakes at Shake Shack, on High Street. While waiting for our order, I saw this massive rally make its way down the street.
“Who organized this?” I darted out, quickly to ask.
“We are Students for Justice in Palestine!” an excited young lady exclaimed.
Interesting, I thought. I have been deeply immersed in just about every intersectional nook and cranny of activism, from the Earth Liberation Front and Earth First! to organizing the armed protests against the Stanford Rapist, Brock Turner, to organizing years of protests for John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio, to – like I said – just about anything you could thing of. Certainly, I have been to my fair share of Pro-Palestinian protests, in the United States and the State of Israel alike. This activity went back to the 1990s. Yet I have never known a protest of such a magnitude that could be assembled literally overnight.
This was a major red flag. Obviously, it would not be prudent for me to make a formal accusation, such as suggesting they had some foreknowledge of the Hamas Pogrom, which led to them organizing this “Free Gaza” march, before a single bomb had been dropped, or a single Israel Defense Forces boot stepped on Gazan soil.
So I’m not saying that… per se – but I am saying that the thought certainly arose as to whether there might be something there. Again, there is simply no way a protest of that size could have just been organized overnight with a turn out like that. It doesn’t happen. People need to schedule off for work, baby sitters, and sometimes people simply have other plans that cannot be changed at the last minute. Again, there had been no bomb dropped yet, and here was SJP, with this massive march down High Street, just a day after the Hamas Pogrom.
“Curious,” I thought. “Curious.”
For well over a decade, various Jewish institutions have filed complaints and published reports against the SJP, alleging Muslim Brotherhood-linked funding and connections with academics.
The SJP founder, Hatem Bazian, is a professor at University of California–Berkeley (because of course he is). While still a student himself, Bazian was reportedly a member of the General Union of Palestinian Students and the Muslim Students Association, two well-documented outgrowths of the Ikhwan al-Muslimin terror organization, known in English as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hamas itself, it should be remembered, emerged in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifadhah, as an outgrowth of the Ikhwan’s Palestinian branch. These connections are not simply academic footnotes. They are clear breadcrumbs that reveal the funding and coordination of terror groups with global professional “activist” leaders, orchestrating half-informed and disinformation-based social outrage against all Jews who dare to believe in our right to simply exist without being kidnapped, raped and murdered in the name of a “Free Gaza.”
According to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Bazian realized that openly identifying with the Ikhwan would potentially prevent large-scale recruitment and influence by his organizations.
The aims and beliefs of the SJP were essentially identical to that of the Ikhwan, but he promoted it as a progressive organization, tied to Western Leftist ideals. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ties between SJP and Hamas are far from simply ideological. For instance, SJP members have often been heard – even recorded – spouting homophobic rhetoric, which would otherwise seem out of place in a Western Leftist organization.
Bazian did not stop with the SJP. He also launched the group known as the American Muslims for Palestine, an organization which he now chairs. This group does not hide its financial backing for the SJP. Both groups, as well, share personnel and donors with numerous Hamas fronts.
Here’s how the event went…
As we approached, myself walking just ahead of my wives Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah, an apparently Caucasian leftist with a bandana around his face – no doubt fancying himself an “anarchist” of some sort, or even “Antifa” – ran up to stand in front of me as a glorious White Sentinel, with arms outstretched, like the fictional Gospel character of his family’s religious adoration and worship.
He made it clear, “you are not welcome here.”
I responded, “why not? ‘Juden Betreten Verboten‘?”
He continued his bizarre attempts to block me, which I simply ignored. I walked through him, pushing him back with my body, my hip locking into his from beneath his center of gravity, as I informed him that he had no authority to prevent me from accessing a public space.
I continued to move forward, plowing the little guy ahead me, as he stood impotent to prevent my entry. He barked various Cyber-Leftist talking points about a conflict he clearly had not even a superficial knowledge of. Finally, after he stood on his toes to lean into my face, bumping chests with me, I had grown tired of his games. He put is hands up to push me and I arched over him, bending him backwards a little with my presence. I gutturally growled “you want to bump chests little guy.”
You can see a blurry still of this in some of the embedded images from my Instagram account below.
I don’t like to resort to such seemingly “macho” talk, but I felt this was preferable to invoking the rights, which I was well within, to counter his aggressive pushing with violence. Still, I had work to do, and giving this kid a free martial arts lesson was not part of that work (unless he absolutely insisted).
Seeing me dominantly arch over this “woke” college kid, who no doubt saw himself as somehow defending freedom by cheerleading the Neo-Salafi Fascist religious cult that is Hamas, a police officer sprung from dormancy into action, yelling “hey! hey!”
I replied, “no, don’t ‘hey! hey!’ me, when you saw this kid putting his hands on me and you didn’t muster a single ‘hey!’ for him.”
The officer then turned to him and told him to back off of me, and that he was not legally permitted to bare anyone from entry to public spaces.
As it turned out, this young man actually steered me towards the direction he was trying to turn me away from. I simply drove him in reverse towards the destination he was trying to keep me away from. As it turned out, this was right on the rear and side of the stage where the angry shrill cries of the SJP organizers.
A clear enough example of Divine providence (to me, at least), this young man had led me to the exact place where I would be most visible, in his efforts to deter me from that space.
Within minutes, the organizers and their countless non-student members and supporters were enraged. Time and time again, I kept asking them what they found so offensive about the sign.
They called me a “Zionist” to which I simply asked, “what does ‘Zionism’ mean?”
Naturally, none of them had any intelligible answer to this question. Then came the death threats, fi-l-lughat al-`Arabiyyah.
It took me hearing it with my own ears, to really have it click. This was the first Palestinian protest in which I wasn’t lauded as some token Pro-Palestinian Jew that everyone wanted to introduce to their family.
My “Zionist” crime? Simply saying that Hamas did not represent Islam, nor any of the Gazans which I know, love and have worked directly with in the Jam`at al-Fitrah, for over a decade.
Now, there were literally hundreds saying targeting Jewish civilians is legitimate revolution and Islamic (obviously it is not), and that rape is a valid tool for Palestinian “revolution”.
Ironically, they shouted all of this from stolen Native American land. When I pointed this out these munafiqun cackled at the thought that it was Nifaq, or blatant hypocrisy…
“Do as we say, not as we do,” I said – noting the irony further.
“Matter of fact,” I added, “do any of you have ancestral connections to Turtle Island here, the way Jews to do Judea?”
Lots of homophobic sluts of “Ya Manyak” and such ensued. I said “why don’t you tell all these nice little white college leftists what you are saying in Arabic? Let them know how Hamas treats homosexuals!”
An angry young man said “F*ck you Jew!” to which I said, “why don’t come come try to f*ck me ya habibi?”
That’s when the death threats started.
I heard a number of them coordinating a plan to distract me, while another of them said he would sneak up from behind and stab me. They were all very disappointed to hear that I understood them.
Of course, this is when the almost passe “Khaybar! Khaybar! Ya Yahud!” cries could be heard – invoking late Caliphate-commissioned myth of genocide against the Jews of Khaybar. In the centuries-late narration, Muhammad merely feared the Jews of Khaybar would betray him, and thus, he slaughtered them.
How and why this and other Islamicate genocide narrations emerged is a tale for another day. For the seriously interested student of history and Islamic Origins, I would recommend the text Unraveling the Myth of the Banu Qurayzah: The Origins of Islamicate Genocide (2011).
Remember, all of this Islamicate drama ensued simply because I said Hamas was bad. All the while, I made certain to emphasize that I am pro-Palestinian and typically not a fan of any government, including that of Israel. Yet, simply opposing Hamas meant it was okay to stab me.
During all of this, a young Palestinian man, as large as he was angry, rushed towards me. The police came to block him, but I urged them to allow him to come chat. Even one of the SJP organizers got between us, because someone had told them they recognized me as a judge of the Muay Thai fights at the Arnold Classic (also in Columbus, annually).
While this was going on, a young Caucasian LGBTQ+ Leftist for Hamas (who, again, would kill him if he stepped foot in Gaza), nabbed my “Free Gaza From Hamas” sign and threw it in the park’s lake. He said something like “Oh, looks like you don’t have your sign any more.”
This struck me as odd. Perhaps your average person is not as stubborn as me, but there was no chance in <em>Jahannam</em> that I was letting this little college kid end my fun prematurely.
“Yeah, the thing is, you threw my sign in water, not fire. I’ll be right back,” I said. I jumped in the lake, grabbed my sign, and stood triumphantly while the jaws of the SJP Hamas “simps” hit the ground. It was, after all, fairly cold out. But, again, they really underestimated how stubborn I am.
After retrieving my sign – the whole thing taking about ten seconds – I stood triumphantly holding the sign that had so infuriated these open Hamas supporters. My jacket, Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah told me, happened to be exposing part of my H&K VP9 Match 9mm pistol and additional three 20-round magazines on my opposite hip.
Suddenly, the mob of would-be stabbers realized they had brought a knife to a proverbial gun fight.
Again, I felt a sense of Divine Providence. Perhaps these guys were going to actually try their little stabbing plan, as so many of these “child prisoners” being released from Israeli prisons have certainly tried on the streets of Israel. Perhaps this odd little misguided leftist who threw the sign ended up saving one or more SJP professional activists’ lives that day – had they decided to test fate. As the Qur’an says, wa-Allahu `Alim.
Time and time again, when a curious Palestinian tried to approach me to discuss or debate, the Ikhwan-funded organizers rushed over to prevent them, and in one case physically removed the person. Shlomit, Yairah and Naharah, for their parts, were all told not to talk to me when the SJP organizers saw them approach me to ask how much longer we were going to be there, because they wanted to head over to the mall with me when we were done.
Yet at the very end (as you will see in the Instagram photos above), an elder of the local Palestinian community actually came and talked with me and told the SJP to stop telling him not to talk with me. When they all left to go march and chant their Pro-Hamas bars (if it rhymes, it has got to be true!), he and I stayed and talked. The conversation was fairly productive. He asked that though the conversation was recorded, we not post it anywhere, as he seemed to understand the threat he faced from his own community for sitting and discussing with me, rather than shouting talking points at me.