Witnessing an Anti-Israel Rally First Hand
by Chloe Valdary
Israelis pray for the safety of IDF soldiers at the Western Wall. Photo: Tazpit News Agency.
They came with their posters and their chants. “Judeonazi” they cried, as rage filled their eyes and hate filled their hearts. “Allahu Akbar,” they exclaimed as they read off the list of people — both terrorists and civilians — killed in the recent conflict with Gaza. The irony of the fact that this rallying call is often issued by Hamas members before they blow themselves up taking innocent Muslim civilians with them was lost on the otherwise quick-witted mob that filled the square outside Boston’s public library on Thursday July 17, 2014.
The throng was certainly not short on diversity. It ranged from keffiyeh covered white girls who kept yelling “fascist” at me (although I’m certain they did not know the definition of that term) to Arab parents foaming at the mouth hurling racist epithets as their children rode on their shoulders looking on. Apoplectic elderly Jewish women also filled the crowd, wearing bright Palestinian paraphernalia and affirming their unity with Hamas, regardless of the fact that they would likely be lynched in Gaza for being Jews.
You hear about these things in the media all the time but it is quite another thing entirely to bear witness to Jews and Arabs calling for their own destruction. Like a scene from a horror movie wherein blacks marched in lockstep with the Ku Klux Klan, these folks marched for the literal murder of their own people. Yet this was no feature film playing in the cinema. This was a real time theater of the absurd played out in public for all the world to see.
Yet, for all of their hot air and sanctimonious screeching, they were largely unsuccessful. Their objective was to show “that they stood with Palestinians” (as they simultaneously championed their deaths by calling for an intifada). But they were impeded as a few of us decided to go rain on their parade.
Brandeis student Daniel Mael infiltrated the crowd — which was holding signs displaying hatred against Israel — and held up a poster of the three boys murdered by Hamas terrorists. At first they did not catch him, but later on in the protest, their fury was displayed in the form of clever retorts, which varied from ” You’re a traitor to your people” to “I know all about Auschwitz, you people are monsters!”
I too got the “You’re a traitor” allegation as I stood upon the steps of the library and held an Israeli flag high for all the exasperated crowd to see. They nearly lost it as they did not expect to see a black woman believe in something completely contrary to what they all believed black women should and absolutely must think. Indeed, their cognitive dissonance was so apparent one Caucasian gentlemen took it upon himself to call me “whitey,” apparently completely oblivious to the color of his own skin.
But for all their draconian dribble and preplanned animosity, we did not budge. We stood firm because we know that the cause that we represent is greater than the lies they chanted. Our cause is a universal one; it speaks to the humanity of both the Jew and the Arab, and the quest for a new day when these communities will walk together in brotherhood and be of one accord.
Our cause is for the Jew and Arab who struggle. For the Jew and Arab who fight. For the Jew and Arab who endeavor. For the Jew and Arab who strive. For the Jew and Arab who live. For Judea and Arabia which, with God’s grace and good fortune, will be free.
In Solidarity.
Chloé Simone Valdary is the founder of the pro-Israel group Allies for Israel at the University of New Orleans, a CCAP (CAMERA supported) group. This piece was originally published in the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) on Campus Blog In Focus.
