The "Safe Space" is Dead, History is Repeating
If you aren't looking at what just happened in Midwood, you’re ignoring the moment pro-Palestinian "activism" turned into residential warfare. This wasn't a march on a government building but a siege on a Jewish neighborhood.
Quick recap for those unaware:
Park East Synagogue (May 5): The "warning shot". Under the pretext of protesting a real estate event on the Upper East Side, the crowd turned into a mob. They breached police barriers with such force that an NYPD officer was hospitalized with a severe leg injury.
Midwood (May 11): The "invasion." This moved from the sidewalk to the sanctuary of people's homes. While "protesting" the Young Israel synagogue, the mob spilled onto private porches. We watched an elderly man shoved to the ground, his head hitting a tree. Screaming "Death to…" and "Fuck Israel" at families watching from their balconies is nothing short of terrorizing a demographic.
When you wave Hezbollah flags and Hamas target symbols (the red triangle) while screaming "Death to the IDF" into the windows of private family homes, you aren't "petitioning for peace." You are terrorizing people where they sleep.
So why did I say 'History is Repeating'? If you guessed Nazi Germany, you went too far back.
Forty years ago, this was the manual of the White Supremacist. In the 70s and 80s, mobs in Boston and Marquette Park marched through neighborhoods with intimidating symbols to tell Black families "You aren't safe here".
Seeing People of Color within these pro-Palestinian crowds using those same tactics today is a tragic, hollow irony.
It is the worst kind of racism, a "reboot" of the very oppression their parents and grandparents fought to dismantle. When the former underdog adopts the tools of the supremacist, the moral high ground is dead. You aren't "dismantling a system", you’re just the new face of an old, ugly hate.
But this isn't about calling a specific group out, this is about the pro-Palestinian movement as a whole. If we decide that residential neighborhoods are "fair game" for this level of intimidation, no one is safe. Not your street, not your home, not your family. Bigotry and racism won't disappear once Jews are gone, it'll only find a new target.
Don't let the "activist" label mask a pogrom. Call it out now, or don't be surprised when the mob decides your neighborhood is the next "territory" to be marked.
