Pro-Hamas Supporters Endorse Violence Against Babies in Brooklyn
On Tuesday evening, anti-Israel protesters gathered in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is predominantly Jewish, purportedly to voice their concerns about a real-estate event.
However, their actual agenda was a protest against the very existence of the Jewish state and the Jewish people as a whole.
Despite the chaos unfolding, it is important to note that a cease-fire is currently in place in Gaza.
This cease-fire has been observed for over a month, aimed at facilitating the exchange of Israeli hostages for numerous Palestinian terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons for prior attacks.
The demonstrators in Brooklyn are not seeking peace; they are calling for destruction and further violence.
“There is only one solution: Intifada, revolution,” one protest organizer shouted through a megaphone.
The crowd chanted, “Settlers, settlers, go back home; Palestine is ours alone.”
These protests did not occur in isolation.
They came at a time when the Jewish community was grappling with the fate of the Bibas family after an agonizing 500 days of suspense.
The video capturing the October 7, 2023, abduction of Shiri Bibas and her two young redheaded sons, Ariel (4) and Kfir (9 months), circulated globally, exemplifying the utter depravity of the attacks.
It has been reported that their remains, along with those of elderly hostage Oded Lifshitz, will be returned to Israel as part of the cease-fire agreement.
As a mother of young redheaded children, I felt a profound connection to the images of the Bibas boys.
My child and Kfir are the same age, and as I put my little one to bed each night, I often thought about how Shiri must have done the same with Kfir.
Did he have a cozy crib? Did he like his bottle?
Every time my arms grew weary from carrying my two little ones, my thoughts returned to Shiri. How she must have carried her boys for hours while held captive. I can only imagine how her arms must have ached.
But despite everything, she held her children close, as any mother would.
Yet, tragically, no mother should have to endure such horrors.
We’ll never fully comprehend the nightmares that Shiri and her boys experienced; their voices fell silent with them.
“How many kids did you kill today?” chanted the crowd in Brooklyn.
Yet, the lives of the Jewish children that will now be laid to rest in Israel, their bodies returned after such a long ordeal, appear to hold no significance for those screeching about imagined casualties.
“Zionists go to hell,” another chilling chant echoed through Borough Park on that night.
Many in Israel are turning to the words of national poet Chaim Nachman Bialik from his 1903 poem “On the Slaughter” as they mourn the return of two innocent bodies from Gaza.
Bialik wrote, “No such revenge — revenge for the blood of a little child — has yet been devised by Satan.”
It is not the supporters of the Jewish state who are destined for hell; rather, it is those who cold-bloodedly murder children and their mothers.
The protesters who gathered in Borough Park expected they could intimidate and harass the local Jewish community. One individual even attempted to ram his vehicle into a group of Jews at the intersection of 14th Avenue and 37th Street.
However, they were met with resistance.
The Jewish community stood its ground, with members bravely defending their families and homes.
They demonstrated a resilience reminiscent of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s assertion: “I am not a Jew with trembling knees.”
The New York Police Department joined in, providing protection to Jewish residents from the intended aggression of the anti-Israel group Pal-Awda.
“Go back to Europe” has become a common refrain among anti-Semitic protesters since the events of October 7. By delegitimizing the Jewish claim to the land of Israel, these individuals wish for Jews to return to a place where they faced horrific atrocities throughout history.
The protesters on that Tuesday intended to recreate scenes from Nazi Germany, inflicting harm on Jews without consequence.
But times have changed. The Jewish community rose up, supported by both the NYPD and American politicians.
The Hamas attacks on Israel have birthed a new era of Jewish identity. We are now acutely aware that the existential threats we face are not relics of the past; they are present-day realities.
We recognize those who advocate for our annihilation amidst our own neighborhoods, rioting in favor of those responsible for the most devastating massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
These depraved individuals, just days before Israel was set to reclaim the bodies of a baby, a toddler, and their mother murdered in Gaza, attempted to provoke violence against New York’s Jewish community.
But from now on, when these anti-Semites threaten us, they must brace themselves for the resilience of post-October 7 Jews. The protesters in Borough Park experienced this determination firsthand on Tuesday night.
Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars and is a homeschooling mother of six in the greater Washington, D.C. area.
