A violent antisemitic mob descended upon a Los Angeles synagogue on Sunday and harassed the congregants, injuring several. Yet the response from the LA media and authorities has been pitiful.
The initial protests were organized by Palestinian Youth Movement LA and Code Pink LA, the same coalition of people who’ve organized the protests on college campuses and in our cities.
Some of the protesters filmed their march down the streets of Los Angeles holding Palestinian and pro-Hamas flags.
They screamed chants like, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”
This is what the protest ended up like as they made their way to the Adas Torah synagogue in Pico-Robertson, a Los Angeles neighborhood with a large number of Jewish residents:
It was an ugly scene. Though you might not know about it if you only followed left-wing local and national media. The Los Angeles Times buried this story in its back pages.
Judge for yourself what you think of these videos.
Only one person was reportedly arrested during this whole episode—a man who was allegedly holding a flag with a spike at the end of it. According to The Jewish Chronicle, the police didn’t provide any more information about the person.
I really don’t think there’s any question that what happened at the Adas Torah synagogue was shameful and unacceptable. Protesting is one thing, harassing a synagogue is crossing the line. And committing violence is criminal. The question is, what are the authorities going to do about it?
Here’s the statement put out by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
I’ll note a few things here.
First, Bass buries the lede.
The word “antisemitism” only shows up near the end of the statement, and from the first paragraph, one would hardly know that the hostility and violence were directed toward Jews or who committed it.
Bass condemns “violence,” but only says it took place at a “place of worship.”
It wasn’t just a place of worship, it was a synagogue. The people in the mob had a target, and the target was Jews.
This is a common left-wing linguistic tactic. Any time a group they aren’t so keen on is targeted, or the ethnic and religious dynamic is uncomfortable, they will label the incident with generic words like “hate” to dodge the issue and shift it to a broader societal problem.
That’s exactly what they tried to pull during the congressional hearings on college campus antisemitism.
Next, Bass says she’s organizing more police patrols outside—again, totally generic—“houses of worship.”
Unless those so-called houses of worship are synagogues, this is entirely a waste of police time and money.
If the mayor was really concerned about Jews being targeted for violence, she would have deployed the LA Police Department in force to the synagogue while this incident was growing rather than let it spin out of control for hours before intervening.
The only meaningful part of Bass’ bland statement is the line that “those responsible” for antisemitism and violence “will be found and held accountable.”
I certainly hope so, but given that only one person was even arrested, I can’t say I’d count on any of that statement being true.
As we’ve seen in other blue, heavily Democrat-controlled cities, lawbreakers who commit their crimes on behalf of left-wing causes often escape punishment entirely. They know that the powers that be will come to their aid.
President Joe Biden put out a slightly better statement than Bass by at least being explicit about who was attacked. However, the president was light on suggestions of what he will do about it.
This wasn’t a protest. It was a violent mob harassing and attacking citizens because of their religion.
The Department of Justice under Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland has put numerous pro-life activists in jail for attempting to block the entrances of abortion clinics. Will the DOJ do anything about the people who blockaded the synagogue and instigated violence? How about the other ugly antisemitic incidents that seem to be escalating?
So far, we’ve seen a whole lotta nothing.
Biden—or whichever one of his handlers was running his social media accounts at the time—said in 2020 that former President Donald Trump was on the hook for any violence he decried during his presidency.
Will Bass or the president or any of the left-wing institutional powers that be do anything to put a halt to these incidents, or is winning a few votes in Michigan more important than ensuring that “Never again” really means never again?
I hate to be cynical, but given all that’s happened in recent months, I think we already have the answer.
