I Just Worked Security for a Pro-Palestinian Event. Here's What I Saw.

An event organized by Jewish Voice for Peace was disrupted by pro-Israel community members in an embarrassing display of intolerance…

I was asked to help with security for an event at the Montclair, New Jersey Public Library on November 12^th. The event was a conversation organized by the New Jersey chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an anti-Zionist organization that is critical of Israeli foreign policy, along with support from groups like Veterans for Peace and the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). It was to consist of a talk given by Steve Chase, a Quaker and member of FCNL, detailing his perspective on the nightmare unfolding in Gaza, based on his experiences traveling to Israel and the occupied territories, as well as years of activism around the Israel-Palestine conflict.

There was a need for additional security because the event had been subject to repeated attempts at cancellation for some time, and worries about potential violent disrupters began to circulate among some of the organizers.

In fact, the event was supposed to be held much earlier, but at the last minute, the Unitarian Universalist Church that had agreed to hold it pulled out. The church claimed to have discovered that the event did not align with their values. This was a surprise to the organizers, and to myself, since we’d all read those values online and had not seen any conflict between them and the purpose of the event. JVP organizers informed me that local Jewish groups had apparently put pressure on the church to cancel the event. When Jewish Voice for Peace asked the Montclair Public Library to host the event instead, the library said yes. This prompted some Montclair residents to pressure the library to cancel the event as well.

The stated concerns of these residents are worth examining, because they indicate how utterly unmoored supporters of Israeli policy have become from anything remotely resembling the world of verifiable fact. Here is the full text of a Change.org petition to get the event on November 12^th cancelled. As of this writing, it has drawn over 400 signatures.

Why is Montclair Public Library supporting terror?

Montclair Public Library is providing space to Jewish Voice for Peace at your main branch this Sunday, November 12 from 1:30 - 3 PM. We request you cancel this terror-supporting event immediately.

• JVP is advocating for the "liberation of Palestine” which is hate speech advocating for terror. Liberating Palestine = massacring all Jewish babies, children, women, elderly and men in Israel.

• On October 7, 2023, 3000 Hamas terrorists entered Israel during the Sabbath and Simcha Torah holiday and intentionally murdered over 1000 civilians.

• Hamas tortured babies in their cribs, murdered children in front of parents and parents in front of children in their homes, and acted worst [sic] than ISIS and the Nazis. 
• Hamas kidnapped over 240 Jewish babies, toddlers, children, women, Holocaust survivors and foreign workers and is holding them in Gaza right NOW. One of them is Kfir Bibas, 10 months old (not years).

We residents of Montclair and local community who support the library and love the library find this deeply disturbing. Antisemitism and Jew hatred has exploded across the United States making college campuses unsafe for Jewish students and professionals, and Jews have been threatened and murdered in America recently as a result.

We don’t want to cancel our memberships to the library, stop all donations to the library, and boycott the library. However, we won’t sit back and let hate speech against Israel find home in Montclair.

We hope of course that by simply canceling the terror event the Montclair Public Library board of trustees and leadership recognizes that terror speech has no home in Montclair anywhere, especially our public library!

The petition reflects numerous glaring factual errors obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of the Middle East, of the current situation regarding Gaza, or in possession of basic reading and comprehension skills. Sadly, some of these cliches continue to be taken seriously among segments of an American public notoriously gullible when it comes to claims about international relations, spurred on by supporters of Israel who see nothing wrong with blatantly lying about the intentions of peace activists.

First, the idea that the library, or JVP, are somehow “supporting terror” are difficult to take seriously. The talk was to be given by a Quaker – a group not known for supporting terrorism – as well as other organizations with “Peace” in their title, who routinely demonstrate a commitment to peace in their actions. This rhetoric about “terror” is symptomatic of a strange mindset that equates support for nonviolence as equivalent to terrorism, through a logic that remains obscure to all but its adherents. It’s worth noting the irony that while the Israeli government and their American supporters decry Palestinian violence (never Israeli or American violence), they seem even more enraged at the thought of peaceful actions, such as nonviolent protests or, in this case, talks given at libraries. Second, trying to equate “the liberation of Palestine” with “massacring all Jewish babies, children, women, elderly and men in Israel” is so absurd as to be almost beneath contempt. It’s the equivalent of saying that the Civil Rights Movements’ call for the liberation of blacks under Jim Crow was a call for the massacre of all white people. Third, the assertion that Hamas “tortured babies in cribs” appears to be a reference to the lie that Hamas decapitated babies and overturned cribs during their October 7^th attack, which, as The Grayzone was able to confirm, originates with a lunatic Israeli leader of illegal West Bank settlements lying to the press, who uncritically repeated his claims without bothering to see if they were true. When journalists got around to asking the Israeli military for clarification, a spokesperson responded, “We cannot confirm but you can assume it happened,” which is a really, really, really poor standard for ascertaining facts on the ground. The October 7^th attack was horrific enough (children did in fact die); no one should have to lie in order to make it seem worse than it was.

Fourth, while “antisemitism and Jew hatred” undoubtedly exist, and may even be increasing in some instances, to even suggest that this pro-peace event would contribute to such attitudes is peak dishonesty. That the author used the phrase “hate speech against Israel” is particularly revealing. It suggests that supporters of Israel have come to believe that criticizing Israeli government policies is in and of itself an act of hate speech. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is silly. Criticizing policies of the Israeli government is not antisemitic, in the same way that criticizing policies of the Saudi government is not Islamophobic. It’s quite breathtaking how supporters of Israeli aggression are either incapable of understanding this simple point, or are otherwise intentionally trying to mislead people about it. Regarding the claim that antisemitism is increasingly prevalent on college campuses as a result of the present conflict, I see no hard evidence for that. I have attended rallies led by Students for Justice in Palestine which have involved the participation of numerous Jewish students who did not seem to feel threatened by being there. If anything, they received exceptionally warm welcomes. One event outside my university’s library even drew a visit from a group of Orthodox Jews from Jews Against Zionism, or NKUSA, who received a deafening applause from the mostly-Palestinian and/or Muslim crowd. If there is a rising wave of antisemitism on college campuses, I haven’t seen it. Indeed, my fellow graduate students who are Jewish, ranging in age from mid-20s to late 50s, have in conversations with me expressed nothing but disgust for what Israel has been doing in Gaza.

Moving on from the petition, the local Montclair press spoke to a number of individuals who, based on similarly erroneous views, endorsed the cancellation of the event. The biggest theme seemed to be that Jewish Voice for Peace was somehow an antisemitic, violent (or violence-supporting) organization. Christa Rapoport, who is the commissioner and chair of something called the “Montclair Civil Rights Commission,” claimed that “With regard to Jewish Voices [sic] for Peace, the organization made clear their support for Hamas on October 7,” and that an “inflammatory event organized by a group that has supported Hamas is not appropriate in the library.” JVP is supportive of Hamas? Really? Based on what? According to the Montclair Local, Rapoport was making reference to a statement put forward by JVP in the wake of the October 7^th Hamas terrorist attack. The statement, which can be viewed here, says absolutely nothing about supporting Hamas. This constant conflation of criticizing Israeli crimes with supporting Hamas suggests that supporters of Israel are incapable of basic reasoning, or else simply lying. It bears more than a passing resemblance to War on Terror-era lies that protestors against the Iraq War supported Al Qaeda.

Another local resident added that “This is an antisemitic group,” and that the flyer for the event “shows support from groups that have very clearly called for the elimination of the Jewish State.” The flyer, reproduced below, shows support from groups like Veterans for Peace, the FCNL, and Pax Christi New Jersey. To my knowledge, none of these organizations have ever called for “the elimination of the Jewish state.” As for the first claim; again, criticizing Israel does not make JVP (or any other group) “antisemitic.” At the risk of coming off as flippant, I am tempted to add, “duh.”

In fairness, at least one person who was critical of JVP nonetheless understood the importance of freedom of speech. According to the Montclair Local again:

Jodi Rudoren, a Montclair resident and editor of The Forward, a national Jewish media outlet, does not agree with the [Montclair Civil Rights Commission].

“A group of people should not be cancelled or banned based on what they say,” said Rudoren regarding JVP. “They have said and done some things that are clearly inappropriate, offensive, and they may have crossed some lines, but they are not a terrorist organization. They are basically staging protests that have a message many find difficult to hear. That’s not a reason to ban them from civilized discourse.”

Rudoren added that “difficult-to-hear speech, offensive speech, and even hate speech is protected by the First Amendment,” and that she wants to be able to “go to a library where people who radically disagree can respectfully listen to each other and engage. I hope we can get there.” she added a crucial reminder that “cancelling or screaming at people is not doing anything to save anyone’s life in Israel and Gaza.” Sadly, as we will see, Rudoren is a tiny minority amongst American supporters of Israel, who as I saw on November 12^th, exist on a spectrum that ranges from “embarrassingly ignorant” to “childishly intolerant.”

In the end, the library did not give in to the pressure to shut down the event, which went ahead as scheduled. Despite this, a number of attendees tried their hardest to make the event needlessly confrontational. To my knowledge, video of the event has not yet been posted online, so I will do my best to reconstruct what happened from memory.

I arrived early to the event, and immediately noticed a heavy police presence outside the entrance. Barricades were being erected. It seemed a jarring contrast to the quiet, leafy suburb within which the Montclair Public Library sits. The small auditorium where the event was to take place could only fit 100 people safely. Once we were at capacity, a large crowd remained outside the doors; many were shouting and yelling about how they needed to be let in. This went on throughout the duration of the talk. Most people in the room appeared to be Jewish or otherwise white; a few Palestinians, other Muslim-Americans, and African Americans were sprinkled throughout the audience.

The event started out with the moderators, an elderly Jewish man and his wife, instructing everyone on the code of conduct – don’t wave flags around, don’t disrupt, don’t yell, etc. They then encouraged everyone to spend two minutes talking to someone next to them about their initial reactions to October 7^th when they first heard about it, as well as how they were feeling about it after a few weeks’ reflection. Once the two minutes was up, it was the other person’s turn to talk. Then the audience was asked if anyone wanted to share something they had learned or otherwise found to be interesting.

One Jewish woman movingly volunteered that the Palestinian woman she talked to apologized for what Hamas had done on October 7^th. The woman expressed sadness that this Palestinian American felt that she was somehow obligated to apologize for such an act. Another person volunteered that children in high schools have complained that they have not been taught any context for what is currently happening.

Once people were done sharing, the speaker, Steve Chase, begin his talk. After introducing himself and setting up his PowerPoint presentation on the screen, he asked for a moment of silence for the Israeli hostages, for the Gazans under siege, and everyone else who was suffering. It was observed respectfully by all.

Chase was the stereotypical Quaker: soft-spoken, gentle in demeanor, and seriously interested in peace and understanding. He talked about his own experience as a very pro-Israel young person, and how his perception of Israel changed as he spent more time both in the country and in the occupied territories, as well as through his conversations with progressive Jews, who were worried about the level of racism against Arabs that they said was on the rise in Israel.

I’m at a disadvantage here because my job was to help assist with security. Thus, I was distracted and unable to view the entire presentation, being focused instead on identifying any potential problems brewing in the crowd. But it largely consisted of Chase recounting some of the history between Israel and Palestine, along with his time visiting a Quaker school in Ramallah, his many visits with Palestinian families (both Muslim and the Palestinian Christian minority), as well his recollections of violence against Palestinians perpetrated by IDF troops, and the inevitable reprisals.

Roughly twenty minutes into the presentation, a group of around eight supporters of Israel sitting near the front of the audience began to disrupt, shouted that the talk was one-sided, and very loudly accused Chase of engaging in hate speech, being hateful, and supporting terrorism. They screamed that he was presenting “false facts” (which, incidentally, is like saying that he was drinking “dry water”), and claimed that the space was not safe for them. They very shrilly insisted that they felt unsafe, and that they felt threatened by what was being said. Other pro-Israel individuals, many of them Jews, scattered throughout the audience, began to shout similar denunciations, further disrupting the talk. More police moved into the room; they were now on alert. So was I. Most of the audience were exasperated by the behavior of the disrupters, and many people demanded that they be ejected from the room for violating the library’s code of conduct, which had been distributed to everyone before they entered the room.

This did not deter them. One older man shouted that “The Nakbah is bullshit! The Nakbah is a lie!” He was, of course, referring to the Israeli-directed expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes between 1947 and 1949 (Nakbah is Arabic for “catastrophe”). Since then, Israel has consistently denied Palestinian refugees – many of whom are still alive – and their descendants the right to return to their homes. To give a sense of how tragic this event was (to say nothing of Israeli actions since 1949), many refugees continue to possess the physical keys to their family homes, in the increasingly vain hopes that they might live long enough to be able to return. As I listened to the man scream that the Nakbah never happened, I was reminded of Florida parents who think that learning about the horrors of chattel slavery amounts to a distortion of history.

The moderator’s wife, who identified herself as the former principal of a Jewish day school (“I can’t believe you were teaching kids,” one particularly enraged Jewish woman yelled; “Those kids were lucky to have her,” a Palestinian woman retorted) attempted to regain control. She and her husband were visibly frustrated, as was everyone who had attended in the hopes of having a dialogue. Indeed, the majority sentiment in the room was that the disrupters were acting like toddlers and needed to be ejected. After what seemed like an eternity of yelling, it came time for a Q&A, where one of the disrupters asked why the library agreed to host a “one-sided” event like this. Another alleged that a member of one of the Palestinian families mentioned by Chase had blown up sixteen people at a café, presumably in Israel. I’ve been unable to verify this since I don’t know the name of the family in question. It’s not terribly difficult to believe, but I must note that Israeli soldiers who commit far greater acts of terrorism rarely receive the kind of scrutiny that Palestinian terrorists do (indeed, Chase mentioned multiple instances in his talk of IDF troops committing atrocities, which enraged the Zionist disrupters in the audience; apparently they believe such incidents are entirely fictitious, or that they should be off-limits for conversation).

Chase was very admirable in that he maintained his composure throughout the interruptions, which seemed to go on forever and were extremely frustrating to listen to. I know many people who would not have been so polite had they been interrupted and shouted at for a half hour as he was.

Multiple questioners challenged a quote that Chase included in one of his slides. The quote was from David Ben Gurion, “the leader of the Jewish community [in Palestine] during the Mandatory period and Israel’s first Prime Minister,” ^[i] and it was implied to be from the World War Two era before the Israeli state officially came into being. I don’t have access to the presentation, but the quote was something along the lines of “if I had a choice between saving all of Germany’s Jewish children by sending them to England, and saving half of Germany’s Jewish children by sending them to Palestine, I would pick the latter, because the Jewish homeland is more important.” It was indeed a rather shocking quote; even I had not heard of it.

It is here that Chase made his only serious error. When questioned he was unable to identify the source of the quote, although he offered to email it to the questioner after looking at his notes. This drew understandable ire from the disruptors. One questioner claimed to have knowledge of the history behind the quote and suggested that Chase had used it out of context. She asserted that the quote was from 1937, and did not mean “save” the German Jewish children from extermination, which had not yet started, but rather it had a different context. This questioner asserted that at the time, German Jews were disguising their identities as Jews in order to avoid harassment, and by “save,” Ben Gurion meant save their ability to embrace their Jewish identities, not their lives. She may well have been on to something, though she discredited herself when she went on to baselessly accuse Chase of being antisemitic (as opposed to merely factually wrong), which elicited a collective groan, and more than a few boos, from the audience.

As a graduate student in history at a major university, I have to admit that this oversight irked me. You’ll never catch me using a provocative quote like that in a public setting (or in writing) without knowing the source and context. Having said that, I’ve actually been able to track down the exact quote, and it appears that Chase used it properly, despite not knowing its origin. It can be found on page 855 of the Israeli historian Shabtai Teveth’s very sympathetic biography of Ben Gurion, Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886-1948.^[ii] As it appears in full, the quote reads, “Were I to know that the rescue of all German Jewish children could be achieved by their transfer to England and of only half their number by transfer to Palestine, I would opt for the latter, because our concern is not only the personal interest of these children, but the historic interest of the Jewish people.” Nothing in the surrounding pages of Teveth’s use of this quote suggests that it should be taken in any manner except literally; as in, saving the children’s lives. Teveth calls it an “extreme expression” of Ben Gurion’s views, as well as (p. 856) a “brutal formulation.” And, contrary to what the audience member asserted, the quote is from December 7^th 1938, over a year after the opening of the Buchenwald concentration camp, one month after Kristallnacht, and after thousands of Jews had already been sent to concentration camps. Accordingly, it seems likely that Chase used it in the correct sense. However, since I’ve not had the time to read the full 854 pages leading up to the quote, I’ll withhold complete judgment on its exact meaning. For all I know, that woman in the audience might have known something I don’t.

That said, those who’ve studied the history of Israeli state formation know that it was, from the beginning, a settler-colonial project, predicated on what the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has called “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”^[iii] Whether or not Ben Gurion’s quote means what it sounds like it means, it is a matter of historical fact that the Zionist movement, from the beginning, had the intention of removing the Palestinians and/or depriving them of their rights, in order to make way for Jewish settlers, and did so with the knowledge that this would be harmful to many individual Jews in the Ottoman territories. This plan was developed many decades before World War II (actually, even before World War I); an important fact to emphasize, given that many Americans who know nothing about the Middle East seem to hold a vague belief that Israel is what the Jewish people are somehow “entitled to” as a result of the Holocaust. Not so. As early as 1895, Theodore Herzl, the “acknowledged leader of the growing [Zionist] movement he had founded,” was talking about expelling a good number of Palestinians from their ancestral lands:

We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.^[iv]

The British government, which exerted significant imperial control over swathes of the Middle East, endorsed the Zionist project for its own nefarious, imperialistic reasons. By 1917, this support was made official via the Balfour Declaration, which made it official British government policy to assist in the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. By 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky (who the Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi described as “the godfather of the political trend that has dominated Israel since 1977”), wrote that “Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into ‘the Land of Israel.’”^[v] It was in 1942, with the Biltmore Program, that the Zionist Movement began to openly call for all of Palestine to give way to a Jewish State.^[vi] And Zionist/Israeli leaders would routinely put the safety of Jewish individuals and communities on the line to accomplish that goal, as historians like Khalidi have documented.^[vii] Chase may have made an error regarding his particular quote. But he got the overall situation right.

The Q&A - contentious and frustrating as the disruptors continued to yell and harass Chase - came to an end without any violence, thankfully. I stayed to ensure people were able to leave safely as they begun to filter out. The supporters of Israel banded together outside as people left, singing in Hebrew, waving Israeli flags, and yelling at Palestinians and their supporters on the other side of the barricade. The Palestinian group was far smaller, but not averse to responding in kind. The pro-Israel crowd continued to demonstrate that it was untethered from reality by chanting “Bring them home,” referring to the Israeli hostages who as of this writing remain captive. This was a bizarre thing to chant, given that literally everyone supports this; as such, the Palestinian group quickly began to join the chant. When the pro-Palestinian group then began calling for a ceasefire, one Israel supporter had the gall to shout “The ceasefire was before October 7^th!” over and over, as if Israel had not done anything violent in Gaza prior to that date. While this was going on, Chase, the moderators, and other key personnel were able to make it to their cars unmolested, and the event petered out without incident.

What can we take away from all this? My overall impression of the event was that while Chase should have been more careful with his selection of quotes, that he was well-spoken, well-intentioned, and informative. More importantly, he was about as kind-hearted a person as you could possibly imagine. And most people in the audience seemed to have come out of a sense of distress at what was going on in the Middle East, with the intention of learning from someone with an important perspective.

The mostly-Jewish disruptors, who had clearly attempted to shut this event down for a long time, made that nearly impossible. Indeed, their behavior throughout was embarrassing. I’ve never actually heard anyone use the phrase “safe space” in a serious sense until this event. Older conservative types are constantly mocking younger people, especially those on the left, for supposedly desiring such things, but I’ve never seen a millennial use the phrase, except as a pejorative. By contrast, I saw a great number of mostly older, right-wing and/or liberal Zionists shrieking about how unsafe they felt, demanding access to a “safe space,” in all apparent seriousness.

It was honestly breathtaking to witness, given that they were in a sleepy little library, listening to a mild-mannered Quaker speaking at the invitation of Jewish Voice for Peace. It would be difficult to find a space that was safer than this. Clearly, they viewed public speech that they disagreed with as somehow “hateful” or “unsafe,” which is, I’m sorry to say, pathetic. Speech is not violence, and unless you’re talking about racial slurs, sexual harassment, or incitements to violence, it is not “threatening,” either. That supporters of Israel seem to think otherwise does not reflect positively on them, or their cause. And it must be noted that there were no pro-Palestinian individuals or groups that acted out of turn. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and nonreligious community members came to this event with the intention to listen. By contrast, a group of pro-Israel Jews came with the intention to silence views they didn’t want to hear – indeed, views they seemed unable even to comprehend. To the extent that I or anyone else felt unsafe, it was because of these people. The pro-peace individuals in the audience were quiet and respectful. The pro-Israel individuals were loud, intolerant, unwilling to listen, and ignorant to the point where one expressed explicit denial of a major historical event (the Nakbah).

If I’m being charitable, perhaps it’s the case that some of the disruptors have friends or relatives in Israel who were killed or possibly even kidnapped on October 7^th. If so (and I have no way of knowing this; it’s pure charitable speculation on my part), I can appreciate their fear and their grief. I would not pretend to know what that would be like. But I cannot excuse their being oblivious to history. Nor can I excuse that they seem uninterested in the grief of the vastly greater number of Palestinian families, who have been through far worse, for far longer. I’m not inclined to take seriously anyone who believes, implicitly or explicitly, that Israeli lives are precious, but that Palestinian lives are afterthoughts, or even less.

While I was sad to see what should have been a peaceful community event be disrupted by grown adults acting like spoiled children, I take consolation from two things: First, that despite the interruptions, we were able to hear about what life in Gaza and the West Bank is really like. And second, that everyone present was able to witness what many American supporters of Israel are really like. Experience, as the saying goes, is the greatest teacher.

UPDATE: 16 November - I have since learned that the pro-Israel disruptors were heard to shout that Gaza should be turned into beachfront properties for Israel, a moment which was captured on film and can be viewed here:

https://twitter.com/carrielogo/status/1723802363608068118

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[i] Ilan Pappe. Ten Myths About Israel. Verso, New York, 2017, p. 33

[ii] According to the footnote (no. 21, p. 923), Ben Gurion spoke these words at a meeting of the Mapai (Palestine Workers’ Party) Central Committee on 7 December 1938. The document from which Teveth obtained this quote is physically located at the Israel Labour Party Archives in Kefar Saba, Beit Berl, Israel, and is in Hebrew, so this is as far as my investigation can reasonably go for the moment.

[iii] Ilan Pappe. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2016.

[iv] Herzl quoted in Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. Metropolitan Books: New York, 2020, p. 4

[v] Jabotinsky quoted in Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, p. 12

[vi] Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, p. 60

[vii] As Khalidi notes, Palestinian leaders foresaw that attempts to create a Jewish state would harm Jewish communities throughout the Middle East, though Zionist leaders like Herzl were dismissive of these complaints. See Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, pp. 3-8.