USA: Pro-Palestine Protesters Clash With Police, Burn US Flag, Vandalise Monuments During Met Gala

New Delhi: On Monday, a mob of more than 1,000 Pro-Palestine clashed with police and vandalised public monuments while attempting to reach the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where the Met Gala, the star-studded fashion event was held.

As per a New York Post report, the demonstrators, blocked by police from nearing the Met Gala, diverted to Central Park where they defaced the One Hundred Seventh Infantry Memorial. The World War I memorial was spray-painted in large black letters with the word “Gaza”. They also pasted stickers of the Palestinian flag that read “Stop the Genocide. End the apartheid. Free Palestine” on the bronze statues of soldiers. Some protesters even climbed atop the statues of the infantrymen and draped Palestinian flags over them. Protesters also burned an American flag at the site.

As the night unfolded, they defaced another monument in Central Park, the Gen William Tecumseh Sherman statue with “Free Gaza” written in red letters on the statue and a Palestinian flag affixed to the front.

In a recent incident, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters targeted a community center in Detroit owned by Thanedar, an Indian-origin US Congressman. The vandals defaced the center with pro-Palestine graffiti, including painting an “X” across a photograph of Thanedar and writing “racist,” “ceasefire,” and “Free Palestine” on the walls. The attack was in response to Thanedar’s pro-Israel stance after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2020. Thanedar lodged a complaint regarding the incident.

Earlier in the evening, according to Police, about two dozen anti-Israel protesters were arrested near Madison Avenue and East 83rd Street as a massive swarm of demonstrators marched toward the Met. They chanted, “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” while displaying Palestinian flags and wearing face coverings.

In counter to the recent protests by pro-Palestine individuals, nearly 1,000 pro-Israel demonstrators gathered at Riverside Park in support of Jewish students facing antisemitism at universities like Columbia University. Incidentally, the rally coincided with Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust remembrance day.

Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, addressed the rally, comparing the anti-Israel protesters as “modern-day Nazis” and criticized what he described as a selective outrage that overlooks other global injustices. Erdan emphasized the need for urgent action against antisemitism, particularly in academic environments.