Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is comparing the pro-Israel vigilantes who attacked a pro-Palestinian “encampment” at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) last week to the Capitol rioters of January 6, 2021.
As Breitbart News reported, the encampment bullied Jewish students, assaulted journalists, and blocked access to campus for students, faculty, and the public for several days. Bass and university authorities did nothing to stop them.
In fact, security contractors and law enforcement said that they had been told not to intervene. One UCLA security guard told Breitbart News that the activists had been placed in charge of them and were guiding their deployment.
On the night of April 30-May 1, a group of about 100 pro-Israel vigilantes attacked the encampment, and fights ensued. It was only then elected leaders spoke out and UCLA and law enforcement moved to clear the encampment.
Bass vowed to prosecute those involved. Police have used tactics drawn from the January 6 investigations in trying to identify and find suspects.
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported, Bass emphasized the January 6 analogy:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday compared the violence at UCLA last week to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying it “came out of nowhere.”
…
Bass has previously spoken in emotional terms about Jan. 6, calling it a tragedy that threatened the lives of journalists, emergency responders and others.
…
Bass, in the Fox 11 interview, also questioned why the university allowed [a pro-Israel] counterprotest to take place next to the pro-Palestinian encampment, which had been largely peaceful until then.
Contrary to what Bass said, the “encampment” threatened and assaulted journalists. It was also not “largely peaceful,” but rather seized a portion of the campus by force, and patrolled it by force.
The university allowed the “encampment” to control security during the pro-Israel counter-demonstration, so much so that pro-Israel protesters, including children, had to walk through a gauntlet of angry pro-Palestinian activists, leading to small-scale scuffles throughout.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.