Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators Smash Grand Central, Vandalize New York Times

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators smashed a door at New York City’s Grand Central Station on Friday night and briefly forced the closure of the transportation hub as they marched through the streets of Manhattan for the second night in a row.

ABC-7 New York reported:

Service at Grand Central was limited on Friday after pro-Palestine protesters flooded the streets.

The pro-Palestinian rally started at 5 p.m. Friday at Columbus Circle, with thousands marching through the streets demanding a ceasefire overseas.

Marchers then made their way to the New York Times building, vandalizing the front with a red tint before heading to Grand Central.

CBS New York reported that there were several arrests, and violence elsewhere related to the demonstrations:

 

The NYPD says demonstrations are being held just about every day in the city and stretching police resources. Each precinct now has one supervisor and eight uniformed officers on standby, ready to respond to planned or pop-up demonstrations, according to police sources.

…

Police say around 9:30 p.m., some demonstrators staged a sit-in at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue and refused to comply with officers’ orders. Police also say there were altercations between some demonstrators and bystanders.
A number of people were detained for disorderly conduct.

The New York Post reported that the protesters also spattered the front of the New York Times building with red paint, burned an Israeli flag, and chanted for the destruction of Israel:

The mob was part of a “Flood Manhattan for Gaza” protest that initially converged on Columbus Circle earlier in the evening, where they set fire to an Israeli flag and taunted a small faction of counter-demonstrators before marching through Manhattan and splattering fake blood on the New York Times building.

“We don’t want a Jewish state. We want ‘48!” the anti-Israel protesters chanted at the starting point, referring to Palestine before the establishment of Israel.

On Thursday night, pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the lobby of the New York Times itself. They vandalized police cars outside the building, painting “FREE GAZA” on them.

The Times noted that several of its own employees were among the demonstrators:

As the protest wound its way up Eighth Avenue toward Times Square, it paused in front of The New York Times, where a group of journalists and writers had also gathered in the lobby to demand The Times’ Editorial Board call for a ceasefire.

Outside the building on West 40th Street, a police cruiser’s back window was smashed, and the vehicle was graffitied with the words “IDF KKK.”

The increasing vehemence and violence of pro-Palestinian protests has gained attention around the world — including in Israel, where it has, ironically, reinforced a sense that Israel has no choice but to fight Hamas terrorists, since nowhere else in the world is safe for Jews.

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 new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent 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.