CHICAGO, Illinois — “We don’t want no two states; give us all of ’48!” That was one among many anti-Israel — and anti-American chants shouted by pro-Palestinian protesters Monday outside the Democratic National Convention.
President Joe Biden would later tell his party, from the stage, that the protesters “have a point.” But their point was not that “[a] lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” as Biden said. Their point was: destroy Israel.
At the front of the procession Monday from Union Park to the perimeter fence outside the United Center — which protesters soon broke through — were several extremist flags, including the flag of the Hamas terrorist organization.
Protesters chanted the familiar “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which refers to the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state (under current conditions, an Islamist one, controlled by Hamas).
Other chants targeted President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, whom protesters accused of “genocide” and “killing children.” In another refrain, protesters likened the Chicago Police Department to the Ku Klux Klan.
But the target of most of the chants was Israel. There were no chants for peace, or even for a ceasefire in the ongoing war in Gaza, which started October 7 when Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis, most of whom were civilians.
Jews were also targets — both on the streets and inside convention-related events. On Tuesday, a group of anti-Israel protesters disrupted an event near the convention hosted by Agudath Israel, a nonpartisan Orthodox Jewish group.
Most Jewish groups have not shared the locations of their events publicly in Chicago this week, for fear of disruption.
While acknowledging that the protesters have a “point,” Biden never once even used the word “Israel” in his speech.
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 Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.