Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a Christmas party hosted by Michigan Democrats to confront a lawmaker over his support for Israel, sparking a melee that left an elderly partygoer hospitalized with two black eyes.
About 20 to 30 protesters invaded a Detroit bar Saturday night to disrupt a Christmas party the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party was hosting for about 200 people, according to Bridge Michigan.
Protesters from the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Party for Socialism and Liberation were there to confront Rep. Shri Thanedar, who had resigned his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America over his support for an “anti-Semitic and hate-filled” demonstration in Times Square.
Party president Jonathan Kinloch said “polite” requests for them to leave fell on deaf ears, which “angered those attending the event, who then forced the protesters” to leave to protect already elderly people. disabled attendees.
Partygoer Valeria Berra said a protester “started” the violence by pushing her against the wall.
Former Detroit Police Commissioner Bernice Smith, 91, even appeared in the fight, hitting protesters with a baton, according to images posted on Instagram, an act she justified as self-defense.
“Out of here!” she yelled repeatedly at one of the intruders.
Smith’s children helped clear out the protesters. “I started it because I couldn’t believe they were doing this and no one was doing anything,” one of his sons, Sterling Jackson, told the media.
At least one partygoer, Democratic activist Bobbie Johnson, was hospitalized and suffered two black eyes. X / @jkin5022 Johnson livestreamed the event. X / @jkin5022
At least one partygoer, Democratic activist Bobbie Johnson, was hospitalized after suffering two black eyes.
“They came in here, they broke my head!” she screamed as he wiped the blood from his face with a video streamed live while still at the event.
Once home from the hospital, Johnson told Bridge Michigan that the protest was “unreal.”
“I live in a diverse community and I work a lot in the Muslim community,” Johnson said. “I have nothing against Muslims. “I just don’t see why (they decided to protest) in Detroit.”
Kinloch, the local party president, denounced the protesters as “troublemakers.”
Some protesters maintained that everything had been peaceful until they were pressured. X / @jkin5022 Around 20 to 30 protesters invaded a Detroit bar on Saturday night. X / @jkin5022
“It’s not productive,” he said, although he acknowledged that Israel’s war of revenge against Hamas has divided the party.
Some protesters, however, maintained that everything had been peaceful until they were pressured. Sammie Lewis said his glasses were broken and they were “given no warning” before pushing them away.
“We encountered violence for calling for an end to the genocide,” he said. “Part of our message is that the Democrats are taking a page from the Zionist book: They are essentially attacking us and playing the victim.”
Detroit police were investigating, but no arrests had been made as of Wednesday, a spokesperson told Newsweek.
The representative they targeted, Thanedar, 68, had renounced his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack.
Hours after the match fight, he was woken up at 3 a.m. by pro-Palestinian protesters in front of his house, he wrote in X.
Protesters showed up at Rep. Thanedar’s house in the middle of the night. X / @huwaidaarraf Thanedar resigned his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America after the October 7 terrorist attack. X / @huwaidaarraf
“Your silence is violence, your silence is abominable!” shouted a protester on the sidewalk in front of his mansion as horns blared in the background.
Thanedar’s political contrast with anti-Israel “Squad” member and fellow Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who represents Detroit’s adjoining congressional district, underscores the national partisan divisions that have come to the fore in the Great Lakes state.
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Tlaib is the only Palestinian American in the House, has faced criticism from her own party and survived a censure attempt from the other side of the aisle for promoting the slogan “From the River to the Sea,” a phrase Jewish groups say is a called anti-Semite. for the genocide of Israel.
He has said that President Biden, the leader of his party, “supported the genocide of the Palestinian people” by backing Israel’s war against Hamas.
Michigan is home to more than 300,000 residents of Arab descent and 90,000 Jews, and both groups had been solid Democratic voting blocs until recently, the outlet noted.
Now, Arab American leaders are threatening to withdraw support for Biden in the key battleground state over his administration’s support for the war.
Biden’s approval rating among Arab Americans nationally had plummeted from 59% in 2020 to 17% this year, according to a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute in October.
The president trails Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in Michigan by an average of 5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics, a state he won by 3 points against the Republican in 2020.
The protesters were from the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. X / @jkin5022
“I think the Israeli war has affected their numbers,” said Bernie Porn, president of the EPIC-MRA polling firm.
“The tension here is even higher than perhaps any other metropolitan area in the country,” state Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), who is Jewish, told Bridge Michigan.
With post cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn