As passions flare over the war between Israel and Hamas, virulent antisemitism is rearing its head here, with Jewish New Yorkers being personally targeted and threatened. Where this behavior is illegal, it must be prosecuted. Where it is legal but unacceptable, it must be widely condemned.
We refer to two especially odious recent incidents against Jews. First, vandals targeted the home of the Brooklyn Museum’s director , who is Jewish, splashing it with red paint and hanging a banner deeming her a “white-supremacist Zionist.” Homes of two museum trustees and its president were also targeted in similar fashion.
These are crimes; the offenders must be arrested and prosecuted. Some small number of pro-Palestinian New Yorkers have it out for the museum based on a cockamamie theory that there are links between its leadership and Israel’s military. So they’ve been protesting outside the museum, and last week, some of them were arrested in what they considered an overzealous show of force by the museum.
Protests, even unruly ones, are fine. Most people at most protests just want their voices heard, and have no interest in menacing or terrorizing individuals. If you want to protest how Israel is conducting its fight against Hamas terrorists, then protest, but don’t attack others.
But nothing justifies the vigilante targeting of individuals because they happen to be part of the leadership of this leading cultural and civic organization, or because they happen to believe in.
