Teaneck, New Jersey, seemed a bit just like the West Financial institution on Sunday. Whose fault that’s is determined by who you ask. However one factor is obvious: It started with an actual property honest.
A number of weeks in the past, a bunch known as My Residence in Israel Actual Property introduced plans to carry a sequence of actual property festivals encouraging Individuals to purchase property in Israel and the West Financial institution, the place the Israeli authorities has confiscated land from Palestinians. Wealthy Siegel, a Jewish activist for Palestinian rights, vowed at a Teaneck Township Council assembly to arrange a protest in opposition to My Residence in Israel when it got here to city.
My Residence in Israel had rented out the native Keter Torah synagogue for its Teaneck exhibition. Fearing the worst, Teaneck’s authorities known as in police from round Bergen County and closed the roads across the synagogue. On the day of the occasion, a heavy police presence separated protesters with Palestinian flags from counterprotesters with Israeli flags.
Though the protest organizers have been centered on the actual property honest, the protest grew to become a much wider airing of Israeli and Palestinian grievances, accompanied by loads of boorish habits on either side. At one level, a pro-Israeli demonstrator yelled “Fuck your mother” in Arabic, and pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted “Son of a bitch” again at him in Hebrew.
Two folks have been arrested for spraying an unknown liquid at folks passing by the actual property honest, in accordance an announcement posted on Fb by the Teaneck Police Division.
Teaneck, a suburb of New York Metropolis, is a famously various city. (It was the primary in New Jersey to desegregate its colleges.) And owing to its many immigrant communities, Teaneck has typically dipped into international coverage points. In 2022, the city had a heated debate after its native Democratic Get together chapter voted to sentence Hindu nationalism.
However the Israeli-Palestinian battle has been probably the most contentious problem in Teaneck politics, and each spherical of controversy appears to be an escalation over the earlier one. In 2021, an Israeli flag-raising ceremony provoked a low-key counterprotest that barely made the native information. It was a far cry from Sunday’s loud clashes.
Earlier this yr, the federal authorities acquired concerned in Teaneck’s Israeli-Palestinian debate. After native excessive schoolers held a pro-Palestinian rally, township council members pushed Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D–N.J.) to sentence the “antisemitic, anti-Israel protest during school hours.” (I coated the controversy for The Intercept.) At Gottheimer’s urging, the Division of Training opened a Title VI investigation into the kids.
These disputes have allegedly descended into shit flinging, each metaphorical and literal. Unknown vandals have “repeatedly” thrown luggage of feces onto the lawns of pro-Palestinian activists, claimed protest organizer Adam Weissman, who’s Jewish and helps the Palestinian trigger. Final yr, after a college board member was accused of censoring pro-Israeli voices, she known as certainly one of her critics “pencil dick” on digital camera.
Siegel introduced the actual property honest to protesters’ consideration at a February 27 city council assembly. He identified that My Residence in Israel was promoting properties within the West Financial institution. Siegel argued that, as a result of Israel took the land by navy conquest, promoting such property would violate worldwide legislation.
The web site for My Residence in Israel says the tour is “focusing on” a number of Israeli cities and three West Financial institution settlements: Neve Daniel, Efrat, and Ma’ale Adumim. Occasion organizer Gidon Katz informed NorthJersey.com that to name any of the places “stolen land is to deny the existence of the State of Israel.”
All three of these West Financial institution settlements have been constructed at the very least partially on land that the Israeli authorities seized from Palestinian farmers or shepherds after conquering the West Financial institution in 1967. Final month, the U.S. State Division reiterated its place that the settlements are an unlawful land seize. Final week, the Israeli military declared an extra 4 sq. kilometers outdoors of Ma’ale Adumim to be “state land.”
Siegel argued that the conflict in Gaza, which has left Teaneck residents “in deep mourning,” has made it an particularly dangerous time to carry the exhibition.
“What this real estate event is going to do is it’s going to fan the flames,” he stated. “If it goes forward, there will be a demonstration. I know there’s going to be a demonstration because I’m going to organize it. It will be very well attended.”
A video of Siegel’s speech, reposted by the Instagram web page Teaneck for Palestine, shortly went viral. Amazon Labor Union chief Chris Smalls shared a video of Siegel, and the information channel AJ+ ran its own interview with Siegel. It will be a well-attended protest certainly.
On the day of the actual property honest, safety politely turned me away on the door, stating that information media wouldn’t be allowed inside. So as an alternative, I spoke to pro-Israeli counterprotesters who had gathered alongside the protesters’ deliberate route.
Although they have been wanting to share their common emotions on the battle—that Israel wished peace and the Palestinian trigger was violent—they have been way more shy about defending the actual property sale on the deserves. After I pressed them on the query, a number of pro-Israeli demonstrators argued that governments had the proper to take land by drive.
“There was a war, and they [Palestinians] lost,” stated a person named Jacob, who didn’t present his final title. “I’m sorry, but that’s the entire world.”
A lady named Julie, who additionally didn’t give her final title, stated she supported a two-state answer, which meant that Palestinians might have an impartial nation-state alongside Israel. However she insisted that Palestinian land within the West Financial institution was “disputed property. It’s not property that belongs to them.”
After I requested her about particular land confiscations, Julie known as over her good friend Dave, who informed me that the West Financial institution is “ours. It’s biblical land. Go and read the Bible.” A 3rd lady who was with him added that “wars happen everywhere. Borders have changed all the time.” Then she insisted that she has many “Arab friends.”
In the meantime, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been gathering on the Teaneck Armory, a public park 1.4 miles away from the synagogue. Alice Golim, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace who helped set up the protest, held a banner that stated “Palestine is not for sale” in Hebrew. She informed me that “selling land in the occupied territories is morally a shame.”
Bergen County Jewish Motion Committee President Emma Horowitz had earlier informed NorthJersey.com that “the idea of protesting a synagogue should be something that shocks all of us.” After I requested Golim about that, she known as it “awkward” that the actual property honest was being held in a home of worship.
Along with opposing the sale of Palestinian land, Golim wished the Israeli authorities to listen to that there will probably be “no business as usual until they cease what they’re doing in Gaza, work to have the hostages released, and allow humanitarian aid.”
Some supporters had a extra hardline anti-Israel message. Protesters chanted “We don’t want no two states, we want 48,” referring to the lands that grew to become Israel after its 1948 independence conflict. A lady carrying a Palestinian scarf held up a banner that stated “From the river to the sea, there will be no Israeli.” She declined to reply my questions.
Weissman informed me the signal was not an formally authorized a part of the protest. However, unprompted, he started to defend its message. “No Palestinian will say that they believe Palestine should be cleansed of Jews,” he stated. “If you talk to Jews in Palestine who are critical of Israel, they don’t call themselves Israelis, they call themselves Palestinian Jews.”
He cited the instance of Neturei Karta, a Jewish group that rejects the State of Israel on fundamentalist non secular grounds. Many members stay in Jerusalem and fly Palestinian flags. Their beliefs are thought-about fringe in each Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
Because the protest moved from the armory in direction of the actual property honest, a protracted line of police vehicles stored the protesters and counterprotesters separated. The professional-Palestinian protest organizers, who wore reflective vests, intervened a number of instances to forestall offended protesters from going over the pro-Israeli aspect.
The 2 sides spent the half-hour march flinging taunts at one another throughout the police line. A professional-Palestinian protester held up an indication that stated “There’s plenty of land in hell.” A gaggle of pro-Israeli counterprotesters chanted “human shields” whereas a bunch of protesters held up images of fallen Palestinian youngsters.
At a number of factors, the protest seemed prefer it was going to trigger clashes with locals in their very own properties.
When an area began to movie the protest from his home, a person draped in a Palestinian flag walked as much as his driveway and began to yell, “Come outside, bitch!” Organizers talked the protester down. “Let them film,” Weissman stated. “What do we have to hide?”
Later, the identical scene repeated on the opposite aspect. A neighborhood shouted “Free Palestine” from her window, and a bunch of counterprotesters carrying Israeli flags stepped onto her garden. “Free what? Why don’t you come outside!” certainly one of them shouted. After a number of seconds, they apparently acquired bored and walked away.
On the finish of the day, that was the distinction between Teaneck and the West Financial institution. For all of the sturdy emotions and even private connections that Teaneck residents had in direction of the area, everybody concerned might select to stroll away.
