A contingent from the Occupy Boston "Occupy" protest camp marched late yesterday afternoon to the building that houses the Israeli consulate in Boston and held a brief sit-in in the building's lobby. Video is here and embedded below.
According to the Twitter feed of @kade_ellis, chants included, "hey hey, Ho ho! Israeli apartheid's got to go!," "long live the intifada! Intifada intifada!," "not another nickel! Not another dime! No more money for Israel's crimes!," and "Viva viva Palestina!"
It was quite the postscript to my October 21 post about Occupy Simchat Torah.
I can already hear the Occupy Boston people saying the small splinter group that went to the Israeli consulate building doesn't represent all of Occupy Boston, and the Occupy Wall Street people saying that Occupy Boston doesn't represent all of the Occupy movement, and the anti-Israel protesters saying they aren't anti-Semites, they are just anti-Zionist or critical of the policies of the current Israeli government. And some of the rest of them saying that the anti-Israel protesters don't represent all of Occupy any more than Patrick Buchanan represents the entire Republican Party. But at a certain point, one has to wonder why these people are protesting Israel and not some far more abusive government like that of China, Iran, or Syria. I can already hear them saying that America doesn't give billions a year in aid to China, Iran, or Syria.
Still, the whole event illustrates the way the Occupy movement has become a forum for people to air whatever pre-existing grievance or agenda they have, even if it has nothing to do with Wall Street. And how readily a protest against bankers can elide into one against the Jewish state.