Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a Christmas party held by a Michigan Democrat to confront a lawmaker over his support for Israel – sparking chaos that left an elderly woman hospitalized with two black eyes.
About 20 to 30 protesters swarmed a bar in Detroit Saturday night to disrupt a holiday party held for about 200 people by the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party, according to Bridge Michigan.
Protesters from the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Party of Socialism and Liberation were there to confront Rep. Shri Thanedar, who has renounced his membership in the Socialist Democrats of America for supporting the “hateful and antisemitic” Times Square rally.
Party chairman Jonathan Kinloch said that “polite” requests for them to leave were not heard, which “infuriated the event participants, who then forced the protesters” to leave to protect elderly and disabled participants.
Partygoer Valeria Berra said a protester “started” the violence by pushing her against a wall.
The brawl also featured 91-year-old former Detroit police commissioner Bernice Smith hitting protesters with a cane, according to footage posted on Instagram, an action she justified as self-defense.
“Get out of here!” he repeatedly yelled at one of the gate breakers.
Smith’s son helped push the protesters out. “I started it because I couldn’t believe they were doing this and nobody was doing anything,” one of her sons, Sterling Jackson, told the outlet.
At least one partygoer, Democratic activist Bobbie Johnson, was hospitalized, suffering from two black eyes. X / @jkin5022 Johnson broadcast the event live. X / @jkin5022
At least one partygoer, Democratic activist Bobbie Johnson, was hospitalized after suffering two black eyes.
“They came here – they knocked me over the head!” he cried as he wiped the blood from his face in a live stream video while still at the event.
Upon returning from the hospital, Johnson told Bridge Michigan that the protest was “not true.”
“I live in a diverse community, I do a lot of work in the Muslim community,” Johnson said. “I am not against Muslims. I just don’t see why (they decided to protest) in Detroit.”
Kinloch, the local party chairman, denounced the protesters as “riots.”
Some protesters kept the situation peaceful until they were pushed back. X / @jkin5022 About 20 to 30 protesters swarmed a bar in Detroit Saturday night. X / @jkin5022
“It’s not productive,” he said, acknowledging that Israel’s revenge war against Hamas had split the party.
Some protesters, however, thought that the situation had been peaceful until they were pushed back. Sammie Lewis said her glasses were broken and they were not warned before being turned away.
“We are faced with violence for calling for the genocide to stop,” he said. “One part of our message is that the Democrats are taking a page out of the Zionist book — they’re basically attacking us and being the victims.”
Detroit police are investigating but no arrests have been made Wednesday, a spokesman told Newsweek.
The representative they targeted, Thanedar, 68, had renounced his membership in the Socialist Democrats of America shortly after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.
A few hours after the party fight, he was woken up at 3am by pro-Palestinian protesters in front of his house, he wrote on X.
Demonstrators came to the house of Rep. Thanedar at midnight. X / @huwaidaarraf Thanedar renounced his membership in the Socialist Democrats of America after the October 7 terrorist attacks. X / @huwaidaarraf
“Your silence is violence, your silence is disgusting!,” shouted a protester on the sidewalk in front of his mansion as horns blared in the background.
Thanedar’s political differences with members of the anti-Israel “Squad” and fellow Rep. Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who represents Detroit’s adjacent congressional district, underscored the statewide division of the party that has been prominent in the Great Lakes State.
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Tlaib is the only Palestinian American in the House, and has faced criticism from his own party and survived an attempt to denounce him from across the aisle for promoting the slogan “From the river to the sea,” a phrase that Jewish groups say is an antisemitic call for Israeli genocide. .
He said President Biden, the leader of his party, “supports the genocide of the Palestinian people” by supporting Israel’s war on Hamas.
Michigan is home to more than 300,000 residents of Arab descent and 90,000 Jews, and both groups were strong Democratic voting blocs until recently, the outlet said.
Now, Arab American leaders are threatening to withhold support for Biden in key battleground states over his administration’s support for the war.
Biden’s approval rating among Arab Americans nationally has plunged from 59% in 2020 to 17% this year, a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute in October found.
The president trails leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in Michigan by an average of 5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics, a state he won by 3 points against Republicans in 2020.
The protesters were from the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Party of Socialism and Liberation. X / @jkin5022
“I believe that the Israeli war has affected the numbers,” said Bernie Porn, president of the polling firm EPIC-MRA.
“Tensions are running higher here than in any other metro area in the country,” Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), who is Jewish, told Bridge Michigan.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
