Brooklyn the latest battlefield between supporters of Palestinians and Israelis
Brooklyn the latest battlefield between supporters of Palestinians and Israelis
There hasn't been this much storied strife since the Irish and the Italians shot it out for control of the docks in Red Hook.
April 1, 2019 By Mike Konrad
A brouhaha is developing in Brooklyn. The issue of Palestinians has arisen. It seems a Jewish city councilman, named Kamal Yeger, has said, on Twitter last Wednesday March 27, that Palestine does not exist. Palestine does not exist.
There, I said it again.
Also, Congresswoman Omar is an antisemite.
Said that too.
Thanks for following me.
I will give Councilman Yeger this: He does not pull punches. The 44th district that he represents has a large Jewish constituency. New York City itself still has the largest Jewish municipal population in the world, over 1 million, and half of those Jews are still in Brooklyn, where one out of four residents is Jewish.
Sounds like the Brooklyn of Yore. Hmm...or does it? Within walking distance of Yeger's district (which includes Borough Park, center of the world Lubavitch movement) is Councilman Justin Brannan's 43rd district, which includes Bay Ridge which is arguably the center of Muslim identity in Brooklyn, and possibly in America. Bay Ridge is called Little Palestine and is home to America's number-one hijabi feminist, Linda Sarsour.
Along its shoreline, Bay Ridge still has a lot of Italians, Irish, and other white ethnics; however, the interior of the neighborhood, especially around 5th Avenue, is now home to tens of thousands of Muslims. After looking at this Google map (click here) and if you go up and down 5th Avenue on Google you could be forgiven if you thought you had walked into a Cairo souq.
Arabic Speaking Brooklyn 2015 BRIC TV 26 minute documentary (with an appearance of Linda Sarsour)
Brooklyn, Inshallah An Arab [Lutheran] Pastor ran for city council from Bay Ridge trailer
(He lost, but came close)
321 people are talking about this
Well, a firestorm arose. Councilman Brannan responded within hours:
An inter-ethnic fight in Brooklyn: An old-fashioned New York donnybrook was brewing. Twitter lit up like a light bulb. From Washington, D.C., the Palestinian-American activist, and former head of the (pro-Palestinian) Jerusalem Fund, Yousef Munayyer chipped in his two cents the next morning. When you hear people saying things like there is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians, or some variation of this, what you are hearing is a celebration of ethnic cleansing and the continued denial of a peoples' rights.
1,000 people are talking about this
Well, no one messes with her borough, so Linda Sarsour, Brooklyn's hijabi at large, called for a protest outside Mr. Yeger's office that Thursday, only to be countered by even more Orthodox Jewish protesters, led by Dov Hikind, a formidable Orthodox Jewish power broker in Brooklyn, because Borough Park is his turf.
An always feisty former assemblyman and former affiliate of the Jewish Defense League Dov Hikind is no stranger to politically incorrect scandals, such as when he showed up for a Purim party in blackface in 2013.
But back to the protest that Thursday, March 28: 20 came to protest a councilmember's anti-Palestine tweet. 200 came to support it.
To see what spin is, note that the Daily News (below) would say the pro-Palestinians dominated the crowd, while the Brooklyn Eagle (above) implies that the Jews were in the majority.
But whoever was the majority, the clash of the Brooklyn titans (Sarsour vs. Hikind) was averted, as Linda did not show up herself. Hundreds of people protested Thursday outside the Brooklyn office of a city council member who tweeted that "Palestine does not exist."
Pro-Palestinian protesters dominated the crowd outside Yeger's office at the corner of 16th Ave. and 45th St. in Borough Park.
... Amal Harijay of the Union of Arab Women ... accused the Yeger of "Islamophoabia and hate."
Former state Assembly member Dov Hikind said the issue was Rep. Ilhan Omar, who he and Yeger accused of being an anti-Semite. ...
Hikind slammed activist and former executive director of the Arab American Association of America Linda Sarsour, who promoted the protest but did not show up.
Of course, Elder of Ziyon [a pro-Israel site], followed up on Friday with charges of hatred
(Click Here). Personally, I think Elder was a bit over the top in accusing those of a different opinion as "haters."
Not to be outdone, Mayor de Blasio has called for Councilman Yeger to apologize. The latest such call came from Mr. de Blasio, who said on Friday that if Mr. Yeger is "not going to apologize, he shouldn't be on [an immigration] committee." - New York Times (Sunday, March 31)
But if the New York Times was politically correct, the New York Daily News defended Mr. Kalman. He's absolutely right that an Arab state in Palestine was never formed, as the Arabs rejected a state side by side with a Jewish state in 1937 and 1947 and 1967 and 2000 and 2008. - New York Daily News (March 31)
The politicians are lining up. And Brooklyn is not Kansas, so words are not minced. Isn't this glorious? There hasn't been this much storied strife since the Irish and the Italians shot it out for control of the docks in Red Hook. The phrase, "Only in America," does not capture this. This could happen "Only in Brooklyn," where a mere 45-minute walk separates David's Garden (a Halal Chinese Restaurant) from Ammon's (Kosher) Pizza.
I am not one to deny the existence of Palestinians. Like it or not, they exist. But at this moment, Palestine does not exist, so I will stand by Mr. Yeger on this one. He said Palestine, not Palestinians, does not exist, and that is a fact.
In the meantime, listen to this song (Click Here). Admit it, many of you wish you had never left. Your kids are moving back. Let's hope they don't destroy the borough.
Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish better in high school, lo those many decades ago. He runs a website, Latin Arabia, about the Christian Arab community in South America.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...israelis_.html
