Violent mobs from Brooklyn to the West Bank are united in the fascism of Zionism

“Death to Arabs.”

Those were the words chanted by many members of a Zionist mob in New York City that engaged in violent acts in support of notable fascist and Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

His visit to the United States has led to countless headlines over the past weeks. That’s hardly surprising, as he has spent over a year enthusiastically supporting the continued genocide in Gaza as a member of the Israeli parliament and on-again, off-again minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Ben-Gvir, a man who has himself been convicted by an Israeli court for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization, is a lightning rod for controversy. As you would expect, his visit had led organizers and activists in the U.S. to meet him wherever he decided to make an appearance and protest his presence in their communities and institutions.

Not all of these mobilizations, however, have been in opposition to him. Some, like a recent Zionist mob in New York City, mobilized in defense of him. Ben-Gvir’s visit to Crown Heights, Brooklyn spurred anti-Zionist, anti-fascist organizers to action. Their mobilization was met with a frenzied group of Zionists reportedly totaling around 100 people who assaulted at least two women in the midst of their defense of the Israeli Minister of National Security (and more broadly, the continued existence of their colonial project).

One of those women saw her Palestinian flag grabbed by Zionist counterprotestors, with later footage showing her bleeding from her head. The second woman, identified later as being a bystander who lived in the neighborhood who was not attending the protest, was chased down by the mob, who chanted “Death to Arabs” and taunted her with threats of rape, before physically assaulting her repeatedly as a lone NYPD officer tried to escort her away.

For many, the footage was shocking. A fascist contingent had organized on the street to do harm to someone in our own backyard – one instance in a string of violent incidents that have cropped up with increasing frequency over the past months. This sort of fascist, colonial, ethnosupremacist violence is one with historical continuity however, especially in the U.S. context.

Mobs committed to racist violence are an integral part of the very history of the U.S. colonial project. From race riots to lynch mobs, organized campaigns of murder and terror have over the years led to mass devastation for Black and Brown communities. The frenzied, genocidal nature of the Zionist mobs we witnessed in New York City and the harm they are willingly and enthusiastically committing are reminiscent of those very same historic horrors. 

The strategy of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists in our own country, in fact, uncomfortably overlaps with that of Zionists today: campaigns of intimidation and terror for the sake of enshrining colonial and white supremacist domination over a marginalized people. These campaigns extend well beyond street violence, but also calculated efforts to rid those who may support their victims of their livelihoods through calculated smear campaigns and further professional intimidation that relies on complicit or apathetic institutions and has open government support. In recent months, this has also included government agencies openly targeting pro-Palestine advocates as well as we have seen in the cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and countless others.

To many in the Palestinian solidarity movement, it’s impossible not to see as well the very direct connection between these mobs in New York City and those that have been existing and active for years in Occupied Palestine, particularly the West Bank. Settler mobs have been a regular element of Zionist colonization efforts, being an ally to the colony that seemingly acts of their own volition (giving the colonial administration plausible deniability) to advance the colony’s goals. These mobs and the pogroms they have committed against Palestinians, like those in Huwwara, are burning down Palestinian homes and shops, attacking and in some instances killing Palestinians themselves. 

Those settlers in mobs in the West Bank certainly would find those in New York City to be like-minded allies, which makes sense given they’re advancing the same goals. Both in their actions and rhetoric are certainly advancing the call of “Death to Arabs”, and both are targeting anyone whose existence may pose a threat to the continued survival of the colonial project they’re willing to fight to defend. As such, the violence in New York City cannot be separated from the violence that Palestinians have been facing for decades. One is simply that very same colonial violence exported abroad.

The connection is only further complicated upon recognition that there are currently thousands of U.S. nationals actively serving in Israeli Occupation Forces, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens living in Occupied Palestine. Those very individuals are going to Palestine, being trained as a part of a fascist colonial occupation force, and if they do not stay in Occupied Palestine, are returning home to reintegrate into communities across the U.S.

They are coming back with experience and training that can be put directly to use against Palestinians and their allies (or random bystanders), and they’re inevitably going to teach what they have learned to those who are willing to stand with them. That reality makes these mobs all the more dangerous, as they are going to become more organized and generally competent in committing acts of violence as time goes on. They’re also likely to be emboldened as the state does little to nothing to crack down on them, meaning that the violence that we’re witnessing now is likely only a taste of what is to come.

We do not have to look terribly far back in the historical record to see the harm that can be done by fascist actors with former military experience dedicated to defending the state against those they deem a threat. These IOF veterans in many ways invoke the memory of the Freikorps – paramilitary groups composed of German WW1 veterans who, during the German Revolution, acted as well-armed and effective mobs that would target communists and those deemed threats to the current order. Many of these Freikorps units would later become part of the base and manpower of the Nazi Party when it rose into power in Germany years down the line, and their actions during the German Revolution would lead to the brutal murders of Karl Liebnecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and countless others.

What we’re witnessing in these Zionist mobs also finds context when looking at broader history. Fascist movements have throughout history in part relied on organized mobs to terrorize and root out opposition to their projects and goals. These mobs should be a warning sign for those organizing on the ground in regards to what is likely to come, and their existence should inform our strategies and tactics. These fascist actors will give no quarter, and they will not pull punches if it means advancing their goals. We need to reckon with that reality and prepare for what very well might come next.