Special report:
Pro-Palestinian protesters take over and shout down U.S. Senator Ron Wyden's Jackson County Town Hall. |
| 47 seconds: scene from the event |
Shouting "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free" a dozen protesters disrupted and ended the Wyden's Town Hall. After the meeting Wyden said that he has done over a thousand Town Hall events in Oregon and this is the first time one had ever been ended early due to audience disruption.
Multiple protesters stood up from the audience and began walking around, shouting words from a script. Because multiple people were shouting simultaneously, but not in unison, the shouting was nearly unintelligible. It was loud and and disruptive. They ignored calls to stop.
There was significant police presence, but they made no effort to stop the disruption.
 |
| 33 seconds: no ability to restore order |
Wyden attempted to be heard when he urged the protesters to stop. He said, "I would like everyone in Jackson County to be heard." It was to no avail. Audience members were standing and confronting the protesters and tension was escalating. Shoving and fights between the audience and the protesters appeared imminent. Wyden said the Town Hall was called off and people should exit.
This disruption was new to Wyden, but it ws a tactic used by the Tea Party protests in 2009, shortly after the election of Barack Obama. Democratic officeholders had their public meetings in 2009 disrupted by organized shouting. It was new at the time and it drew comparisons to the "Brooks Brothers Riot" that intimidated vote-counters in Florida.
I heard widespread grumbling and irritation from the audience members. Protesters after the meeting told me they felt entirely justified since genocide was taking place in Israel and that a disrupted meeting is a small price to pay to get attention for a cause they consider righteous. Protesters told me they did not expect to persuade the audience. They frustrated and angered the audience. Their purpose was to send the message to Wyden that they can make his life miserable.
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12 comments:
There’s no question that what Hamas did to Israelis was a terrible atrocity. There’s also no question that what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is many times worse. We shouldn’t be contributing to it in any way, but we are. Protests are appropriate, but unfortunately I’ve never seen that sort of disruptive behavior accomplish anything beyond antagonizing people.
This is sad, but I see a bit of justification in that Wyden is, I believe, a citizen of Israel as well as of the USA. He has been very quiet on this issue, while Merkley has spoken out, asking for a cease fire and for funding of Israel to stop.
Someday those Palestinians will actually learn and accept history.
I just don’t know when.
“From the river to the sea”. From the Jordan to the Mediterranean. “Free”…..of Israel itself, and its majority inhabitants.
“Genocide” from folks who haven’t a clue about the definition, hurled at those who have genuinely been genocide’s target.
“Victory to the Palestinian resistance”, from those who include the truce-breaking October 7th mass atrocities as “resistance”.
It’s refreshing to hear that so many Democrats openly disapprove of this stance and these tactics from far-left Democrats.
Unfortunately, disruptive protesting is popular. Since you brought up the Tea Party and their use of the tactic, would it be prudent to also bring up how disruptive protest is used against those that you, Peter, may not agree with? Perhaps even against a single person in an article with 330 references and a timeline with 474 references? Someone from your side (thinking of you Rick M.) would believe such protesting to be 100% justified and perhaps even lacking, while praising groups like DisruptJ20 who openly attempted to block the 2017 inauguration.
Don’t worry, Brian1. If America proves crazy enough to make Trump president again, groups like DisruptJ20 won’t stand a chance. As we know from his Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, Trump wanted protesters shot. Now that he has immunity, he could do it with impunity. If the military won’t do it, I’m sure the Proud Boys would and Trump can just pardon them. He’s going to Make America Safe Once Again – we know because he said so and he never lies.
Anyone who hadn't heard of JD Vance before last night would have gotten a completely different impression of him than from most if not all of his prior public comments and stated positions, including what had been a complete rejection of Trump on moral grounds and advocating for a national ban on abortions with no exceptions.
"Look, I think two wrongs don't make a right. At the end of day, we are talking about an unborn baby," Vance said. "What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?"
CNN called Vance's speech a "fact-check doozey".
I would ask Republicans why they felt the need to misrepresent themselves in front of a national TV audience.
I don’t know if the protesters in Medford did this, but typically when Palestinian protesters chant, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free“, they also do the chant in Arabic. But in Arabic, the chance goes, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab“. In other words, the Jews will be gone.
How will the Jews be “gone“? Expulsion? Extermination?
Either way, you couldn’t come up with a better defining case of anti-Semitism.
I would ask Republicans why they felt the need to misrepresent themselves in front of a national TV audience.
Because that’s how you win. Both sides have been doing it forever.
If pro-Palestinian chanting is "antisemitic," what does that make bombing Gaza into oblivion?
Self defense.
To most folks, such wanton slaughter is very offensive.
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