Pro-Hamas Slanderers, Vandalizers

The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, N.Y. A woman was arrested Wednesday, July 31, 2024, on hate crime charges in the vandalism of the homes of the museum’s leaders during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests. (AP Photo/Dean Cox)

"The increasing trend of characterizing Palestine solidarity actions as hate crimes [is absolutely unfair]."

"[The willingness of prosecutors] to endorse the rhetorical collapse of Zionist ideology and protected religious identity, in order to criminalize criticism of Israel, signals a troubling departure from the principles on which our legal and political systems rest."

Moira Meltzer-Cohen, lawyer for Taylor Pelton

 

"This is the face of hatred. Jewish Americans made to feel unsafe in their own home -- just because they are Jewish."

"This is not even close to free speech."

"This is intimidation."

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

The vandalism occurred in June.  Photo: Brad Lander

 28-year-old Taylor Pelton of Queens, was charged with criminal mischief and criminal mischief as a hate crime, one of six people revealed on surveillance video who vandalized homes of the Brooklyn Museum's leaders with the use of red paint. That the leaders of the Museum, just happened mostly to be Jewish, is the clue to their being targeted. And there was nothing innocent about the vandals' purpose as could be ascertained by viewing the messages they left; identifying the Brooklyn Museum's director and its chief operating officer as 'Zionists', a pejorative in the minds of those who are inculcated with hate, and leaving behind the inverted red triangle specific to the terrorist group Hamas.

That triangle is meant to convey a specific message, that those who have been marked with that symbol are to be targeted for violence. The day previous to this event, a large crowd of 'pro-Palestinian', anti-Israel unprincipled thugs led a flag-waving, chanting procession heading to an exhibition whose purpose was to memorialize the hundreds of young Israelis who were raped and mutilated and murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. A sombre occasion recalling the lives of over 300  young people attending the Nova Music Festival, inspiring haters to march in protest.

Demonstrators hold a rally in support of Palestine outside the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in New York City on June 10, 2024. The exhibition pays tribute to the victims of the October 7 attack by Hamas.   Jonathan Fernandes/Sipa USA

The anti-Israel activists, four of whom are still being sought by police, splattered Pasternak's home with paint in June, leaving behind a banner identifying her as a "white supremacist Zionist". Along with that inverted red triangle symbolic of Hamas's identifying Israeli military targets sprayed on her door, and the building's windows. After being arraigned, Pelton was released on court supervision.

Days earlier, hundreds of protesters had marched to the museum to occupy the lobby, and vandalize works of art, where they hung a "Free Palestine" banner from the museum roof. On that occasion several dozen people were arrested by police. Organizers of the demonstrations, which included the group Within Our Lifetime, stated the museum was targeted in the belief it was "deeply invested in and complicit" in Israel's military actions in Gaza, through its leaders, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors.

Vandalism was reported outside the homes of several Jewish board members of the Brooklyn Museum.   Photo: Brad Lander