ASRA NOMANI: I watched hate consume Democrats' 'non-violent' #NoKings rallies
PHILADELPHIA – Last Saturday, behind a phalanx of local cops, teachers' union president Randi Weingarten stood on a stage in the heart of the city and pumped her fists in the air as she declared to a crowd protesting President Donald Trump: "We have to practice, not as a strategy, but as a way of life, peaceful nonviolence."
It was a scene scripted to feel uplifting. Stage managers had set up the riser for the speakers right beneath the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where actor Sylvester Stallone famously filmed his iconic movie scene as boxer Rocky Balboa, running the stairs and then pumping his fists victoriously into the air.
But the feel-good energy was suddenly pierced by shouting. A chant — scattered and distant — rose like a tide. As I drew closer to the intersection of Kelly Drive and Spring Garden Street, I recognized the familiar sing-song cadence that has marked chaos on America's streets since the Oct. 7, 2023, brutal murders of Israelis by Hamas terrorists.
"Free, free Palestine!" the chant began.
The response came right after: "Free, free, free Palestine!"
These were the same words shouted by Elias Rodriguez, an activist radicalized in the Party for Socialism and Liberation, moments after he murdered two Israel Embassy staffers on the streets of Washington, D.C., last month.
Then, another familiar refrain: "From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever!"
"Donald Trump, you will see, Palestine will be free!"
As a U.S. Army veteran took the main stage, the chants shifted: "U.S. imperialists! No. 1 terrorists!"
"No. 1 racists! No. 1 fascists!"
Then, unmistakably: "Globalize the intifada!"
Missing from after-action reports that Indivisible, the main organizer of the #NoKings protests, sent journalists was any mention of the radical flanks: the "Palestine Contingent," "ICE Contingent," and "Labor Contingent" that joined protests in Philadelphia, New York City, Sacramento, Calif., and other cities, according to reporting that I did on the ground and from afar. These "contingents" include self-declared socialist, Marxist and communist groups advocating for the dismantling of the American "empire." Thursday night, they were on the streets again, protesting "NO WAR ON IRAN!."
Through my investigation at the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for my friend and colleague, Daniel Pearl, murdered in 2002 by militants in Pakistan, I initially found about 195 organizations and then 70 Democratic National Committee affiliates in the political machine behind the #NoKings protests, with about $2.1 billion in annual revenues.
Based on my new reporting, another 118 organizations led the most radical parts of the protests, with combined annual revenues of about $204 million. I've added their names to a public database that I'm seeking to build to provide transparency for the public, press, police and policymakers about the professional protest industry: its tactics, network and ultimate aim – to sow chaos and discord.
Across the country, contingents with anti-American agendas joined protests:
Back in Philadelphia, the chants from the local "Palestine Contingent" continued.
"When people are occupied, resistance is justified!"
"Resistance is glorious! We will be victorious!"
Their banners and signs made no mistake about their beliefs. A few masked men held a banner that declared, "Amerika is the head of the snake."
Another banner read: "The Global Economy is Complicit in Genocide."
A young man in a keffiyeh and dark shades stood behind a banner for the International Jewish Labor Bund, a self-declared socialist organization. Behind him, a man held a sign with the Party for Socialism and Liberation across the bottom in its distinctive black-and-white design.
An older woman with a keffiyeh wrapped around her face pumped her fist into the air behind a banner that read, "Workers World Party," a communist organization birthed during the Soviet era.
The illusion cracked.
What I was witnessing wasn't a call for "peaceful nonviolence." It was the presence of a dangerous force: a coalition of far-left activists and Islamist sympathizers, which I call the Woke Army, emboldened by donor dollars, protected by political silence and increasingly comfortable with violence.
Identifying myself as a journalist, I drew the ire of "Palestine Continent" activists for filming them, and I saw firsthand how this protest culture is not just performative — it's punitive, sectarian and violent.
"Are you a Zionist?" a young masked man asked me, while others tried to block my path, taunting me.
Another young masked man demanded: "Do you like genocide?"
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin took the stage, grinning at the success of the nationwide protest. He turned to his wife, Indivisible co-founder, Leah Greenberg, and said: "Would you lead us in a pledge of allegiance?"
She began awkwardly, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America…"
In the "Palestine Contingent," where I stood, the activists screamed: "Boo! Boo! Boo!" They drowned out Greenberg's words: "...with liberty and justice for all."
As I panned the crowd with my camera, one young man, about 20 feet away, stopped booing to curse at me: "Get your f---ing camera out of my face, you f---ing Zionist!"
Then: "Get the f--- out of my face, you Mossad piece of sh--!" Mossad is the Israeli intelligence agency.
He got closer, ramming his middle finger at me, eyes glaring.
Only one person – a young man – stepped forward to try to stop him.
But the masked agitator escalated his claims: "She's a f---ing foreign agent! She's a f---ing foreign agent of Israel!"
A masked woman with cropped hair jumped in front of me to then scream, ironically, into the camera: "Get your f---ing camera out of my face!" She circled back to flip me off. I didn't budge.
My mother, watching the footage later, said: "These masked people tried to terrorize you like they are terrorizing the nation."
She was right.
I know these propaganda tactics.
First, my friend Daniel Pearl's kidnappers smeared him as an American spy for the CIA and then a Zionist Jewish spy for Mossad, before beheading him and cutting his body into pieces. It's the rhetoric of dehumanization that the "progressives" claim to challenge but actually too often perpetuate against anyone with a different point of view.
The "Palestine Contingent" weren't expressing "peaceful nonviolence" in their chants or aggression. They were moments of coercion.
I wrote this column in the shadow of another horror — the brutal murder of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband by an alleged killer who hunted them down. America is becoming a nation where vigilantism is no longer lurking in the margins. It's marching through the streets, often with a protest permit.
We rightly condemn right-wing violence when it erupts. But left-wing violence — often cloaked in social justice language — is excused, minimized, or worse, cheered. Networks of leftist activists now openly call for the "global intifada," and the "resistance" by "any means" including confrontation, intimidation, destruction and violence.
That is not protest. That is factionalism with fists.
From the main stage, a leader shouted: "Whose flag?"
"Our flag!"
One of the anti-Israel activists noted the American flag was the "flag of imperialism."
In other protests, the "Palestine Contingent" got the microphone – or took it. In Oakland, Calif., Zahra Billoo, executive director of the CAIR chapter in the San Francisco Bay Area, had a featured speaker slot. The Women's March kicked her off its board for anti-semitic remarks..
In Philadelphia, I watched the speakers on the big screen, as masked agitators chanted over them, some accusing the organizers of being too soft on America. At one point, the din became so loud that the speaker's voice could barely be heard over the cries of "Globalize the intifada."
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow covered the protests like a cheerleader, praising the "nonviolence" without acknowledging the virulent antisemitism, factionalism and outright hatred also on display.
The sectarianism that has torn apart the Middle East and so many countries – from Ireland to the Balkans – is now animating street politics in America.
As I stood on the steps beneath Rocky's bronze gaze, the chants still echoing, I thought about what made that statue so beloved. It wasn't just about winning. It was about standing up — even in the face of intimidation — for what's right.
That's what we need now. Vigilantism is not justice. Dogma is not "resistance." And hate, no matter how well masked, has no place on America's streets. And we each have to stand up to it and not be intimidated by it. Each of us must stand up to it, unflinching and unafraid.
As the "Palestine Contingent" rolled up their socialist banners, I retraced Rocky's steps, running the stairs, pumping my fists in the air.
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