Violence in LA demands an answer: No more protests in front of houses of worship
Leaders must take action now to prevent the next Pico-Robertson melee
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters clash outside a synagogue in Los Angeles June 23. Photo by Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Senior Columnist Rob Eshman June 25, 2024
Does the Los Angeles Police Department watch the news? Does the LA Mayor’s Office follow social media? Does anyone in charge of keeping LA safe know there’s a war in the Middle East?
When demonstrators converged on Adas Torah synagogue in the city’s Pico-Robertson neighborhood last Sunday, it turned into an utterly predictable melee — with fighting, tackling, bear spray and mace, hurled objects and foul insults. We can only be thankful that the violence that resulted didn’t leave anyone seriously injured, or dead.
There is zero doubt in my mind that next time, we won’t be so lucky.
So kudos to LA Mayor Karen Bass for her announcement Monday that the city will examine the rules governing demonstrations, including “looking at people wearing masks at protests.”
But while you’re examining and looking, I have a question: Why are people allowed to gather and harass others outside their place of worship at all?
Why can’t the LAPD, when it had several days of advance warning, have a plan to keep the protesters far away from a house of worship, and deploy enough forces to keep protesters and counterprotesters apart?
“A Mega Zionist Real Estate Event Is in LA this week,” read an Instagram post from the group Code Pink on Friday, two days before the protest targeted an informational meeting on home and land sales in Israel, with one property being offered for sale in the West Bank. “Bring flags, posters and megaphones. No Peace on Stolen Land.” That same day, a call by the Palestine Youth Movement for protesters to converge on Adas Torah began popping up on X and Facebook.
By the time Sunday arrived, there were already dozens of comments on that post and others. In the past few months in LA, violence has accompanied protests and counterprotests at UCLA and at USC. Protesters shut down the 110 freeway through downtown, and there was an anti-Israel encampment in front of city hall itself that the LAPD had to be called in to clear. So it’s hard to understand why city officials prior to Sunday would adopt what was essentially a wait-and-see approach.
The nature of all these protests is to maximize virality. The outrage algorithms on Instagram, X and Facebook are willing accomplices. The louder you scream, the more comments and likes.
It’s a waste of space to chastise the protesters themselves, who turned out not to draw attention to the suffering of Gaza, but to protest legal land sales in a foreign country. (They then returned to their homes built on land — I shouldn’t have to point out — that was taken illegally from Native Americans.)
The First Amendment protects their right to protest. But that right is subject to reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of protest.
“Part of those rules can and should be you will not disrupt or prevent worship services from going on, and you won’t prevent people from entering or exiting houses of worship,” said Doug Mirell, a board member of the ACLU of Southern California. “That would be a reasonable time, place and manner restriction.”
If the LAPD fails to enforce those restrictions, anyone victimized by these protests can invoke California’s Ralph Civil Rights Act, which protects worshippers from being targeted and harassed.
The protesters said the synagogues were fair game because they were hosting informational sessions on purchasing real estate in Israel. But the Ralph Act doesn’t specify what kinds of activity within a house of worship are protected — just that those entering them can’t be subject to harassment.
How in the world would protesters know who showed up Sunday to buy a flat in Tel Aviv, and who was hoping to get counseling from the rabbi, or seek sanctuary from an abusive marriage, or study Torah?
And wouldn’t the Adas Torah protesters be equally upset if a large, angry crowd with bullhorns gathered outside a mosque? Of course they would.
Would counterprotesters defending the mosque pour into the streets? Of course they would, just as they did on Sunday.
I’ve watched video footage posted by both sides. It’s impossible to tease apart who threw the first punches, or the first egg, or who shouted the first incendiary insult. Many of the counterprotesters came wrapped in Israeli flags with bullhorns of their own. They read the social media posts the cops missed.
If city officials aren’t willing to stop such gatherings, the LAPD has to do a better job of controlling them and separating the sides. People traumatized by the war in Gaza and Israel are unleashing their passions on the streets of LA. That’s understandable. But the violence is only going to escalate.
After Sunday’s fight, a defender of the counterprotesters posted on Instagram that it’s time for Jewish Angelenos to get guns. In America, when people feel abused by the First Amendment they too often resort to the Second — and that escalation is what immediate, smarter city laws and enforcement can prevent.
“Jewish community members have a right to access their house of worship without intimidation, fear, or being attacked by misguided thugs who give themselves a license to be crass in the name of Palestine or Gaza,” tweeted Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza-born Palestinian living in the Bay Area, whose family members have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. (Alkhatib is a Forward contributor.) The protesters “decided to use pepper spray, wear masks, shout in megaphones, and get in people’s faces. Why? How does that help the message?”
I doubt the people who rushed to Pico-Robertson will pay attention to the plea of an actual Gazan. The war between Israel and Palestinians will lead to more protests and counterprotests, inevitably. Our city’s mayor, officials and law enforcement need to act quickly to keep the war there from sparking widespread violence here.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of the synagogue where the protest took place. It is Adas Torah, not Adas Shalom.
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