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Prominent Journalist Helped Mobilize for Protest That Included Harassment of Hostage’s Mother

Illustrative: Supporters of Hamas gather for a rally in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Reuters/Joel Carrett

Harron Walker was previously a senior staff writer at Vice, focusing on “health, sex, dating, and other lifestyle matters.” Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and a slew of independent news outlets.

When she’s not writing about the nuances of 21st-century life, Walker is, as of late, helping to organize for Writers Against the War on Gaza, and sharing social media posts that support the boycott of Israel, spread anti-Israel conspiracies, and accuse the Jewish state of committing a genocide.

For her latest stand against the Jewish state, Walker helped mobilize a protest against a pro-Israel event being hosted by Donna Karan, the creator of the DKNY fashion label.

According to the group Stop Antisemitism, Walker posted a call-to-action on her Instagram page, which read “Donna Karan is hosting a fundraiser for the IDF tonight at her West Village shop. Are we going to let these assholes fund a genocide without shame?”

Aliza Licht, who attended the event, claims that the details of the event were not made public until Harron Walker shared her call to action on social media.

Does @VICE have anything to say about its senior staff writer Harron Walker encouraging a mob of pro-Palestinian protesters to violently disrupt a private event in New York where attendees, including the mother of an Israeli hostage, had to be escorted out by the NYPD? https://t.co/UPdipc4Cp8

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 21, 2023

The event featured three speakers, including Ayelet Levy Shachar, the mother of Naama Levy, one of the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. The video of a bloodied Naama Levy being manhandled into a Jeep by a Palestinian terrorist became one of the defining images of Hamas’ October 7 atrocities.

According to reports, as the event got underway, anti-Israel demonstrators harassed people entering and leaving the fundraiser, banged on doors for 20 minutes as Ayelet Levy Shachar spoke, and chanted slogans that compared the IDF to the KKK and referred to attendees as “baby killers.”

At the end of the event, attendees were only able to leave the scene via a police escort.

Any media organization considering publishing Harron Walker in the future needs to ask themselves how they feel about her mobilizing hundreds of protesters to harass and demonize a woman whose 19-year-old daughter endured sexual violence and continues to be held hostage by an internationally-recognized terrorist group.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post Prominent Journalist Helped Mobilize for Protest That Included Harassment of Hostage’s Mother first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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German Authorities Warn of Potentially Violent Anti-Israel Protests in Berlin on International Workers’ Day

Anti-Israel protesters march in Germany, March 26, 2025. Photo: Sebastian Willnow/dpa via Reuters Connect

German authorities have warned of large-scale, potentially violent anti-Israel demonstrations expected to unfold in Berlin during the International Workers’ Day protests on Thursday.

Every year on May 1, workers’ rights are celebrated through demonstrations held around the world. In Germany, the day is marked by “Revolutionary May Day,” an annual protest organized by radical left-wing activists that often draws a broad coalition of groups and heightened police attention.

In a statement, the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) said they expect Thursday’s protest to center on tensions in the Middle East, with a particular focus on the war in Gaza, German media reported. Organized by anti-Israel activists, this year’s demonstration is being led under the slogan “Free Gaza.”

The demonstration is reportedly scheduled to begin at 6 pm in the Kreuzberg district, southeast of the city center, with organizers expecting more than 20,000 participants.

While Berlin police have historically kept the raucous protests under control for years, the LKA expects to focus this year on not only preventing and responding to attacks and vandalism across the city but also addressing terrorist propaganda and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

German law enforcement specifically issued warnings to journalists covering the protests on the streets, cautioning that they may be targeted with verbal and physical aggression.

In their statement, the LKA said past experience shows that “journalists and mainstream media are often viewed critically or even with hostility by the pro-Palestinian movement, being seen as part of the ‘lying press’ and allies of the West or ‘Zionists,’ with their work frequently obstructed.”

Before the Hamas-led massacres across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Berlin police had extensive experience with violent supporters of terrorism. However, since Hamas’s onslaught, anti-Israel sentiment has spread across Germany, fueling pro-Palestinian protests, takeovers of university campuses, and a rise in antisemitic incidents.

During last year’s protest, police deployed more than 7,000 officers, minimizing opportunities for violence. However, 34 arrests were made, with those detained charged with serious public disorder, bodily harm, and incitement to hatred, while five officers were injured during the incidents.

Compared to previous years, local police have noted a decline in unrest at these protests since 2021, when the “Revolutionary May Day” demonstrations led to 93 injured officers and over 350 arrests.

Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism amid the war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin, for example, surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).

The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.

The post German Authorities Warn of Potentially Violent Anti-Israel Protests in Berlin on International Workers’ Day first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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NYC Police Head Off Anti-Zionist Protest After Black Residents Urged to ‘Rise Up Against’ Orthodox Jews

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on August 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect

Anti-Israel activists attempted to swarm the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn on Monday night to protest “Zionism,” heightening safety concerns among the New York City borough’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Scores of pro-Palestinian agitators sought to descend upon the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights, confronting visibly Jewish individuals, shouting obscenities, and throwing punches at counter-protesters. However, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) deployed officers to prevent the anti-Zionist activists from wreaking havoc.

As police vans and cars patrolled the streets, dozens of officers walked alongside the protesters’ route while streets were blocked by police on bicycles who cut off the path to Crown Heights, home to the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement within Orthodox Judaism that operates around the world. Anti-Israel activists had called on protesters, especially Black local residents, to “rise up” against Chabad.

Jewish community watch groups, including Crown Heights Shomrim, joined patrols in the area.

Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson Rabbi Motti Seligson said on social media that the protesters never made it to Crown Heights due to the NYPD deployments.

The raucous demonstrations came after the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters hosted Israel’s controversial national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir — who has called for annexing the West Bank and the emigration of Gaza’s residents — on Thursday night. Ben-Gvir’s visit drew large protests from anti-Israel activists who bellowed chants such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that has been widely used as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Jewish and pro-Israel counter-protesters met the demonstrators in Crown Heights, leading to clashes. In one incident, a mob of the counter-protesters chased and harassed a woman who they mistook for a participant in the anti-Ben-Gvir demonstrations.

Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters subsequently issued a statement denouncing the anti-Israel agitators and those who targeted the woman, reportedly a neighborhood resident in her 30s who was simply investigating the scene.

“The violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism — outside a synagogue, in a Jewish neighborhood, where some of the worst antisemitic violence in American history was perpetrated, and where many residents share deep bonds with the victims of Oct. 7 — did so in order to intimidate, provoke, and instill fear,” Seligson said in a statement. “We condemn the crude language and violence of the small breakaway group of young people; such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values. The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point.”

Following the explosive clashes, a group called the Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a public statement on Instagram on Sunday urging black New Yorkers to target and harass members of Chabad-Lubavitch. The organization, which is an affiliate group of the anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime, urged Black people in Brooklyn to target Orthodox Jews in the area.

“Waiting for the sleeping giant that is Carribean Brooklyn, who have long suffered abuse and oppression at the hands of the racist Zionist Chabad Lubavitch to rise up against them,” the group wrote, vowing to “flood the streets of Crown Heights to inform them Zionism is not welcome here.”

The Bronx Palestine Solidarity Committee continued, arguing that Orthodox Jewish landlords have “violently exploited” the Black residents of Brooklyn through collecting exorbitant amounts in rent to supposedly “feed their genocidal land grabs in Palestine.”

“What would happen if Caribbean Brooklyn brought that VYBZ Kartel Barclays energy with ferocity and tore down these f—king monsters!?” the statement continued. “We will flood the streets of Crown Heights to inform them Zionism is not welcome here. Free Palestine. Bring flags and keffiyeh.”

VYBZ Kartel is a highly popular Reggae artist within the Caribbean community. He performed to sold-out crowds at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York in April. 

Crown Heights was also the site of infamous 1991 riots, in which Black New Yorkers targeted and attacked Jewish residences and businesses for three days. The riots, which were sparked by a fatal car crash involving a Hasidic Jew and two young black children, were largely motivated by an unfounded belief that Jewish New Yorkers received preferential treatment from city services.

Following the latest clashes near Chabad’s headquarters, Crown Heights Bites Back and other radical groups called for a meeting to plan for future confrontations, decrying protest organizers for not being prepared and calling on supporters to train for “defensive and offensive tactics.”

The group went on to describe Chabad as “Zionist Nazis” and Zionism as an inherently oppressive idea.

The post NYC Police Head Off Anti-Zionist Protest After Black Residents Urged to ‘Rise Up Against’ Orthodox Jews first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Police Investigate After British Neo-Nazis Shock Pub With Swastika Cake to Celebrate Hitler’s Birthday

Illustrative: A police car is seen outside Victoria Station in Manchester, England. Photo: Reuters/Phil Noble

In the United Kingdom, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have started an investigation into potential crimes at a gathering of members of the British Movement, a neo-Nazi group, at the Duke of Edinburgh pub in Royston on April 19.

Photos from the organization’s Telegram channel showed participants holding Nazi banners, performing Nazi salutes, and eating a cake decorated with a swastika to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, which is April 20. One man in the group wore a German soccer jersey with “Fuhrer 44” on the back.

Law enforcement have confirmed they are reviewing for potential violations of Section 18 public order laws, which criminalize efforts to foment hate. “Police in Oldham are investigating reports that a group attended a pub on Market Street in Royton in possession of Nazi memorabilia,” a GMP spokesperson said.

The British Movement’s Northern Region wrote about the event, describing how “on a gorgeous sunny afternoon in Greater Manchester, a platoon of Northwest British Movement met up to celebrate the 136th birthday of Uncle A. It certainly didn’t take long for the dimly lit interior of the Oldham boozer to be filled with the warm laughter of comrades old and new. Tables were filled with a plethora of drinks: frosty pints of beer, fruity cocktails, schooners, and birthday cake!”

Employees of the pub did not know about the public display of Nazi symbols at the time, learning only afterward and prompting a report to the police.

“They said they had a cake, but we didn’t know what happened because they covered everything up,” Jean Anderson, who is taking over operations of the pub from her partner Terry English, told The Manchester Evening News. “The pub was full. There were about six to eight men and one woman. They sat in the corner and didn’t cause any problems. I have never seen them before, but they definitely won’t be coming in here again.”

English said, “I just can’t understand why they picked this pub.”

The Duke of Edinburgh’s operator, Craft Union Pubs, released a statement to The Independent, describing the British Movement group’s efforts to hide their offensive activities.

“A group entered the Duke of Edinburgh on Saturday under the pretext of celebrating a birthday and gathered in a back area of the venue. The group actively concealed their clothing and their activities during the visit and as a result, their actions were not visible to staff at the time,” the statement read. “The operator who runs the pub was therefore unaware of what had taken place until after the event. Upon becoming aware, the operator reported the matter to the police immediately.”

Craft Union Pubs added, “To be clear, we are absolutely appalled at what took place. We do not and will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and these people aren’t welcome in any of our venues. We are focused on uniting our local communities, not dividing them. We are supporting our operator to look after their team, who are understandably incredibly distressed by the incident.”

“There is absolutely no place in any civilized society for those who celebrate hatred and evil. Honoring Hitler is not an act of free speech; it is a shameless glorification of one of the darkest crimes in human history,” a spokesperson for the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters. told Jewish News. “Neo-Nazism must be unequivocally condemned, and we urge the police to investigate.”

The British Movement emerged in 1968. David Lawrence, senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, called it a “highly fringe Nazi group that is repulsive even by the standards of the far right.”

Lawrence explained that “the group is trying to raise its profile with small propaganda actions, especially in the North West, where its numbers have grown slightly due to the defection of activists from a larger fascist organization, Patriotic Alternative. The promotion of base racial hatred is always dangerous. However, the British Movement today is no closer to ushering in a new Reich than when it launched decades ago and remains a tiny collection of crank Hitler fetishists and washed-up hooligans.”

CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2024, the second-highest level ever seen. The group noted that “there were still 909 incidents reported to CST in 2024 where the Holocaust or Nazi era were invoked, comprising 26 percent of all incidents.”

The post Police Investigate After British Neo-Nazis Shock Pub With Swastika Cake to Celebrate Hitler’s Birthday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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