Harris strongly condemns pro-Hamas protesters in DC: "Despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors"

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

Vice President Kamala Harris has strongly condemned pro-Hamas protesters who burned the American flag outside Union Station in Washington, DC, Wednesday.

“Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric,” Harris wrote in a statement Thursday. “I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”

Harris also condemned the “burning of the American flag,” calling the flag a “symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America.”

“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation,” Harris wrote.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/harris-trump-election-07-25-24#h_2e1746e8182e15c2200ca02d01723dc6

[sboatcar]

1. I wonder sometimes

If the protestors who commit the violence are right wing plants. I'm totally ok with people protesting whatever they want to protest, but the violence serves nobody's cause.

[jimfields33]

3. It's been going on a year.

I’d like the ones causing damage to have to pay for it. Maybe that will deter them.

[AloeVera]

9. Yeah, imagine how the kids in Gaza feel by now.

Going on a year... But of course they have no homes or infrastructure left to damage.

I'd like the ones who caused that damage to have to pay for it. Maybe that will deter them from bombing more homes and kiling more kids in the Middle East.

[Brenda]

17. Good response.

Lots of people on DU are tone deaf.

Conflating pro-Palestinian with pro-Hamas is ignorant or propaganda.

Blaming all Israel War protestors as pro-Hamas is deadly for them.

I know Kamala knows the difference. Didn't she just skip meeting with Netanyahu?

[LeftInTX]

19. They burned Netanyahu in effigy yesterday. Is that the new acceptable way to protest?

How is this gonna help Gaza??

?resize=1024,739&quality=75&strip=all

Link to tweet

They certainly aren't Biden supporters

[orange jar]

22. "One God. One Nation."

Trying to imagine what the response would be if this were a group of violent fundie Christians waving flags like that. Hm…

[womanofthehills]

36. They burned him in effigy but ....

If you go on social media in the past month, the numbers of photos of dead & alive babies & kids with horrible burns is horrific.

Toddlers with burns covering their whole bodies still alive - not one - but hundreds.

What’s worse - I think the real thing is worse.

[LeftInTX]

41. Does burning in effigy solve anything? Or does it take away from their message?

Why don't they make the protests about the victims? They could list the number dead. They could show pictures of the dead.

Why are they proposing the "final solution" for all Zionists? What does that have to with victims?

What message does a burning effigy send???? About all it does is draw people away from the real cause of their protest.

[Beastly Boy]

24. The vandals in question take great pains to conflate themselves with being pro-Palestinian.

And this thread addresses the pro-Palestinian vandals.

They don't make anyone on DU tone-deaf. If anything, the people expressing sympathy for them may be guilty of tone deafness.

[AloeVera]

33. Right, it's a tactic of supression.

It's working too. I don't know what's scarier, that people don't see it for what it is, or that they do see it but still go along to get along or...whatever.

I give kudos to VP Harris and the hundred (?) or so Democratic members of Congress who had better things to do than attend that travesty. Look at this Congressman's statement, he is so right.

Link to tweet

?t=LeN511cJzFvUh9yzRGNvPQ&s=19

[Brenda]

34. Thanks

and thank you Democrat Mark Pocan!

[orange jar]

18. Do you think protestors are helping Gazans?

How does it help Gazans to have naive Americans wave around banners saying, "Time for the final solution" as a threat to Jews? Or burning American flags and replacing them with Palestine flags? Or shouting blatantly pro-Hamas slogans?

I've yet to receive an answer as to how these acts help spread awareness to what's going on in Gaza. People are already aware. All this violent protest does is make more people annoyed, scared, and resentful of pro-Palestine activists. So…?

[LeftInTX]

20. Exactly

[AloeVera]

30. That doesn't help at all. On the contrary.

Extremist and/or violent or blatantly anti-semitic actions or language are not only wrong, but counter-productive. They also play right into Netanyahu's hands to delegitimize all protest, including peaceful, pacifist and justice-focused ones. I hate seeing it.

But I also know that more often than people realize, peaceful protests and pro-Palestinian groups are subject to outside provocateurs and infiltrators bent on doing what Netanyahu wants. So I always think of who benefits when I see this extremism. You have to admit, some of it is so over the top that any thinking person has to wonder...

The big issue for me is having a foreign leader or any lobby group working on their behalf telling us that Americans/ Canadians etc who oppose the Gaza war for their own personal reasons are just useful idiots or even traitors. What a bunch of entitled, arrogant self-serving baloney from a gaslighting, lying, murderous thug and war criminal.

But all of this wasn't the point of my previous post, which was merely a triggered response to ironic tone-deafness that belies the disregard for what Palestinians are suffering- beyond our capacity to begin to comprehend- that I too often see here.

[Beastly Boy]

23. Iran doesn't have enough money to pay for the damage their lapdog Hamas caused.

Last edited Thu Jul 25, 2024, 02:49 PM - Edit history (1)

But they should be sanctioned anyway.

...You do realize that your response has nothing to do with the pro-Hamas vandals whose bullsit VP Harris calld out, don't you?

Why won't you start your own thread on the subject of your concern rather than change the subject of an already existing and entirely unrelated thread? Some people may take offense in their threads being hijacked.

[jimfields33]

29. The VP was talking about the United state of America!

[IronLionZion]

4. Some of them probably are

protests will have all sorts of people with varying agendas. Some are just there to cause trouble because they like chaos.

[AloeVera]

7. 'Ya think?

Certain parties certainly would benefit. Provocateurs and infiltrators are a useful tool in delegitimization and demonization. Not unheard of either.

[Igel]

35. Imagine a provocateur going into that group with a

pro-IDF sign.

Now imagine one going in with a sign admiring that Hamas "martyrs" and calling for more "floods."

Which would do you think the crowd would treat as would white blood cells attacking an intrusive microbe and which would be ignored as "self"?

Some "outside infiltrators"--like at Columbia--are welcomed as allies. Doesn't mean they're not from outside, and not infiltrators. Just that they're not alien to the group but simply distinct due to what members think of as an irrelevant difference.

[AloeVera]

42. Keffiyeh ettiquette is important.

Provocateurs are out in the open and succeed only when the protesters are undisciplined.

Infiltrators, otoh, while they can be a case of "the enemy of my enemy..." are more apt to be working for the other side. Clandestine, sophisticated in the art of deception, knowledgeable about how to tie a keffiyeh the right way so to speak. Then there is this gentleman, who forgot the clandestine part, though he seems to have the keffiyeh part down. No one's perfect.

Link to tweet

?t=4BVdA3C6G7H4fjRoyZkqCQ&s=19

[JohnSJ]

11. Probably not, but when they start burning the American flag, and

some of those protesters pushing hamas views, we have to condemn that, while distinguishing the difference between the non--violent rhetoric protesters.

[sboatcar]

13. I agree

I think war is bad and both sides have committed atrocities. Its too bad there isn't a good way to take a 'neither side' approach

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. In a perfect world Hamas and Netanyahu would destroy each other with no collateral damage

Alas we don't live there.

[sboatcar]

16. Agreed, it just sucks that the people of Gaza are the ones who have to suffer for the hubris

[paleotn]

43. Some maybe. Some probably not. Even people with legitimate beefs can get a case of the stupids and go off the rails,

damaging their own cause. The more I live on this planet, the more I'm convinced that humans are just barely evolved past the tool making phase. We claim to be intelligent and rational but mostly we're not.

[agingdem]

2. No..they're antisemites hiding behind the pro-Hamas banner...

[JohnSJ]

12. Exactly

[FakeNoose]

31. That too, but "pro-Hamas" is bad enough

... and I'm happy that the media are finally calling them that.

When all this started up, the media called them "pro-Palestinian" in an effort to wrangle some sympathy for them. Hamas is an international terror group that creepy-crawled into Gaza and slowly took over. Powerless Palestinian refugees have lost their lives and families because Hamas cruelly uses them as pawns.

It has gone on for way too long. Thank goodness Kamala Harris is speaking out against these protesters.

[The Magistrate]

5. Good

[sakabatou]

6. I call the pro-Hamas protestors useful idiots

[onandup]

8. She rightfully condemned supporting Hamas and burning the flag but

I do think she will bring a more nuanced approach to this conflict than we have seen in the past.

[New Day Yesterday]

10. I am unsure if either Hamas or Israel wants a peaceful resolution

Both sides seem to be committed to obliterating the other.

[Journeyman]

15. "If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it." -- Norman Thomas . . .

[The Grand Illuminist]

21. She sounds like she needs to be a little more neutral.

Condemn the violence, but press harder their right to protest.

[Beastly Boy]

25. They have no right to deface public property with hateful incendiary messages.

None.

[Cha]

37. That's Exactly True. They're Vicious and Violent..

VP Harris is Correct.

[femmedem]

27. Agreed. The vast majority of protesters were peacefully marching and chanting.

Her statement didn't acknowledge that, although it stated her general support for peaceful protest.

People who were reluctant to vote for Biden because they don't think he did enough to stop the violence against Palestinian civilians will be trying to understand Harris's position from statements like this.

[Cha]

38. No.. VP Harris said it Exactly Right. These "protesters" are Out of Control

“Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric,” Harris wrote in a statement Thursday. “I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”

Harris also condemned the “burning of the American flag,” calling the flag a “symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America.”

“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation,” Harris wrote.

[paleotn]

44. Their right to promote a terrorist organization that kills innoncents?

While protesting a regime that kills innocents? Now that makes little to no sense.

[yardwork]

46. Like Trump after Charlottesville? No way.

[MichMan]

26. Waiting for the DOJ and DC prosecutors to file criminal charges on them

[Salvador Dolly]

28. She says the right thing at the right time. n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

32. Good for our future president!

She didn't try to "whatabout" the situation or push a "look over there" line of crap.

[Cha]

39. IKR...She Addressed those Vicious Assholes head on!

[rollin74]

40. Thank you Kamala Harris

for speaking out against all the hate and Antisemitism

[yardwork]

45. Good for her!