On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” CNN Senior Political Commentator Van Jones stated that the targeting of a Los Angeles synagogue was antisemitism and stated that showing up in a Jewish neighborhood “wearing a keffiyeh, you show up there with your face covered, you show up there chanting, river to the sea. That would be just like a white person running up with a Confederate flag in Harlem.”
Jones said, “Well, look, this is unacceptable. As a father who’s actually trying to raise my children in Los Angeles, I want to just applaud Mayor Bass, Gov. Newsom (D), and President Biden for speaking up about this. Listen, if you don’t like what’s happening in Gaza, it’s your right to protest. That’s not a problem. But you protest a policy, you don’t protest a people. When you protest a policy, you go to city hall and you protest, you go to the Israeli consulate, peacefully, you protest, maybe you go to your elected representative, you protest. You don’t bumrush a Jewish neighborhood and run up on a synagogue. That’s not protesting a policy, that’s protesting a people, and that is across any line in America. And it has to be called out.”
He added, “I have no problem with people protesting policy. You cannot protest a people. That is not a protest, that’s a pogrom, and it has to stop.”
Jones further stated, “I haven’t seen Jewish people running up on mosques with Israeli flags. If they did that, I’d be denouncing that too. There are certain things you don’t do. It is a red line — if you want to be a part of a protest, and they say, we’re going to go to a Jewish community center, we’re going to go to a mosque, we’re going to go to a Jewish restaurant, that’s not a protest. That’s a pogrom. That’s an anti-Jewish, bigoted act. If you want to be a part of a protest — let’s go to a mosque, let’s go and harass the Muslims, that’s not a protest. … The Jewish neighborhoods in L.A. are well-known. Nobody is confused where they are. So, if you show up there wearing a keffiyeh, you show up there with your face covered, you show up there chanting, river to the sea. That would be just like a white person running up with a Confederate flag in Harlem. You’re not trying to start a conversation. You’re trying to start a fight.”
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