The leader of an anti-Israel activist group on Wednesday called to expel supporters of the Jewish state from the city, while criticizing the New York Police Department’s efforts to track down a man who threatened and tried to identify "Zionists" on a subway car.
"We don’t want zionists in Palestine, NYC, our schools, on the train, ANYWHERE," Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, wrote on X. "This is free speech, it is saying we don’t want racists here."
Kiswani's comments come just over a week after viral video of an anti-Semitic incident on a subway car in the city sparked national controversy and an NYPD investigation. On the same day Within Our Lifetime staged a protest against an exhibit commemorating victims of the Oct. 7 massacre, pro-Palestinian protesters filled a subway car, and one called for "Zionists" to identify themselves.
"Raise your hands if you're a Zionist," one of the protesters yelled, with his fellow demonstrators then repeating the chant. "Repeat after me, this is your chance to get out!"
The NYPD asked for the public's help in identifying the protester who led the chant, and police are reportedly looking to press hate crime charges in the incident. Kiswani, however, in her Wednesday post dismissed the investigation as a waste of time.
"The NYPD is preoccupied with this phrase over zionists beating ppl in the streets & threatening to rape protesters & their families??" Kiswani wrote.
Kiswani and her organization have a history of anti-Semitic rhetoric and voicing support for Hamas. Within Our Lifetime is banned from Instagram for violating hate speech guidelines, and Kiswani has praised Hamas on social media, saying she was disappointed that only 50 percent of young adults support the terror group.
Earlier this year, Kiswani appeared on a panel alongside Khaled Barakat, a member of the Israeli-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
While Kiswani endorsed the subway protester's call to expel Zionists, an article in the New Republic attempted to downplay the chant as merely a joke.
In an article, titled—"Biden Just Criticized These Protests as Antisemitic. Were They?"—writer Talia Jane attempted to debunk recent examples of protests that President Joe Biden denounced as anti-Semitic. The subhead reads, "It seems disinformation about recent pro-Palestine protests has made it all the way to the White House."
In recounting the event, Jane wrote, "As the car filled with pro-Palestine demonstrators, one protester jokingly remarked to the car, 'Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out,' a nod to the density of pro-Palestine protesters on the subway train." Jane did not explain why she was confident the chant was a joke. She described the event as "perhaps the most disingenuous" alleged anti-Semitic incident.
New Republic editor Michael Tomasky declined to comment on the piece but directed the Washington Free Beacon to an editor's note added to the article. That note acknowledged that the article "does not address these issues with the sensitivity and nuance that this subject requires" and said it should not have been published under the Breaking News vertical.
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