Palestinian Storm Troopers on the Potomac?

Is the latest DC violence a warning of things to come?

Last week, Americans witnessed what seemed like the ghosts of Nazi Storm Troopers as a Palestinian mob swept through parts of the nation’s capital. They burned American flags, raised Palestinian flags, released a torrent of raw, pro-Hamas chants, and some called for the age-old idea of murdering Jews, while warning Americans with one stark piece of graffiti that bluntly stated, “Hamas is Coming.” 

Many in Washington, D.C. also gleefully hailed the “Intifada,” the Palestinian terror movement that murdered 1,100 Israelis from 1987 to 2005.

Indeed, what happened on July 26 was not your mother’s and father’s demonstration. It didn’t resemble previous American protest movements where peaceful protests tried to generate public discussion about social change.

No, this was a violent and hard-edged pro-Palestinian protest.  In a way, the protesters resembled Hitler’s intimidating paramilitary group know as the Storm Troopers, later designated as the feared “SA.” In the 1930’s the German Storm Troopers began by defacing Jewish establishments and broke windows of Jewish businesses.

Eventually, however, they turned into a killing machine, murdering Jews, burning down their businesses establishments and their synagogues. Hitler’s paramilitary units were designed to intimidate political opponents and eventually spark terror for those who disagreed with the Fuhrer.

So the July 26 riot may portend a potential dark period where tough, in-your-face violence by Palestinians and anti-imperialist progressives are being deployed to intimidate the public, especially Jews who support Israel. Eventually, if left unchecked, it can threaten our democratic and pluralistic society.

This brings me to Ryan Mauro, someone who’s important to this conversation. Mauro follows extremist groups for the nonprofit Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C. Prior to his work at CRC, he served as the Director of Intelligence for the Clarion Project, a counter-extremism organization.

He warns we’re seeing something quite different now.

Mauro says the militants are trying to create an emotional and violent “new paradigm” that is part of an aggressive political “eco-system” designed to deliver harsh attacks against all Americans - Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Christians and Jews. 

“These aren’t just critics of Israel,” Mauro told me in an interview. “They’re not Republicans or Democrats. They’re not liberals. We really have to think of these groups as a new paradigm because they’re communists, anarchists, radical Islamicists and anti-Americans. It really sets them apart from the categories of people that we’re used to dealing with people like liberals and those demonstrating for women’s rights. No, this is separate. This is an eco-system that is against both political parties, against liberals and conservatives.”  

The protesters originally came to D.C. to oppose a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before a Joint Session of Congress. Both Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson invited Netanyahu as the Jewish state faced its tenth month of war following the Hamas October 7 massacre of men, women and children.

But the rally against Netanyahu was part of a continuum of rising, problematic tactics of disruption by Palestinians and their supporters.

In the last ten months, we’ve begun to see parts of what Mauro warns is this “new paradigm.” Since October 7, we’ve witnessed pro-Palestinian encampments at college campuses.  They  included nasty and hate-filled speech by Palestinians calling for killing the Jews and for “Death to America.”

This development coincided with a new pro-Palestinian tactic to deploy organized paramilitary teams to take over bridges and major roadways, and to desecrate and attack public buildings, churches and synagogues.

The latest violence in Washington has been part of a slow, but escalating set of acts.  The Palestinian who wrote on D.C.’s Christopher Columbus monument that “Hamas is Coming” wasn’t an idle threat.  Palestinians are seeking to up the ante.

Interestingly, the pro-Palestinian camp has largely attacked prominent Democrats and ignored Republicans, including Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. At last week’s pro-Palestinian rally, for example, extreme Leftist Linda Sansour bluntly called President Biden America’s “top” war criminal.

“Don’t be surprised that a war criminal (Prime Minister Netanyahu) has been invited by a country that harbors our own war criminals,” she shouted to the crowd outside the Capitol Building.  “And at the top of the list is President Joe Biden,” she declared, triggering vigorous and loud applause.

Multiple speakers also warned the presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris that they currently don’t support her and that she would have to “earn” their vote.

Their primary focus now appears to be the oncoming Democratic National Convention.  Last week’s violence may simply be a rehearsal for riots that the Chicago police and the Secret Service are preparing to confront.

While many of the past pro-Palestinian demonstrations definitely have sought disruption of our society, their actions are beginning to resemble the aggressive, militant Islamic mob violence we’ve only seen from a distance.  This is the kind of violence regularly we’ve seen in the Middle East and North Africa.

So Mauro warns one of the most troubling things about the Palestinian groups is their tendency toward aggressiveness, and eventually, violence.

He says of all American protest groups, the Palestinian organizations “are the most aggressive.”

“They’re not the type of people out there who are interested in positive, civil discourse that brings back healing and unity to the country. They’re terrible bomb throwers that like to cause conflict and they are ferorousisly anti-American too. That’s what’s often forgotten. Just as much as they hate Israel, they explicitly hate the United States and have actually called for the U.S. to no longer exist.”

He says, this is most logical since many of the groups identify with terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. “We should always expect supporters of terrorists to act like terrorists. There is a threat of violence because these are pro-violent actors even if they are not necessarily violent themselves.

They say they’re looking for legal, non-violent protests, but Mauro says not to believe it. 

“At least publicly, their intentions are for it not to be violently confrontational But these are confrontational people. And whenever you put them in groups together where they can hype each other up, certainly there’s a threat. You’re just waiting for the match to light.”

So next up is Chicago. At the end of last week’s pro-Palestinian demonstration outside of the Capitol Building, the moderator named Mohammad reminded the demonstrators to get ready to go to Chicago for upcoming the Democratic National Convention, where disorder and riots are feared.