Was anyone killed in self-defense, arrested?
There are appallingly little details on the incident. Everything on Twitter is just linked to the naked Arutz Sheva article, which doesn’t even say where in Illinois it happened. Governor Pritzker supposedly made a statement, which has also gone missing. The twitter link to A7 is gone, too. What is going on?
Finally, some specifics from A7. I recant my previous skepticism.
“A pro-Israel rally held outside of Chicago over the weekend was crashed by a mob of Arab protesters who attacked the pro-Israel demonstration and called for the slaughter of Jews.
The incident occurred on Sunday in downtown Naperville, a city of roughly 150,000 less than 30 miles west of Chicago.
Dozens of Israel supporters gathered outside of city hall Sunday to express support for the Jewish state, before marching through downtown Naperville, organizers said.
In the week leading up to the event, the Instagram account created for the march received over 1,300 comments containing vile anti-Semitism, hate speech, calls for violence at the event, and death threats toward the organizers said Daniel Raab, one of the people behind the rally.
Raab said that a counter-demonstration, dubbed the “Naperville Protest for Palestine”, was later planned, “with the explicit intention to intimidate the Jewish run rally and march onto city hall to confront the 50 Jews and allies gathered for Israel. Violent intentions were expressed as the goal of the confrontations.”
The pro-Israel gathering was interrupted when multiple trucks filled with men waving Palestinian flags drove by, swearing at the attendees and yelling “Free Palestine”.
Police then rushed the marchers through downtown Naperville after a suspicious package was spotted on the route, with the marchers facing constant harassment from the Arab mob.
Authorities eventually cut short the pro-Israel event, saying they were unable to secure the rally from the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
“We returned to City Hall with one hour left for our event and the police informed us they were shutting us down due to the risk to our lives that the Naperville Protest for Palestine numbering in the hundreds were on their way and that they could no longer keep us safe. We quickly packed up and began evacuating from City Hall,” said Raab.
The anti-Israel demonstrators called not only for the destruction of Israel, but also the slaughter of Jews.
“We could hear the mob chanting while they marched toward us ‘From the river to the sea Palestine will be free’, ‘Intifada Intifada long live the Intifada’, and ‘Khyber Khyber ya Yahood, Jaish Muhammed sa Yahood,’” said Raab. “They were cursing at us and saying to ‘kill the Jews’.”
“When we evacuated a car with four teenage boys, one Jew and three non-Jews from the Walk for Israel got caught in the mob at a traffic light. They were surrounded by the mob with people jumping on and into their car, spitting and punching.”
The Arab mob also stole an Israeli flag and burned it, while attacking the organizers of the event as they tried to drive away.”