The riots across Los Angeles following the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement illegal raids on people in the United States has created some strange bedfellows.
According to Jerusalem-based media watchdog Honest Reporting, footage posted online shows rioters draped in keffiyehs and waving PLO flags as they attack police officers, torch cars and public property, and hurl Molotov cocktails.
What do the protests have in common?
One video shows a crowd gathered on a highway overpass, waving a massive Palestinian flag and pelting police cruisers below with rocks – many in the crowd wearing the traditional Palestinian head covering.
In another image, a masked rioter wears a PFLP headband while hoisting a Mexican flag.
Groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, PAL-Awda, Within Our Lifetime, and others have openly called on their followers to join the protests, framing the unrest as part of a broader campaign to “globalize the intifada.”
Honest Reporting also noted that the National SJP posted an image depicting Trump administration officials adorned with a swastika, labeling it “the Fourth Reich” and urging action. “We have a duty to resist oppression wherever it manifests: from the barrios of LA to the refugee camps of Bethlehem,” the group declared. “We will globalize the intifada.”
Isra Hirsi, daughter of anti-Israel congresswoman Ilhan Omar and recently suspended from Columbia University over her role in violent campus protests, posted on Instagram: “From LA to Rafah, there is one common oppressor. Death to the colonial empire. Life for our children.”