Water Balloons 1965; Water Balloons 2012

During Chanukkah week, December 1965, in New York, members of Betar (with support from one member of Dror as lookout) attacked Arab students and some pro-Arab Jews, notably the infamous Benjamin Freedman, who were demonstrating outside Madison Square Garden where the annual Israel Bonds festival was taking place over a 3-day period. Their signs read "Don't buy Israel War Bonds".

Everyone but me had eggs. I had water balloons. Do you have any idea how hard it is to carry filled water balloons in your pockets on the NY subway from Yeshiva University uptown to Manhattan-midtown and then throw them?

But I did, with great success.

Why this reminisce?

In London yesterday, water balloons were thrown at Arabs and their supporters at LSE in London.

Details:

A violent clash has erupted at LSE after a protest by the LSESU Palestine Society on Houghton Street was attacked by “a small group of organised individuals” who threw water bombs and knocked over property.  The confrontation took place as the Palestine Society were re-enacting an Israeli check-point as part of their activities for ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’.

An official statement by the LSE Students’ Union said: “Whilst peacefully re-enacting an Israeli checkpoint and talking to students about the issue, a small group of organised individuals ran towards members of the LSESU Palestine Society and threw water bombs which hit several students and knocked over property of the Palestine Society.”

In the melee that  ensued, eye-witnesses have said that one individual [a Jewish student]was punched in the face...

The short video clip.

EoZ has great commentary.

Oh, various suggestions and comments I collected:

a. build a bombed out pizzeria behind the checkpoint

b. water balloons are nothing compared to the bombs of suicide bombers

c. applaud the resistance of Jews at LSE

d. A much better response would have been to act out a suicide bombing with fake body pieces strewn all over and being picked up by students dressed in zaka uniforms. Same message - no physical altercation

e. of course the great and the good of the Jewish community are tutt-tutting that 'violence' (ie water balloons) was used...

f. for the British Jewish community: no pro-Israel action too modest to condemn, to anti-Israel provocation too severe to ignore

g. "but there are less provocative ways to do this, one student suggesting t-shirts reading 'If I were a suicide bomber, you’d be dead by now' instead." Yeah right, it's so easy to print up 20 T-shirts at such short notice

^

Chanukah Event on the Hill Ridges

The "Loyalists of the Land of Israel" and the "Youth for Erezt-Yisrael" are planning an event for Chanukah under the slogan "Strengthening the Light of Settlement":

Trees to be planted, structures to be reinforced all along the hill ridges of Migron, Shvut Ami, Ma'alot Halhoul, Netzer, Maoz Esther, Yad Yair, Sela and Hebron's Peave House.


And here is another news update on activist events and happening , issue #5 of La'Ma'as

Jewish Activism

Jewish Activism Video Clip

I led a demonstration to the Isaiah Wall back in 1968 (and if I can find the newspaper clipping, I'll scan it and put it up), walking across town from an establishment Soviet Jewry "blah-blah" so it was nice to see my good friends, Rabbi Avi Weiss and Gelnn Richter there again in an act of Jewish activism.