Pro-Palestinian protesters out to cancel Christmas as they storm NYC again
They’re out to “cancel” Christmas.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters converged on Midtown Monday, lugging a blood-red mock Nativity scene and chanting “Christmas is canceled here.”
“Long live the intifada,” the crowd of about 500 demonstrators yelled, using the Arabic word for “rebellion” or “uprising,” as they mobbed the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree where revelers were enjoying the holiday.
“While Ur Shopping Bombs are Dropping,” read one of the signs carried by the protesters.
“No Joy In Genocide,” said another, written atop the faux Nativity scene, which was splattered in what appeared to be fake blood and which several of the demonstrators carried on their shoulders.
A few scuffles broke out in the crowd after nightfall, including outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which sent cops running through the mob.
At least six arrests — four for disorderly conduct, one for menacing and one for graffiti — were later reported near Grand Central Station and Union Square, as protesters and cops clashed, according to law enforcement sources.
As the crowd thinned at Union Square Monday night, dozens of protesters waving the Palestinian flag remained. At least one person was seen being arrested by police there.
They left “Zionism is terrorism” and “Free Palestine” stickers and “Murdered by Israel” flyers on the exterior of the Union Square Holiday Market.
Some scrawled pro-Palestine slogans, including “From NY to Gaza, Globalize the Intifada;” “Netanyahu is a warmonger;” and “Israel kills babies.”
The protest was just the latest anti-Israel march to take place in the Big Apple in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 sneak attack, which sparked the Jewish state’s subsequent retaliatory strike in the Gaza Strip.
It followed a pro-Palestinian car caravan that disrupted Christmas carolers at Washington Square Park Sunday night, blaring music to douse the holiday spirit in the neighborhood.
The Christmas Day demonstration targeting the Manhattan area popular with holiday revelers and tourists prompted cops to go on alert outside the News Corp headquarters on Sixth Avenue.
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The building is home to Fox News, The Post, the Wall Street Journal and other company holdings.
Protesters have targeted the media company in the past, including twice last month.
On Nov. 29, hundreds of demonstrators — at least one spotted carrying a swastika — stormed the Sixth Avenue building after police blocked them from Rockefeller Center during a well-organized “Flood the Tree Lighting for Gaza” protest.
At least seven people were arrested over the course of the night, with several skirmishes periodically breaking out between NYPD cops and some of the demonstrators.
Police said 16 protesters were busted on Nov. 17 when a smaller group targeted the building and several of them forced their way into the lobby calling for “direct action” to “globalize intifada.”
The group chanted and held banners that claimed Fox News “covers up genocide.”
Cops took several of the demonstrators into custody while others eventually left the area.
The unrest came after News Corp was labeled as a target for radical protesters in a disturbing map that claimed the company was one of several sites identified as “an enemy of both the Palestinian people and colonized people all over the world.”
That call came from Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestinian group.