Greenfield Slams Anti-Israel Protesters In City Council

Shouting “Palestinian lives matter,” some 40 anti-Israel protesters disrupted the New York City Council’s biweekly meeting Thursday for about five minutes as they protested an upcoming council visit to Israel.

The pro-Palestinian activists remained sitting quietly in the gallery upstairs for nearly an hour and a half to time their outbursts for when the Council was passing a resolution commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. The protesters then unfurled a Palestinian flag and started cursing at the council.

Councilman David Greenfield then took to the floor to condemn what he termed anti-Semites who were upset “because Hitler did not finish the job.”

“He only wiped out half of my family and only by the grace of G-d is the other half — me — the grandchild still alive today,” Greenfield declared, his voice rising. “I have never seen anything quite as disgusting as pro-Palestine activists protesting the commemoration of 1.1 million deaths at Auschwitz.”

Greenfield said that the Council trip to Israel, scheduled to begin on Feb. 15, will show that “we will not be cowered by this fear and hatred,”

“We can stop pretending that this is about Israel,” he said. “What we saw here was blatant anti-Semitism, good old fashioned anti-Semitism. … Shame on them for hating Jews.”

This article appeared in print on page 4 of the January 23rd, 2015 edition of Hamodia.