Pro-Palestinians Vandalize Washington D.C. Statues

On June 8, 2024, around 75,000 anti-Israel protesters came to Washington, D.C. for the “Surround the White House” protest against the war in Gaza. They ringed the White House with a 2-mile long red banner representing their demand for the cessation of US military aid to Israel. They called this, the “people’s red line.”

The protesters demanded Israel enact a “ceasefire,” but didn’t call on Hamas to lay down their weapons. It was never mentioned that Hamas invaded Israel and killed 1,139 people on Oct. 7, 2023—the atrocity that began the war. 

I’m old enough to recall the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. I was 13-years-old. Ever since I’ve closely watched and studied the troubles between Israelis and Palestinians. Over the decades I have heard and read from Arabs, Jews, and Gentiles from the left, right, and center… memories and histories of wars and chaos in the Middle East. Let’s just say I’m well informed on the subject.

This essay presents my views concerning the important historical statues that were vandalized by mobs during the June 8, 2024 pro-Palestine demonstration. 

The famous bronze equestrian statue titled Lieutenant General George Washington that sits in Washington Circle was targeted. The granite base the sculpture sits on was spray-painted with the slogans Free Gaza and Death 2 Israel.

In 1853 the American sculptor Clark Mills (1810-1883) was commissioned by Congress to create the Washington statue. Congress provided cannons that were melted down to provide the bronze. Mills worked from a life mask of Washington to obtain an accurate portrayal. The sculpture was unveiled & dedicated on Feb 22, 1860, which happens to be Washington’s birthday—the Civil War began April 12, 1861.

Perhaps the most famous of Clark Mills’ sculptures is his bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States. The statue sits in Lafayette Square, named for the French general Marquis de Lafayette—hero of the American Revolutionary War. Clark Mills’ statue was the first American equestrian statue cast in bronze. The fifteen-ton statue was unveiled & dedicated on Jan. 8, 1853. On June 22, 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters tried to topple the Andrew Jackson statue but were stopped by police.

On June 8, 2024, pro-Palestinians attacked the Andrew Jackson statue leaving bloody red handprints all over the granite base. They spray-painted it with the slogans Free Gaza and Boycott Israel Products. This time the defacement received absolutely no coverage from the media… I’m guessing that’s because leftwing political vandalism has been normalized.

Another magnificent statue vandalized by anti-Israel protesters was the bronze sculpture, Major General Comte Jean de Rochambeau, created in 1902 by French sculptor Fernand Hamar (1869-1943). This bronze also sits in Lafayette Square. Vandals completely covered its granite base with hand written graffitied messages against Israel and for Palestine.

They also spray-painted the base with: Death To AmeriKKKa, Kill Pigs, Intifada, Glory to the Resistance, F**k Israel, Militancy Is Key, and more. Rochambeau was a French general who famously assisted American patriots in the revolutionary war against the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The nine-foot-tall Rochambeau statue sits atop a seventeen-foot granite pedestal. The bronze figure wears a tricorn hat and holds a battle map of Yorktown in his left hand. Midway along the pedestal there’s a bronze statue of a woman representing Victory. She holds a sword in her right hand, and in her left hand the French and American flags. At her feet is a bald eagle, symbol of America. The bronze talons of the bird clutch the pedestal’s granite shield decorated with thirteen stars and stripes, symbolizing the thirteen American colonies.

In a video by FreedomNews TV, a lone heroic Park Ranger from the US National Park Service is seen trying to protect the Rochambeau monument from further damage. Protesters chanting “Oink, Oink, Oink” and “F**k You Fascist” threw garbage and bottles at him as they spray-painted the monument. It was a disgraceful spectacle to behold. Those involved should be arrested and given harsh sentences. 

In the first moments of the video posted above, showing the Park Ranger confronted by a hostile mob of pro-Palestinian activists, you can see a number of upside-down red triangles painted on the pedestal of the Rochambeau monument. What do the triangles mean? A screen grab is posted below.

As asymmetrical warfare unfolded in Gaza, Hamas began videotaping their guerrilla attacks on the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). The footage was edited into propaganda videos for social media. They usually show a Hamas jihadi aiming a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) at an Israeli target (tank, soldier, et cetera). Hamas video editors include an upside-down red triangle above a target. The triangle bounces, bringing attention to the IDF target about to be destroyed. Examples of such videos can be found on this pro-Iran account on X.

Seeing the ominous Hamas upside-down red triangles spray-painted on the Rochambeau monument should be unsettling to any rational person. But the June 10, 2024 vandalism of the US Consulate in Sydney, Australia is even more disturbing. Early in the morning Pro-Palestine vandals shattered, but did not break the consulate’s bullet proof windows. They spray-painted large upside-down red triangles over the multiple US Consulate emblems on the building’s windows.

But back to the June 8 demonstration. Because of potential threats from the “Surround the White House” protest, the Secret Service installed anti-scale fencing around the official residence of the President. Given the propensity of leftwing activists to vandalize public art… like the June 22, 2020, Black Lives Matter vandalism of the Andrew Jackson statue, or the May 6, 2024 pro-Palestinian defacement of historic statues in New York’s Central Park, there should have been security guards protecting the historic statues in Lafayette Square.

The anti-Israel protest march to the White House was video taped by FreedomNews TV. Another video from them shows three keffiyeh-wearing protesters holding a black banner that reads: Jihad of Victory or Martyrdom—Al Qassam.

Abu Obeida is the infamous spokesman for the Hamas terrorist army known as the Al Qassam Brigades. Obeida ended one of his vengeful communiqués with the closing phrase, “Jihad of Victory or Martyrdom.” A US group affiliated with the Marxist-Leninist “Workers World Party” published the truculent paramilitary statement. I have to say, I’m puzzled by the alliance between the red left and Islamic fundamentalists.

A separate video shows the three fanatics marching with their Al Qassam banner, chanting: “Make us proud, kill another soldier now, Hezbollah, Kill another Zionist now.” How can sympathizers of Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist “Party of God” that is funded, armed, and controlled by the Islamic Republic of Iran, be marching in America’s capital. How can this be happening in the United States?

An additional FreedomNews TV video shows a protester holding a placard with a message for Joe Biden, “We Got The Guillotine You Better Run!” I admit disagreeing with Mr. Biden on just about everything, but this type of murderous rhetoric oversteps all bounds, it is quite frankly beyond the pale.

Also vandalized on June 8 was the elaborate bronze statue, Major General Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette. It was fashioned in 1891 by the French sculptors Antonin Mercié and Alexandre Falguière. Both were painters but they were better known in their homeland as unsurpassable sculptors.

The bronze was created to honor the Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette, who joined the American Revolutionary War and commanded American patriots in the crucial siege of Yorktown. And yes, the statue is found in Lafayette Square.

As a side note to this information, sculptor Falguière created a monumental plaster sculpture titled Triumph of the Revolution. It depicted a female figure representing Revolution, driving a chariot pulled by galloping horses. The artist imagined the group would “crush Anarchy and Despotism.” It was meant to be cast in bronze, but that never happened. The plaster statue was placed atop the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where it sat from 1882 to 1886. Due to weather degradation it was removed in 1886. Its memory lives on in a few old photos and artworks.

In a FreedomNews TV video shown below, a group of Palestinian militants climbed all over the Lafayette monument. They waved Palestinian flags and spray-painted FJB (F**k Joe Biden) and Free Palestine on the back of the female figure representing America. 

Here’s what I find alarming about the video. A bearded militant waves a bloody mask of Joe Biden, and the aspiring jihadist wears the Islamic green headband of Hamas—designated a terrorist organization by the US, UK, European Union, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand; it’s also banned in Jordan.

A fellow militant in a ski mask sets a small US flag on fire. He wears a red headband emblazoned with the logo of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a group also designated as a terrorist organization by the US, UK, European Union, Canada, and Japan.

At the top of the Lafayette monument’s 36 ft high pedestal of marble and granite, stands an eleven ft. tall bronze statue of Lafayette himself. He faces towards the White House. His right arm extended in a fraternal gesture, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

The south side of the pedestal has a bronze female figure representing America—she offers a sword to Lafayette. The east face of the pedestal features French officers Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector (who led a fleet to assist America), and François Joseph Paul de Grasse (who also commanded a French fleet to assist America).

The west face of the pedestal depicts Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur and Louis Lebègue Duportail, both fought with America in the American Revolutionary War. The north face of the pedestal features two bronze cherubs. Not that any of this matters to the fanatic anti-Israel desecrators who trashed the national monuments of the United States.

Regarding that jihadi wearing the red headband of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Read about the May 30, 1972 Lod Airport Massacre, where the PFLP recruited and trained extremists from the Japanese Red Army to attack an Israeli airport with hand grenades and Czech vz.58 full auto rifles. The terrorists killed 26 and wounded 80. Of the 26 murdered, 17 were US citizens from Puerto Rico and one was a Canadian.

You might remember the PFLP from their participation in the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. That terrorist attack killed 11 Israeli athletes and officials, and 1 West German police officer. The Palestinian Black September Organization carried out the bloodbath, but it was done in cooperation with the PFLP.

Imagine that… a sympathizer of the terrorist PFLP, vandalizing a monument to a hero of the American war for Independence while burning a US flag across the street from the White House. I think all of this adds up to be something like, um… an insurrection.

Have we forgotten al-Qaeda mounting coordinated terrorist attacks against the US in 2001? We don’t remember the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack, where Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were so inspired by foreign terrorist groups committed to jihadism, that they shot to death 14 people at a Christmas party. Gone is the memory of the 2016 Pulse nightclub terror attack in Orlando, Florida, were Omar Mateen shot to death 49 people after he swore allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS). And many Americans are not at all worried about the Southern border of the United States being wide open.

It should be noted the pro-Palestine demonstrators outside the White House condemned Israel for being a “settler colonial nation,” the same critique Hamas makes of Israel, the same critique the US left makes against the United States—hence, the spiteful vandalism of the Washington, Jackson, Rochambeau, and Lafayette statues.

And who organized the June 8, 2024 “Surround the White House” march? Not surprisingly, an alliance of leftists and Islamists. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition, Palestinian Youth Movement, the People’s Forum, and CodePink. There’s a name missing here, that of Neville Roy Singham—the underwriter and sponsor of The People’s Forum and CodePink!

There are reports about American-born Tech Mogul Neville Singham selling his software consulting company for $785 million, since then he’s been throwing money at socialist organizations and anti-Israel activists. The New York Times put it this way in their article A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul. Singham “is known as a socialist benefactor of far-left causes.” The NYT also said this about Singham:

“What is less known, and is hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies, is that Mr. Singham works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.”

The paper of record also reported that “Code Pink once criticized China’s rights record but now defends its internment of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs, which human rights experts have labeled a crime against humanity.”

You see, in 2017 Singham married Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink. The NYT reported: “Since 2017, about a quarter of Code Pink’s donations—more than $1.4 million—have come from two groups linked to Mr. Singham.” The NYT also stated: “Ms. Evans now stridently supports China. She casts it as a defender of the oppressed and a model for economic growth without slavery or war. ‘If the US crushes China,’ she said in 2021, it ‘would cut off hope for the human race and life on Earth.’”

But wait, there’s more!

In its Nov. 16, 2023 article Meet the American millionaire Marxists funding anti-Israel rallies, the New York Post reported that Neville Singham and wife Jodie Evans have been bankrolling the People’s Forum to the tune of $20.4 million from 2017 to 2022.

As for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The New York Times reported on Dec. 8, 2023, that the White House had “disavowed” CAIR because its director, Nihad Awad, had praised the Hamas attack on Israel, saying: “The people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.”

Some final thoughts on the vandalizing of history that took place on June 8, 2024.

Does it matter if the vandals who attacked the Washington, Jackson, Rochambeau, and Lafayette sculptures knew the histories of the men portrayed? Not really. If they were clueless of those legacies then they are ignorant thugs. If they were cognizant of the heritage, then they are un-American ignorant thugs.

On June 8, 2024, in Washington D.C., a splendid time was guaranteed for all, well… almost all. Historic statues were defaced and vandalized by keffiyeh-wearing hordes, American flags were set on fire, smoke bombs and flares were set off. Wannabe Hamas militants marched around with banners praising martyrdom and Hezbollah.

Heck, a new bright yellow street mural might be commissioned to cover the broad avenue to the White House, with giant letters reading… H-A-M-A-S