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A New York City protest on Friday marking “Palestinian Prisoners’ Day” featured chants, signs, and imagery that included explicit incitement to violence targeting Jews and calls for the elimination of the State of Israel.
Hundreds attended the demonstration in Manhattan, where antisemitic rhetoric appeared on banners, signs, and in coordinated chants.
I lived in New York City for four years and saw a lot but nothing like this.
Our team @CombatASemitism monitored yesterday a march that quickly turned into a display of open hatred on the streets of NYC. Reviewing footage and images from the ground, we documented what +200… pic.twitter.com/c7GzxxcBJX
— Sacha Roytman (@SachaRoytman) April 18, 2026
Explicit Calls for Antisemitic Violence
Signs read “Globalize the Intifada,” “Long Live the Resistance,” “By Any Means Necessary,” and “Defend Al Aqsa.” These slogans framed violence as both justified and necessary.
“Globalize the Intifada” calls for extending the violence that characterized the Second Intifada of the early 2000s beyond Israel’s borders, while “By Any Means Necessary” removes any limits, explicitly legitimizing violence and terrorism of all forms.
Read more: ‘Globalize the Intifada’: Meaning, Origins, and Why The Slogan Is a Call for Violence
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“Long Live the Resistance” glorifies terror groups that carry out attacks, and “Defend Al Aqsa” — referring to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem — is frequently invoked as a religious justification for antisemitic violence.
Chants documented on Friday included: “Free Palestine,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “We will free Palestine within our lifetime.”
The chant “From the river to the sea” is widely understood as a call for the elimination of Israel, which lies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Other chants included “From New York to Palestine, occupation is a crime,” “Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today?” and “Smash the settler Zionist state.”
Additional signs read “Abolish Israel” and “Bomb ‘Israel’ Bye!,” with the country’s name placed in quotation marks to deny its legitimacy and existence.
Another sign read “KILL the colonizers so empire falls,” reflecting rhetoric demonizing both Israel and the United States.
Glorification of Terror
Images of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in September 2024, appeared throughout the protest. As the head of Hezbollah, Nasrallah was responsible for attacks that killed thousands of civilians, including Americans. Displaying his image represents open glorification of terror.
Demonstrators also displayed symbols and imagery associated with Hamas. Some wore attire and insignia linked to the Gaza-based terrorist group, including flags and pins honoring figures tied to its leadership. One protest participant wore a bandana referencing October 7th, the day two and a half years ago when Hamas carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, murdering nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducting 250 more. Another displayed an Al-Qassam Brigades pin, linked to Hamas’s military wing.
The inverted red triangle symbol, used in Hamas propaganda to mark Israeli targets, was also omnipresent at Friday’s protest.
Visual Calls for Violence and Escalation
Protesters carried banners explicitly calling for Israel’s destruction. One sign depicted an Israeli political figure hanging in a Ku Klux Klan-style hood marked with Jewish and American symbols, surrounded by flames, presenting a direct visual call for violence.
Large Palestinian flags were carried as protesters marched on the streets of Manhattan with their faces covered by keffiyehs.
The demonstration’s messaging was consistent. It combined blatant incitement against Jews, rejection of Israel’s existence, and glorification of terrorist figures and symbols, promoting an ideology normalizing and promoting antisemitic and anti-Western acts of violence.
“This isn’t AI. It’s real,” said Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) CEO Sacha Roytman. “New York City is going wild against Jews.”
“This is not rhetoric,” he emphasized. “It’s incitement to violence against Jews.”
This isn’t AI. It’s real.
NYC is going wild against Jews. Yesterday, our team at @CombatASemitism documented an explicit call to murder Jews.
We’ve already seen open calls to “globalize the intifada.” Now it’s even more blatant: “Globalize the intifada against white Jewish… pic.twitter.com/ha7rbLsCoN
— Sacha Roytman (@SachaRoytman) April 18, 2026
Take Action
CAM has launched Report It — a secure app to report antisemitic incidents anonymously and in real time. Don’t stay silent — download it today on the Apple Store or Google Play. See it. Report it. Stop it. Together, we can fight this hate.
