Anti-Israeli vandals take over Brooklyn Museum and have altercation with NYPD

The Brooklyn Museum became the epicenter of a violent protest on Friday when an angry crowd of anti-Israel protesters stormed the building to set up camp and hang a banner denouncing the conflict in Gaza as “genocide.”

Nearly a thousand people arrived at the site waving Palestinian flags, jumping over metal barriers, sticking posters on doors and scaling walls to take control of the building and unfurl their banner.

The call, which appears to have been organized by the anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime, called on people to “flood” the museum until it discloses and undoes its financial ties to Israel.

Police had to intervene to clear the building and arrest several protesters, including a man who spray-painted an outdoor sculpture.

“There was damage to existing and newly installed artwork on our plaza, a museum spokesperson says in an email. “Protesters entered the building, and our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed,” said a museum spokesperson, according to The Times of Israel.

The Brooklyn Museum has not yet officially commented on the violent incident, and at the time of writing, there was no information on the number of people arrested or injured.

This is not the first time the Brooklyn Museum has been the target of anti-Israel demonstrations. On December 8th, about 20 demonstrators linked to organizations such as Decolonize This Place and Within Our Lifetime held a protest inside the museum’s lobby. The following day, hundreds of people also gathered there as the starting point of a planned march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall.

These protests join a series of similar demonstrations that have taken place at other prominent museums in the city, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition, educational institutions such as Cooper Union in New York and the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as other major universities across the country, have also been the target of occupations and strikes in protest at what they see as a lack of action on the conflict in Gaza.