Leftist protesters who oppose the Jewish nation of Israel and support the Hamas-led Palestinians in Gaza have loudly and consistently demanded an immediate end to Israel's ongoing military response to the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists during a coordinated wave of terrorist attacks, murders, and kidnappings that occurred on Oct. 7, 2023.
On New Year's Day, that included around 100 such anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters who set up around sunrise and protested for several hours outside the home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) San Francisco home in California, according to local ABC affiliate KGO.
The protesters, who marched around Pelosi's neighborhood while loudly chanting and banging drums, demanded the former Democratic Leader presumably use her remaining power and influence in Washington D.C. to achieve an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza as well as to end all U.S. financial and military aid to Israel.
One of the organizers of the protest event, Cayden Mak, told KGO, "We know that Congress is on recess and it's a great time to bring messages to representatives when they're at home."
"We're asking for an end to funding for Israel's military machine and we'd like [Pelosi] to commit to really investing those billions of dollars here at home because people are hurting, people are sleeping out on the street here in San Francisco," they added.
To its credit, KGO also shared an opposing view on the matter from a Jewish community activist in Oakland named Naomi Katz, who said, "I agree that we need money spent at home, but it doesn't need to be taken from defending Israel."
"I think that we are very invested in seeing Israel succeed, because, in fact, if you read the Hamas Charter, they are not going to stop with Israel," she continued. "They are bent on destroying all of Western civilization and establishing an Arab, a Muslim Caliphate, and that's their goal. And so I think that the whole West really is at stake here."
As for the protesters' demands for an immediate ceasefire to end the conflict, Katz stated, "I'm 100 percent for a cease-fire the minute that Hamas surrenders," and added of the protesters, "How come nobody is putting any onus on Hamas to surrender? I believe that as soon as Hamas surrenders, Israel will stop. There will be a cease-fire."
The incident Monday outside former Speaker Pelosi's home isn't the first time that the congresswoman has been targeted by anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters in her neighborhood, as a similar event occurred nearly a month earlier on Dec. 3, 2023, according to The Hill.
That event was organized by the anti-war group Code Pink, which said in a press release that the point of the protest was "to urge both Pelosi and President Biden to support an immediate permanent ceasefire, to cease financial backing for Prime Minister Netanyahu's military campaign in Gaza, and put an end to settler violence and Israeli military incursions in the West Bank."
Noting public polling at that time and how dozens of Democrats in Congress had already signaled their support for a ceasefire, the press release stated that "it is crucial for Representative Pelosi, a California leader and former Speaker of the House, to heed the voices of her constituents and stand in solidarity with her colleagues advocating for peace."
Ever since Israel initially responded with military force to the wave of Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, leftist groups, often only thinly disguising their antisemitism, have essentially and repeatedly demanded that the Jewish nation surrounded by Arab and Islamic neighbors and enemy groups sworn to its demise lay down its arms and halt any sort of retaliatory or self-defense actions against the murderers and rapists of Hamas in Gaza.
Yet, as observed by the Jewish community activist in Oakland interviewed by KGO, those same protesters rarely, if ever, aim their purported anti-war demands and condemnations at the Hamas terrorists who sparked the current conflict in October with their unprovoked attacks on predominately Israeli civilians with a coordinated invasion of southern Israel and waves of murderous assaults and kidnappings.
