ASRA NOMANI: Woke army retreats in D.C. protest, pivots to ‘FIGHT BACK’ for Gaza

On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a multi-million dollar web of socialist and Islamist organizations scaled backmost its plans for a monolithic citywide "resistance," retreating to a quiescent parkland successful a country of Washington, D.C., called Meridian Hill. They present foretell a assemblage of 2,000, a acold outcry from the 50,000 primitively planned for the National Mall, Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue NW.

But the web of well-funded organizations, which I call the Woke Army, is pressing up with protests successful 84 cities, rebranded successful emails sent Sunday day to supporters with the message, "STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. WE FIGHT BACK," pursuing Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas. In the nation’s capital, the ANSWER Coalition, a self-declared Marxist enactment based successful D.C., secured a permit, which I obtained, for the smaller Meridian Hill protestation aft withdrawing its exertion for the larger citywide demonstration.

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Despite media portrayals of these protests arsenic grassroots movements, they are thing but. The ANSWER Coalition’s operations are highly coordinated and funded by nonrecreational activism networks, overmuch similar Saturday’s "People’s March," which my reporting revealed was organized by a for-profit nonrecreational protestation logistics company, Movement Catalyst LLC, which executes events with subject precision.

An email sent retired by ANSWER Coalition connected Sunday shows however the protestation program pivoted to the Israel-Gaza war. (ANSWER Coalition)

These nonrecreational organizers make a polished veneer of "grassroots" spontaneity for protests that are, successful reality, meticulously engineered governmental theatre and not grassroots but alternatively AstroTurf. They churned retired adjacent identical emails astir 4 p.m. connected Sunday, summoning followers to their Monday protests.

For years now, I’ve been tracking these organizations arsenic portion of my reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism inaugural named for Wall Street Journal newsman Daniel Pearl, who was murdered successful Karachi, Pakistan, successful 2002 successful the sanction of individuality authorities and sectarianism. Democracy thrives connected transparency, and the nationalist deserves to cognize erstwhile protests are driven by ideological agendas masquerading arsenic grassroots movements.

Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation created the ANSWER Coalition, abbreviated for "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism," aft 9/11. It has consistently championed authoritarian regimes, including socialist governments successful Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba. Brian Becker, the ANSWER Coalition person who got the licence for the Meridian Hill protest, is simply a vocal proponent of Marxism and socialism.

An email sent retired by The People's Forum connected Sunday, is identical to 1 sent by ANSWER Coalition, indicating cautious coordination betwixt the groups. (The People's Forum)

The organization’s past includes inflammatory anti-American incidents, specified arsenic a protestation this past summertime against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wherever Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, president of the Richmond section of American Muslims for Palestine, spray-painted "HAMAS IS COMIN" connected a statue astatine Union Station. The National Park Service pulled ANSWER Coalition’s licence aft the protestation turned violent, with demonstrators burning U.S. flags and clashing with police.

Michael Litterst, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Park Service, told maine contiguous that the ANSWER Coalition "canceled" its exertion for the citywide protest. He directed questions to the ANSWER Coalition astir wherefore it canceled its application. The ANSWER Coalition didn’t respond to a petition for comment.

The licence reveals the intricate readying down this expected protestation that the media volition apt formed arsenic spontaneous:

• 7 a.m.: "Load successful instrumentality to the precocious level of Meridian Hill Park."
• 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: "Speeches and imaginable acoustic music."
• 12:30 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.: "Organize for march."
• 12:45 p.m.: "March steps disconnected (south connected 16th Street to H Street astatine Black Lives Matter Plaza)," adjacent the White House.
• 12:45 p.m. to 4 p.m.: "Remove instrumentality from Meridian Hill Park."

The instrumentality database reveals the professionalism down these protests: 1 stage, 20 tables, 40 chairs, 200 handheld signs, banners, a dependable system, podium, and propaganda materials, including lit and bumper stickers. The ANSWER Coalition licence said it plans to bring an "opaque unafraid bucket for collecting donations."

Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded cognition intent connected reshaping the communicative of grassroots absorption into 1 that serves its ain ideological goals.

The Park Service licence reminded organizers successful bold text: "It is prohibited to climb, remove, oregon successful immoderate mode injure immoderate statue, seat, wall, fountain, airy poles, elevator towers, oregon different architectural feature" wrong the park.

The ANSWER Coalition’s past raises questions astir its quality to support order. But Litterest, the U.S. National Park Service spokesman, told me: "DC courts person antecedently indicated that denial of oregon limitations connected permits for First Amendment demonstrations based connected contemplated acts of unit are due lone erstwhile and wherever the menace is real, important and beyond the tenable power of instrumentality enforcement."

Last week, on a website created conscionable days aft Trump’s election, protestation organizers said they had astir 50 "endorsing" groups. Now, that fig has accrued to 205 groups, and it’s wide from the names connected the increasing database that their origins are acold from grassroots. I’ve added the caller names to a nationalist Pearl Project nationalist database, and, according to my caller analysis, 58 of the groups are self-described socialist organizations, 25 are Islamist, Muslim, Arab oregon Palestinian, and the remaining 122 are socialist and Islamist adjacent. They consistently question to destruct Israel arsenic a state.

The "red" successful tomorrow’s confederation includes well-funded protesters: the ANSWER Coalition; Code Pink, an anti-Israel radical funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American billionaire tied to China’s Communist Party, according to the New York Times; the Party for Socialism and Liberation, advocating for dismantling capitalism and aligning the U.S. with socialist regimes; the People’s Forum, a socialist radical that serves arsenic a proxy for Singham’s pro-China agenda, arsenic besides documented by The New York Times; and Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist enactment successful the U.S.

It besides present includes the "Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International."

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The "green" of this axis includes: Students for Justice successful Palestine, founded by University of California astatine Berkeley world Hatem Bazian, and present fomenting galore of the anti-Jew field protests, banned present connected galore campuses; Palestinian Feminist Collective, committed to "Palestinian liberation & beyond"; Palestinian Youth Movement, dedicated to a "strategy of mobilization, agitation and confrontation"; the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, which organized days of protests successful Chicago to disrupt the Democratic Party’s convention; and the Muslim American Society, which created a "Survive Pack" with a assets from the Council connected American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder, Nihad Awad, said helium was "happy" astir the Oct. 7 incursions by Hamas into Israel.

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The ANSWER Coalition’s stated intent for the protestation successful Washington is to "present a fashionable absorption to the Trump Administration," but its existent docket is much insidious: dismantling American ideology and promoting authoritarian socialist ideologies. From Beijing to Caracas, the ANSWER Coalition and its Woke Army allies gully inspiration from regimes, similar Hamas, that suppress dissent and curtail freedoms.

As the Woke Army marches from Meridian Hill Park to Black Lives Matter Plaza, it’s important for Americans to stay vigilant. Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded cognition intent connected reshaping the communicative of grassroots absorption into 1 that serves its ain ideological goals. Understanding these forces is the archetypal measurement toward safeguarding democracy.

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