Cornel West Holds Antisemitic Banner at ‘Free Palestine’ Rally in L.A.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Salah Odeh, of Pasadena … stated it’s crucial that the folks of Gaza be given humanitarian help and that Palestinian fighters [sic] obtain navy help in the face of Israel’s bombing marketing campaign in current weeks.

“People are offering their prayers, and that’s good — but we need physical help. We need military assistance,” stated Odeh, who wore a black-and-white keffiyeh on his head, a Palestinian flag round his neck like a cape, and a pro-Palestine shirt and necklaces.

The banner that West held (proven above) was revealed, in a Times photograph and on social media, to bear the slogan “Unity in Confronting Zionism.” It featured a raised fist pulling a snake’s tongue — with the plain implication that Zionism, the assumption in Israel’s proper to exist, is the snake.

Brother Cornel West! Pershing Square Los Angeles #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/tZK1aEyGES

— Radish Sam (@RadishSam) October 28, 2023

At least 25,000 folks in Los Angeles, together with Dr. Cornel West, confirmed up for Palestine immediately #FreePalestine #CeasefireNOW pic.twitter.com/DZ22kieAyr

— #1 World’s Best Pickle Hater (@DiabloSatori) October 29, 2023

The picture of a snake was a frequent antisemitic theme in Soviet anti-Israel propaganda. As Tablet journal noted in 2019:

Soviet anti-Zionist cartoons relied on a specific set of symbols to determine “the Zionist” as an object of contempt and hatred. Since one of many political targets of Soviet anti-Zionist ideology was to undermine Israel, Soviet caricaturists sometimes depicted a “Zionist” as sporting Israeli navy uniform. When it got here to figuring out a Jew as such, they used the total arsenal of anti-Semitic portrayals developed over the centuries. One conventional method was to indicate a Jew as subhuman in kind (a canine, a spider, an octopus, a snake) but in possession of supernatural powers.

West has been accused of referring to Jewish conspiracies in current years, as when he blamed his place on Israel for his denial of tenure at Harvard.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the creator of the brand new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He can also be the creator of the current e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.