People’s Forum Director Manolo De Los Santos paused to take in the approval of his audience. During a video of his speech that burned through the Internet, the crowd hooted and cheered as together they envisioned a world without the Jewish state:
When we finally deal that final blow to destroy Israel—when the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history—that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism.
Judging by the applause, De Los Santos delivered what his listeners wanted to hear.
And by now, expected to hear. For months, his little-known anti-capitalist group had been spewing anti-Israel rhetoric like this, making a new name for itself by staging disruptive pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Headquartered in New York City, The People’s Forum describes itself as a “movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad”—its goal is supposedly to destroy capitalism. But ever since the October 7th Hamas massacre, the group has shifted its focus to destroying Israel.
The People’s Forum works hand-in-hand with the pro-Palestinian movement calling for “more marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action directed at the political offices, businesses, and workplaces that fund, invest, and collaborate with Israeli genocide and occupation.” It is the notorious co-organizer of the “shut it down for Palestine” protests—barely controlled riots that wreak havoc with regular people’s ability to get through their day:
There’s hope that law enforcement might finally be getting fed up. The group’s most recent pro-Palestine event ended early after the NYPD arrested De Los Santos and others involved in it:
Founded in 2017 to serve the “working class,” the People’s Forum is funded by big-business dollars from tech millionaire Neville Roy Singham—aka their “Marxist comrade“—and his wife Jodie Evans, both China sympathizers, The Free Press reported in November. Evans is the co-founder of Code Pink, known to Legal Insurrection readers as the mouthpiece for the Chinese regime propaganda we wrote about here. The group reportedly holds more than $13.6 million in total assets.
After funding for the anti-capitalists was traced to a Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, South Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called on the global investment firm to cut its ties with the group, the New York Post reported. But Goldman Sachs told the paper it has no ties to the People’s Forum, nor does it share its values.
Torres compared the People’s Forum to Hamas, which espouses the same kind of genocidal ideology. De Los Santos’s reference to ‘the final blow,’ he said, conjured up Nazi rhetoric about a ‘final solution.’”
Others pointed out that tolerating De Los Santos’s anti-Israel genocidal rhetoric normalizes it:
And according to @StopAntisemites, a complaint naming De Los Santos was filed with the IRS over its 501(c)(3) not-for-profit status in light of its support for Hamas:
Complaints with the IRS make for bad press, but they are usually dead ends.
De Los Santos of course has refused to apologize for his genocidal threats. In a statement, he said that labeling the group as “antisemitic” is a “propaganda trick by the apologists for genocide”:
They really aren’t antisemites, he insists. In fact, some of their best friends are Jews:
Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Everyone who has ever been at The People’s Forum knows that we welcome people of all faiths and backgrounds who are committed to the struggle for justice.or 100 days, we have proudly marched and organized with hundreds of thousands of people in New York and across the country, many of them Jewish people who stand in the proud tradition of anti-fascism and anti-Zionism, who have rightly declared that the State of Israel, by falsely associating its crimes with the Jewish faith, make Jewish people less safe, not more safe.
Meanwhile, De Los Santos and his comrades have been released from police custody:
And “him and his comrades” no doubt will soon be back on the streets, because what better way to show your solidarity with the working class than to shut it all down for Palestine?
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