Protesters Chant Support for Hamas at Kew Gardens Hills, Queens, New York Synagogue Demonstration

The January 8, 2026, protest outside Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens, New York, was organized by PAL-Awda and was ostensibly aimed at an Israeli real estate event taking place inside the synagogue. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the demonstration quickly moved to other slogans, including calls to “Globalize the Intifada” and shouts of “Long live October 7th.” The most notable moment came when protesters chanted, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here!”

The ADL Center on Extremism said the explicit support for Hamas at the protest, which targeted a synagogue in a largely Jewish neighborhood, was not an isolated incident. The ADL characterized such displays as openly antisemitic celebrations of terror and violence against Jews, rather than legitimate political criticism of Israel. Its monitoring since October 7, 2023, led the group to conclude that the Queens events fit broader trends in the U.S. anti-Israel movement over the past few years. Protecting worshipers from intimidation in their own neighborhood is a matter of defending the vulnerable (Psalm 82:3).

The ADL reports that since October 7, 2023, it has recorded at least 30 anti-Israel protests targeting synagogues across the United States, many of them in and around New York City. Organizers of a number of these protests have described them as opposition to the “sale” of “stolen” Palestinian land at Israeli real estate and related events. The ADL argues that this framing obscures what has happened at these gatherings, which it says have repeatedly become venues for open expression of antisemitism and support for terror.

PAL-Awda, which the ADL describes as one of the leading anti-Zionist organizations in the region, is a merger of the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation (PAL) and Al-Awda. Its two local chapters, PAL-Awda New York/New Jersey and PAL-Awda Long Island, have sponsored or co-sponsored at least 180 anti-Israel protests in the region since October 7, 2023. The ADL states that more than two-thirds of these protests featured rhetoric it considers to cross into antisemitism. The ADL says the chapters serve as a conduit between the most extreme elements of the movement and those that often present themselves as more moderate.

The ADL also lists a broad set of organizations with which PAL-Awda regularly collaborates, including American Muslims for Palestine, the ANSWER Coalition, CODEPINK, the Council on American Islamic Relations, Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, and others. The ADL reports that the group’s two New York area chapters have organized at least 25 events with Jewish Voice for Peace and/or Democratic Socialists of America since October 7, 2023. The ADL’s account concerns these organizations’ joint activity with PAL-Awda and does not itself make claims about each organization’s broader positions.

The ADL further states that hundreds of antisemitic vandalism, assault, and harassment incidents it has documented since October 2023 have featured explicit support for Hamas. Among the examples it cites are posters displayed at Columbia University in New York on October 7, 2024, which featured an image of Hamas’s Abu Obaida alongside paraglider imagery, inverted red triangles, and slogans celebrating Hamas’s attack on Israel one year earlier. The ADL also says that anti-Israel activists regularly express support for other groups it designates as terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, the PFLP, and the Houthis (Ansar Allah). In numerous cities and towns, the ADL reports, references to these groups and their violent actions have drawn raucous cheers from protest attendees and amplification from protest organizers.

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