Anti-Zionist protesters put Netanyahu effigy in a noose outside UN headquarters

Anti-Zionist protesters in New York placed a noose on an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside UN headquarters on Thursday, as Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly. Demonstrators chanted for the destruction of Israel, compared Netanyahu to Satan, and used inflammatory slurs. A separate, larger protest led by the Palestinian Youth Movement drew thousands.

Anti-Zionist protesters in New York placed a noose on an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside UN headquarters on Thursday, as Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly. The demonstrators, several dozen in number, held up the effigy wearing a striped prison suit with a name tag reading "Satan." They chanted "Netanyahu in a bunker, we will put you six feet under" and "Kill him." Some protesters wore paper bags on their heads with images of Israeli and US leaders and nooses taped to the sides. They chanted "Globalize the intifada," "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," and "Israel trains dogs to rape." A plastic pig's head labeled "Bibi" was impaled on a metal pole. A Jewish man who walked into the gathering was met with chants of "Death to the IDF." The demonstrators derided counter-demonstrators as "Zios," a slur first popularized by white supremacists, and shouted "Zionists are rapist, pedophile Nazis." The activists set up a pile of baby dolls wrapped in bloody sheets and signs that said "Israel is a child killer regime" and "Baby killers." Later, thousands gathered at a protest led by the Palestinian Youth Movement, marching from Bryant Park to Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza. That demonstration included chants of "Brick by brick, wall by wall, Zionism will fall" and "End the settler Zionist state." A speaker told the crowd "Zionism in all its forms will never be welcome in New York City." Protesters held signs that said "Zionism is terrorism" and "Israel has no soul." One brandished a flag for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a US-designated terrorist group. Contingents hailed from communist and socialist groups, CodePink, the Democratic Socialists of America, and Jewish Voice for Peace. There was no violence at either protest.