Even before dozens of protesters descended on a quiet street in Kew Gardens Hills last Thursday, my neighbors were concerned and the NYPD was on alert.

The pro-Palestinian demonstration, just blocks from my home, came in response to an event about real estate in Israel taking place in a local synagogue. When familiar chants echoed, justifying resistance, proclaiming intifada as a solution and rejecting the existence of a Jewish state, no one should have been surprised.

Then it took a darker turn. “Say it loud, say it clear,” they chanted. “We support Hamas here.” And then, another: “Long live October 7th.”

In a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, calls for support of a terrorist organization that quite specifically seeks the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, and applause for a day on which 1,200 innocent people were slaughtered by that organization, were alarming. So the outrage came quickly, as elected official after elected........

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