NEW YORK — On October 8, 2023, while the blood was still wet in southern Israel and long before Israel launched its offensive in Gaza, hundreds of anti-Israel activists gathered in New York City’s Times Square to celebrate the Hamas invasion and rail against the Jewish state.

On New Year’s Day 2025, before a Gaza ceasefire agreement was announced, the same groups gathered in the same location beneath the plaza’s enormous, illuminated American flag. And on Thursday, after the hostage deal was announced, they were there again.

Regardless of the shifting landscape in the Middle East and spiraling toll in Gaza, the rallying cry at all three events was the same: “Long live the intifada.” The protesters vow to continue on the same path.

The standard-bearers for New York’s anti-Israel activist network nominally backed a ceasefire in scattered statements they made throughout the conflict. The overriding goal, though, was always the eradication of Israel and remains so now. “Smash the settler Zionist state,” one of their chants says.

Within Our Lifetime, the most prominent anti-Israel protest group in the city, hailed the Hamas attack the day it happened.

“We must defend the Palestinian right to resist zionist settler violence and support Palestinian resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary. With no exceptions and no fine print,” the group has said.

Columbia University’s anti-Israel student coalition, which instigated a protest encampment movement that spread across the US and abroad, marks October 7, 2023, as part of the “heroic struggle for Palestinian liberation.”

Both groups also celebrated the ceasefire announcement, not as a cessation of violence, but as a step forward in their struggle. Within Our Lifetime put out a statement that said, “Gaza has won,........

© The Times of Israel