Last Sunday the Israeli-based real estate agency, My Home, held a real estate event in Los Angeles at the Adas Torah Synagogue to promote the sale of homes in Israel and the occupied territories.

The event was produced by Gidon Katz, a self-styled “expert in marketing Israeli real estate to the global Jewish community.” Katz earlier this year held similar events in synagogues in Montreal, Toronto, New Jersey and New York.

Initially, Katz considered canceling this year’s Israeli real estate events because of the ongoing war in Gaza. Ultimately, however, he decided it really provided a great opportunity. “This was actually an ideal time for Americans to invest in Israeli properties,” Katz said on local Israeli news channels, citing rising fears of antisemitism, along with the fact that real-estate experts predict that land value in Israel will increase once the war is over.

In early March, Katz held this year’s first Israel Real Estate Expo at a Montreal synagogue. It was met by hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who showed up to condemn the sale of houses built on settlements illegally expropriated from Palestinians in the West Bank. At his next Expo in Toronto, a man attacked pro-Palestinian protesters with a nail gun.

Opposition to these events was further escalated before a scheduled Teaneck, New Jersey event when a video of a Jewish resident named Rich Siegel denouncing the event went viral. “There’s a genocide going on,” he said in the video. “What this real-estate event is going to do is fan the flames.” The Teaneck protests were especially large, drawing both locals and out-of-towners.

Though the Teaneck event took place, mounting opposition caused Katz to cancel his remaining East Coast tour, only to revive it again this week in Los Angeles.

The main Los Angeles sales event was staged at the Adas Torah synagogue located in the predominately Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood that is just south of Beverly Hills.

In response to the advertisements promoting this real estate event, protest fliers shared on social media by the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement said, “Our Land Is Not For Sale,” condemned “land theft,” and called for people to rally on Sunday. 

On Sunday, about 200 pro-Palestinian protesters had assembled in front of the synagogue, when 30 minutes later an equal number of counter-demonstrators arrived and began assaulting the anti-genocide demonstrators.

Despite the presence of local law enforcement at the scene, they initially did little to intervene and stop the violence. This police inaction was similar to their hours-long stand-down as a violent Zionist mob attacked an anti-genocide encampment at UCLA earlier this year.

Abner Hauge, a writer for the web site Left Coast Right Watch, described how the site’s reporter, Katre Burns, had called him while still in shock after she and other reporters had been attacked by the Zionist mob.

She recounted the mob attacking her and eight other reporters in front of the Adas Torah synagogue… Someone assaulted Burns in front of the police and stole her phone while it was still recording. They threatened to come to her home, to rape and behead her, called her a whore, called other reporters faggots, and beat them. Our long-time reporter Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was punched in the head during a gang assault. As she recounted all this, Burns told me over and over that while all of the violence went on, the police watched and did nothing.

Although assaults continued around the synagogue and the nearby neighborhood for several hours, the only arrest reported was a pro-Israeli counterdemonstrator for carrying a sharp pole. According to CNN, that individual was issued a citation for possessing a prohibited item during a protest and released from custody.

By the next day, the leadership of the Democratic Party led by President “Genocide Joe” Biden had transformed a police-supported Zionist attack on peaceful demonstrators into an antisemitic attack by pro-Palestinian protesters on a Jewish synagogue.

“I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” Biden said on X. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship—and engaging in violence—is never acceptable.”

Perhaps Biden, who is Catholic and used to going to church on Sunday, is either ignorant or has simply forgotten that the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday. The “service” that was being conducted at the Adas Torah synagogue on Sunday involved a conspiracy to violate international law by unlawfully offering to sell land in the occupied territories.

Moreover, neither Biden, other political leaders, nor the corporate media have questioned how synagogues, that have tax-exempt status because they are to be used exclusively for religious purposes, are also now allowed to be used as fronts to sell stolen real estate.

California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom followed Biden’s lead, stating on X, “The violent clashes outside the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles are appalling. There is no excuse for targeting a house of worship. Such antisemitic hatred has no place in California.”

California’s senior US Senator Alex Padilla, another Democrat, added on X, “I strongly condemn the protestors for targeting the Adas Torah temple and its members this weekend. There is no justification for targeting a house of worship or its community.”

Following Biden’s statement on Monday, the protest group CodePink blasted Biden’s characterization as “lies.”

“It is outrageous that President Biden and certain media outlets have misrepresented this protest as an anti-Semitic attack on worshippers,” the group said in a statement, making clear that the protest was against the real estate sale and not related to the synagogue itself.

“This rhetoric is reminiscent of the McCarthy-era smears used to discredit and, at times, deport activists for peace & civil rights,” it continued. “Not only is his narrative false but also dangerous—the protest aimed to address the unethical sale of Palestinian land, not to target any religious group.”

Hussam Ayloush, the Los Angeles Executive Director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA), issued the following reply to the grossly false depiction that was being used to characterize what has occurred on Sunday:

The demonstration in front of the Adas Torah synagogue over the weekend was in response to the blatant violations of both international law and human rights from agencies that seek to make a profit selling brutally stolen Palestinian land as the Israeli government continues its eight-month-long genocidal campaign and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Elected officials and the mainstream media have politicized this incident as religious discrimination as opposed to a human rights issue. We call on political leaders to condemn the organizations involved in the potentially illegal sale of Palestinian land and the counter-protesters who commit violence against anti-genocide protesters with the same fervor used for rightfully condemning antisemitism.

During a news conference outside Los Angeles City Hall on Tuesday, members of several organizations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement and Southern California Students for Justice in Palestine, said unarmed individuals were “brutalized” by police officers and pro-Israel demonstrators during Sunday’s protest. 

“The Zionist attackers followed us and doxxed us with the intent to cause physical harm, targeting those wearing hijabs, pulling them off and throwing eggs at our heads,” said a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine, who declined to provide her name to the Los Angeles Times. She added that the counter-protesters threatened to use “law enforcement connections to find out our identities and our addresses.” 

On Tuesday, to better enable law enforcement to identify such demonstrators, the mayor of Los Angeles, Democrat Karen Bass, urged the City Council to consider new rules requiring permits for demonstrations and restricting the wearing of masks during such demonstrations.