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Pro-Palestinian activist group in New York City
Within Our Lifetime - United For Palestine
PurposeAnti-Zionist activism
Location
Founder and chairNerdeen Kiswani
Websitewolpalestine.com

Within Our Lifetime - United For Palestine (WOL), is a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activist organization primarily active in New York City. The group has been one of the key organizers in the city's ongoing Israel-Hamas war protests.

The organization was founded and is currently led by the Palestinian-American Muslim Nerdeen Kiswani. They are based out of Bay Ridge, a neighborhood in Brooklyn that is home to the majority of Palestinians in New York City.

WOL organizes around four principles: the Palestinian right of return, anti-Zionism, the Palestinian right to resist, and internationalism. While the organization is centered around Palestinian liberation, they are also generally anti-imperialist.

WOL has been condemned by local and national politicians (including Eric Adams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) for its support of Hamas. One member of WOL attacked a Jewish counterprotestor, Matt Greenman, in 2022.

Origin and description

WOL was founded in 2015 as NYC Students for Justice in Palestine. It took on its current name in 2018. The name "Within Our Lifetime" was chosen as a reflection of Nerdeen Kiswani's confidence in an imminent Palestinian liberation, as reflected in one of the group's protest chants, "We will free Palestine, within our lifetime!".

Kiswani is the child of Palestinian refugees from Beit Iksa. She was born in Jordan but grew up in Brooklyn, where her parents owned a restaurant. She was formerly president of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at CUNY School of Law. Besides Kiswani, other prominent organizers include Abdullah Akl and Fatima Mohammed.

WOL is active among youth and on university campuses, primarily in the New York City area. The organization is Palestinian-led, and along with SJP is considered to have become a hybrid organization that includes activists from different backgrounds involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Jews from the anti-Zionist sect Neturei Karta have often participated in WOL's protests.

Within Our Lifetime is not legally registered as a nonprofit and has no paid staff. It has a few dozen members and its demonstrations typically attract a few hundred participants.

Israel-Hamas war protests

Since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, WOL has been one of the key organizers of protests in New York City. WOL refers to its protests as "floods"; Haaretz has speculated that these are references to "Al-Aqsa Flood" (the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel).

Support for Palestinian political violence

WOL has expressed support for Hamas and general Palestinian political violence against Israel. It expressed support for the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, which began the war, and announced a rally in Times Square for October 8 and at the Israeli consulate in New York for October 9 "to defend the heroic Palestinian resistance." At the end of October, WOL's website "called the Hamas attack an inspiration to the world." It was later replaced by a denunciation of Israel's military operations in Gaza.

On 10 June 2024, WOL protestors disrupted the "Nova Music Festival exhibition" at Wall Street, an exhibition commemorating the victims of Hamas' massacre at the Nova Festival on October 7. Protesters set off flares, waved flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, and displayed banners with messages such as "Long live October 7" and "The Zionists are not Jews and not humans." The protesters were recorded chanting pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans. One person at the protest was recorded making an antisemitic statement. Congressman Ritchie Torres and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine condemned the crowd on social media, with Levine describing their actions as "vile" and "repulsive."

WOL protestors have also chanted slogans praising Hamas and the Hamas spokeperson Abu Obaida, and have displayed banners depicting the faces of Yahya Sinwar and Ahmad Saadat, the respective leaders of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Conflict with the Democratic Party

WOL has expressed hostility to American president Joe Biden and New York City mayor Eric Adams on account of their pro-Israel stances, and diverges from other pro-Palestinian groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and Democratic Socialists of America in that they do not wish to work with the Democratic Party.

On 28 March 2024, WOL and other groups organized protests outside a Democratic Party fundraiser for President Joe Biden at Radio City Hall. Biden was joined by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at the event. Later that evening, after the fundraiser ended, WOL continued protests outside the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel where Biden was staying overnight.

On 22 June 2024, WOL held a rally to disrupt a joint rally held by legislators Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders, who are progressives critical of Israel. Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez had previously condemned the WOL protest at the Nova Festival massacre exhibition as antisemitic.

On 15 August 2024, WOL disrupted an event for presidential candidate Kamala Harris, with protestors throwing smoke bombs.

Campus occupation at Columbia University

On 17 April 2024, WOL protestors arrived outside of Columbia University to support the campus occupation by pro-Palestinian student demonstrators demanding the university cut all financial ties with Israel. WOL organized protests around the campus perimeter in support of the encampment, clashing with the NYPD. Protestors were ultimately suppressed by the NYPD, which raided campus on 30 April.

Response by the New York City Police Department

WOL has routinely clashed with the NYPD, and accuses them of intensifying repression on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The NYPD has deployed its Strategic Response Group and flown helicopters and drones at WOL protests since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October 2023 and banned their use of megaphones and air horns entirely. Local publication Hell Gate has referred to this as an "escalating crackdown on pro-Palestine protests". In one instance of violence, WOL protestors clashed with the NYPD after vandalizing the New York Times building, tearing down American flags, and attempting to force their way into Grand Central Terminal.

After a WOL Nakba Day protest on 18 May 2024, videos circulated showing some demonstrators being pushed to the ground and struck repeatedly by officers. Mayor Adams defended criticism of the NYPD's response, praising it and calling WOL protestors an "unruly group of people". Kaz Daughtry, the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations, argued that the demonstration was not peaceful and that protestors spit on and threw water at officers, lit "incendiary devices", and rode on the roof of an MTA bus.

Criticism

The Times of Israel has pointed to various instances of criticism of Within Our Lifetime for its anti-Israel sentiments. It has been described by New York Jewish Week as "hardline" for "echo Hamas talking points and routinely call for Israel's destruction."

Accusations of antisemitism

At a WOL demonstration during the 2022 Al-Aqsa clashes in Jerusalem, organizer Saadah Masoud attacked Matt Greenman, a Jewish man wearing an Israeli flag as a cape. Masoud was one of three WOL activists arrested or imprisoned for attacking Jews as of November 2023.

The Times of Israel reported in November 2023 that the group posted maps on its social media accounts that detailed the locations of organizations that supported Israel in New York City, including Israel's consulate, the Central Fund of Israel, the Jewish Communal Fund, Blackrock, the New York Times, and Penn Station, saying they had "blood on their hands." The post ended with the phrase "From the river to the sea". The posts were condemned by elected officials and Jewish leaders, who claimed that the maps were antisemitic. Several other CUNY groups also shared the maps before they were deleted by WOL. WOL stated that "the locations were chosen for their complicity in the genocide of Palestinians and have nothing to do with Judaism or Jewish people in general."

Following an assault on a Chabad Hasidic Jew at a WOL event, the group has been described by the Chabad community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn as an antisemitic group and cautioned community to avoid all public areas where WOL protests take place.

WOL came under intense condemnation for antisemitism, its support and praise of massacres of Israeli civilians as well as the appearance and tolerance of Hezbollah and Hamas flags at WOL-organized rallies. White House spokesman Andrew Bates condemned antisemitism in WOL protests and New York Mayor Eric Adams accused the organization of “pure anti-Semitism" and the condemnation was joined by Ritchie Torres and Mark Levine who called the demonstration “repulsive and vile.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, politicians critical of Israel, also accused WOL of antisemitism.

See also

References

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