A prominent Los Angeles political voice on Thursday urged pro-Palestine protesters to denounce antisemitism — saying that would defuse the potential for additional violent confrontations like the ones at UCLA this week.
Standing across the street from the Museum of Tolerance, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable and host of the Earl Ofari Hutchinson radio show, said, “One of the things that we have called for … is that the Gaza protest leaders and campus leaders denounce antisemitism.”
“It’s not going to compromise your position, your advocacy for a just and fair resolution of the Gaza crisis,” he said. “What it will do will defuse a lot of the rancor.”
According to Hutchinson, some view the college protests and encampments as antisemitic — but that if you denounce antisemitism, it “takes (it) off the table.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “Antisemitism has no place in any protest dealing with the Middle East, and especially Gaza.”
His remarks came after more than 200 people were arrested and law enforcement officers dismantled a pro-Palestine encampment early Thursday morning at UCLA.
Led by the California Highway Patrol, officers advanced on the encampment around 2:45 a.m. — nearly nine hours after protesters had been ordered to disperse.
According to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, a total of 209 people were arrested and booked, mostly for unlawful assembly. They were released with instructions to appear in court at a later date.
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