“People have every right to protest, but what’s happening here goes beyond that,” Regina Sassoon Friedland, of the American Jewish Committee, told JNS. “The Jewish people will not be intimidated to halt our events and activities.”
Seattle police officers arrested three people, including 21- and 33-year-old men for obstruction and disorderly conduct, on Sunday afternoon at a protest, which drew 75 protesters at its height, the Seattle Police Department stated.
The protesters were demonstrating outside a StandWithUs Northwest event with Miss Israel, Noa Cochva, at Town Hall in downtown Seattle. Organizers kept the event location private, but Hannah Saunders, editor of a self-identified “antifascist” news site, encouraged readers to register and pay for the event to learn the location and then share the address on social media.
A security guard whom StandWithUs hired for the event, who told JNS that he has worked several Town Hall events in recent months including one with Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, said that he hadn’t encountered a protest like the one on Sunday.
“Is that what people have to deal with going to events like this every single time?” he told JNS. “Oh, my Lord. Why? Why? You’re making life hell for everyone, including people that are not here for the event. The people that are working.”
