Pro-Palestinian extremist group vandalizes AIPAC headquarters in Washington
The attack is the latest in a string of anti-Israel incidents in the nation’s capital since Oct. 7
Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
A group of demonstrators stage a protest outside the headquarters of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington, United States on March 13, 2024, one day after the pro-Israel lobby group concluded its annual policy conference.
The Washington, D.C., headquarters of AIPAC was vandalized early Monday morning with red spray paint and the words “F*** Israel” scrawled onto the front and side of the building.
Video footage obtained by the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department shows three masked suspects defacing the building exterior and destroying property at approximately 12:41 a.m.
The department said in a statement that the investigation is ongoing and is “asking for the community’s help to identify the suspects involved in a Destruction of Property offense in Northwest.”
“We will not be deterred by the illegal actions of fringe, anti-Israel extremists in our efforts to strengthen the US-Israel relationship,” Marshall Wittmann, an AIPAC spokesperson, told Jewish Insider.
Palestine Action, a global network of groups that destroys property that has ties to Israel, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the vandalism. “AIPAC is a corrupt foreign organization that plugs and play the morally bankrupt American politician like a game of monopoly while American taxpayers pay for the weapons that are being dropped in Gaza.”
The Anti-Defamation League in a statement called “these actions & accusations of dual loyalty pure antisemitism” and called on the DCPD to “fully investigate” the crime.
The incident is the latest in a string of anti-Israel crimes that have rocked the D.C. Jewish community since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel. Last month, thousands of demonstrators vandalized Columbus Circle, outside of Union Station, with pro-Hamas messages, replaced American flags with Palestinian flags and set American flags on fire during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.
On The George Washington University campus, anti-Israel demonstrators set up dozens of illegal encampments in late April where they demanded that the university cut ties with Israel. After weeks of protests that culminated in a campus police officer getting pushed by protesters, D.C. police broke up the encampment the night before a House panel was scheduled to question the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, for her handling of the encampment.
A spokesperson for the DCPD told JI that hate crimes are “unacceptable and is the reason everyone must work together not just to address allegations of hate crimes, but also to proactively educate the public about hate crimes.”