NEW YORK — Palestinian protesters vandalized sites linked to the Brooklyn Museum and the United Nations in New York City, throwing red paint over their entrances in opposition to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Mayor Eric Adams posted on the social platform X on Wednesday, police are investigating after the homes of museum director Anne Pasternak and members of the museum’s board of trustees were hit.
He shared four images of a brick building splashed with red paint with a banner out front that read: “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White Supremacist Zionist.”
“This is not a peaceful protest or freedom of speech. This is a crime and open, unacceptable anti-Semitism,” Adams wrote, expressing condolences to Pasternak and the museum’s board members. “These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason.”
A spokesperson for the museum did not respond to email and phone messages seeking comment.
Red paint was also splashed on the facades of buildings associated with the German consulate, as well as on the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, which contained flyers criticizing the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbaswere too spread outside the building.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department declined to comment, saying the agency is investigating and will provide more information later. Messages seeking comment were also sent to Palestinian and German diplomats on Wednesday.
Hundreds of protesters marched to the Brooklyn Museum late last month, setting up tents in the lobby and unfurling a “Free Palestine” banner from the building’s roof before police moved in to make dozens of arrests.
Within Our Lifetime and other organizers of that protest have said the museum is “deeply invested in and complicit” in the war through its leadership, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors.
But City Comptroller Brad Lander, one of the New York politicians who spoke out against the protests, said the Brooklyn Museum has done more to grapple with issues of “power, colonialism, racism.” & the role of art” than many other museums.
“The cowards who did this are way over the line into anti-Semitism, damaging the cause they claim to care about and making everyone less safe,” he said. wrote on X.
The large Beaux Arts museum, the city’s second largest, sits on the edge of Crown Heights, home to one of the largest communities of Orthodox Jews in the city.
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Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report. Succeed Philip Marcelo x.com/philmarcelo.
