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Anti-Israel group burns 15 police cars in Portland and calls for violence

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An anti-Israel militant group linked to the anarchist Antifa movement claimed responsibility Monday for the arson of 15 Portland police training vehicles on Thursday as part of a May 1 “preemptive attack” on law enforcement to protect the pro -Palestinian camp that houses the facilities at Portland State University.

A group calling itself Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade released a statement on the Antifa-affiliated blog Rose City Counter-Info calling for an escalation of violence on behalf of the Palestinians. The Rachel Corrie Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We demand more action to avenge the Palestinians and the abused students at PSU and beyond!” said the brigade. “Let ten million police cars burn!”

The so-called brigade, named after a pro-Palestinian woman killed when she stood in the way of a D9 bulldozer in Rafah in 2003, claimed it committed the arson because it believed the PSU camp had been evacuated by law would enforcement. The group said it broke through the fence of a police training facility on Thursday and set 10 fires that spread to 15 vehicles. Portland police said some of the vehicles were destroyed and others were damaged.

The group called on the occupied student settlements not to remain passive, but to “take the police by surprise” and say: “Raid them before they raid you!”

Provocative calls to action

Picture of escaped arson suspects. Uploaded on August 5, 2024 (Source: PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU)

“Fight! Defend your camps! When the fraternity brothers come, break the windows of their fraternity houses! When the Zionist settlers come, throw fireworks at them! When the cops come, don’t just resist arrest, fight them! They will hate you and beat you if you are peaceful or violent, and it is time to be violent,” the brigade said in five messages to students. “Get out of the quads, out of the buildings, onto the streets! The end of the semester is not the end of it. Fight in summer. When next year begins, so will the fight!”

Students were advised not to negotiate or demobilize until the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement’s policies are fully adopted and all arrested and suspended activists are amnesty.

Thirty activists were arrested by Portland police on Thursday, including at least six students, as they cleared the anti-Israel occupation of the university library. Portland State University officers arrested one person and held another for psychiatric evaluation. PPB said they were searching for another 18 activists, many armed with makeshift shields, who had fled the library after the days-long occupation.

One of the arrested activists allegedly pointed a fire extinguisher at an officer as he walked through the library, which was full of barricaded doors and floors slick with soap and paint. Footage of the destroyed library released by the PPB showed the caches of tools, improvised clubs, makeshift armor, ball bearings, paint balloons and ink spray bottles that were not used against officers. Seven officers were injured in the raid, most of them minor, the most serious being a knee injury.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler thanked police for their efforts to combat criminal behavior that he said had “interfered with otherwise peaceful gatherings.”

“I support the right to free speech, but criminal destruction, intimidation and violence are not free speech,” Wheeler wrote on social media.

Dealing with unrest on campus

Image of the damage caused by the fire to one of the police cars. Uploaded on August 5, 2024 (Source: PORTLAND POLICE BUREAU)

PSU President Ann Cudd said Friday that the Branford Price Millar Library has been “rendered unusable” and that while she supports the protests, she expects “hat protesters will not intimidate and harass students or other members of our community.” PSU does not tolerate violence or hatred of any kind. We stand firmly against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hatred.

In a statement Tuesday, Cudd defended her decision to call police, saying that hateful “slogans and profanities, while protected by the First Amendment, will not bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, but they can poison our community.”

PSU Students United for Palestinian Equality said April 25 that it was responding to a call from the National Students for Justice in Palestine to occupy campus properties, echoing the Columbia University camp, to force universities to adopt anti-Israel policies. Additionally, PSU SUPER demanded that the university cut its ties with Boeing. Cudd said Friday that there would be a Boeing forum and that the administration had canceled a May 10 presidential investiture ceremony and a diversity symposium. The campus was closed several times in response to the protests and the dispersal of camps.

Rose City Counter-Info claimed Tuesday that Antifa troops attacked banks, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Starbucks, Verizon and other businesses while chanting “Intifada Intifada, long live the Intifada.” They also reportedly caused a campus police officer to flee by stoning him.

Antifa factions engaged in battles and confrontations with pro-Palestinian camp factions over who was allowed to enter the occupied zone. Antifa was accused of “provoking Palestinians by wearing black” and told they were not welcome because they ran counter to “a Muslim image” of non-violence.

“The Black Bloc’s actions will only result in innocent people of color being arrested,” a Muslim activist said, according to the Antifa blog.

The Antifa bloggers denied that the majority of the camp shared this opinion and criticized those who had established themselves as authorities of the occupied library. They argued that violence had to be used and that peaceful protest would not achieve their goals.



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