Anti-Israel Protesters Bother Biden at Church

Plus, Bloomberg’s catch-and-kill hypocrisy

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, assembly, and petition, and it also protects free exercise of religion. 

Sometimes those freedoms come into conflict.

A pool report distributed by the White House press office says that yesterday, June 1, just before 4:10 pm, as Biden was entering St. Edmond Catholic church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for his regular weekly worship, “​​A crowd of protesters stood across the street waving large Palestinian flags. One flag stated ‘Free Palestine.’ Some chanted ‘16,000 children killed!’ and ‘16,000 children dead!’ They then chanted ‘Palestine will be free!’ 

According to the pool report, “One person hoisted a sign stating ‘ceasefire is not enough.’ Another stated ‘bombing children is not self defense.’” The pool correspondent “counted roughly two dozen visible protesters but there could be more standing behind parked vehicles and down the street. The chants were quite loud.”

When Biden left the church at 5:01 pm, the protesters chanted “shame on you.” The crowd of protesters grew while Biden was in the church, and some chanted, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and yelled accusations that Biden was a war lord.

What is wrong with these protesters that they would bother Biden when he is attending church? Doesn’t it seem like that might be a time and place that the president should be left alone?

The State of Missouri in 2012 imposed a law, the House of Worship Protection Act, that makes it a misdemeanor for anyone who “intentionally and unreasonably disturbs, interrupts, or disquiets any house of worship by using profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior, or making noise either within the house of worship or so near it as to disturb the order and solemnity of the worship services.”

The law survived an initial challenge from the ACLU, with a federal judge, E. Richard Webber, ruling it constitutional, but the U.S Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit found that the way the law was worded was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. It seems to me that if city policy can shut down a loud high-school-student party in the suburbs because it’s interfering with neighbors’ sleep, they should be able to quiet down an anti-Israel protest that is so loud that it interferes with church.

I also have at least some hope, though, in the idea that these disruptions might be self-regulating, that is, if people find out that the anti-Israel protesters are disrupting Biden’s church visits, the backlash against the anti-Israel cause will be so intense that the protesters might rethink the wisdom of their unpopular strategy, without any need for police action. That’s probably overly optimistic—the main goal of at least some of the protesters isn’t practically advancing their cause but making themselves feel superior; that is, the demonstrations aren’t about helping Gazans, they are about pleasuring the protesters. But knowing that the demonstrations are counterproductive might at least somewhat curb the protesters’ pleasure so that they modify their tactics.

That only works if the news gets out. The White House pool reports were from Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times. The Times so far hasn’t shared with its readers the news of the church protest by publishing it. Part of that may be a structural issue about how the Times works on the weekends and in general; the Times is reluctant to publish standalone news of incremental events, preferring to wrap them into a bigger trend or thought story. Or it may be that on some level the Times editors agree with the protesters and aren’t big churchgoers (or synagogue-goers) so they don’t see the disruption of a worship service or a political protest targeting a church as all that outrageous.

Anyway, one of the services we provide here at The Editors is reporting to the public news that Times White House correspondents know about but haven’t yet managed to share with Times readers, especially if that news involves Israel or religion or President Biden. I’m actually glad the Times hasn’t reported the news, because it offers an opening for The Editors.

Maybe if pro-Israel protesters followed Biden around yelling at him, even when he’s in church, Biden would adjust his policy position further in the pro-Israel direction. As it is, the same Saturday that Biden was in church his State Department put out a “joint statement of the United States, Egypt, and Qatar” that said, “the United States, Egypt, and Qatar jointly call on both Hamas and Israel to finalize the agreement embodying the principles outlined by President Biden on May 31, 2024.”

That is a departure from the White House briefing of May 31, which said, “we give credit to the Israelis for putting this offer down.  And the President made very clear that the onus here is on Hamas.”

Hamas is a terrorist organization like ISIS or Al Qaeda. It seems downright strange for the American State Department to team up with Arab nations such as Egypt and Qatar—Qatar doesn’t even have diplomatic relations with Israel—to try to push Israel into an agreement. If it’s really an Israeli offer as the White House claims, there shouldn’t be any need for America to pressure Israel into agreeing to it. There’s a fairly large gap between White House language of “the onus here is on Hamas” and the State Department-Egypt-Qatar language of “call on both Hamas and Israel.”

I’m all for getting the hostages back, but I also thought Eli Lake had a pretty good take in warning that if Hamas survives the war, it will be a signal of encouragement for Iran and “every other dirtbag Islamist terrorist group” to emulate the tactics of October 7, 2023 and of hiding missile launchers and terrorist command and control tunnels underneath schools, mosques, and hospitals.

Biden makes it sound like Hamas is now going to be Israel’s formal negotiating partner. I guess you can say Israel has been indirectly negotiating with Hamas for years and that is part of how the situation deteriorated to the level that it did. Maybe there’s a behind-the-scenes plan here to get some of the hostages back and then use the ceasefire that ensues to negotiate an exit of Hamas from Gaza. That’d be fine with me if Israel agrees to it.

 But the optics are of Biden pleading with Hamas while being harangued by anti-Israel protesters outside his church. It makes it look like the protests are achieving their goal rather than backfiring. The U.S. is a superpower. It shouldn’t need to “call on” Hamas to do anything, anymore than it would “call on” Al Qaeda or ISIS to do anything. It has the power to defeat the terrorist organization simply by disregarding the protesters outside the Delaware church for long enough to allow Israel to achieve the military victory that is within its grasp.

Bloomberg’s catch-and-kill hypocrisy: A Bloomberg editorial asserts, “Republicans may have a point that there were some unnervingly partisan elements to Trump’s prosecution. But come on: They knew exactly who they were nominating. Quite apart from all the crimes, the appalling sleaze rehashed in this trial alone should’ve been cause for Trump’s disqualification…Whatever the outcome of his endless legal entanglements, Trump remains completely unfit for office.”

It’s ironic, because payments for silence to women, negotiated through lawyers, by a personally controlled billion-dollar business whose proprietor is a future political candidate—even a future presidential candidate—is, well, something that Michael Bloomberg has some experience with. Under Alvin Bragg’s “election fraud” theory, what, exactly, is the difference between Bloomberg L.P.’s payments to women for nondisclosure agreements and the Trump organization’s? 

Bloomberg also frequently appears in public with Bill Clinton, who paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit from Paula Jones. If the issue is “appalling sleaze,” it’s hard to compete with “You’d better put some ice on that,” which is what Juanita Broaddrick says Bill Clinton said to her after raping her. 

Thank you!: Any chance I had of becoming a Bloomberg columnist like Noah Feldman, Tyler Cowen, and Matthew Yglesias probably just disappeared. The Editors is reader supported, which allows us editorial independence and freedom. If you aren’t yet a paid subscriber, please become one today and help support our continued growth.