This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Within Our Lifetime – United For Palestine (WOL),[1] is a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activist organization primarily active in New York City.
Protesters set off flares, waved flags of Hamas and Hezbollah, and displayed banners with messages such as "Long live October 7" and "The Zionists are not Jews and not humans."
[6][21] This protest was condemned by White House spokesman Andrew Bates (who called it "“outrageous and heartbreaking") and New York Mayor Eric Adams, as well as Ritchie Torres.
[29] On 28 March 2024, WOL and other groups organized protests outside a Democratic Party fundraiser for President Joe Biden at Radio City Hall.
Later that evening, after the fundraiser ended, WOL continued protests outside the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel where Biden was staying overnight.
[39] The NYPD has deployed its Strategic Response Group and flown helicopters and drones at WOL protests since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October 2023[40] and banned their use of megaphones and air horns entirely.
[41] In one instance of violence, WOL protestors clashed with the NYPD after vandalizing the New York Times building, tearing down American flags, and attempting to force their way into Grand Central Terminal.
[43][44] After a WOL Nakba Day protest on 18 May 2024, videos circulated showing some demonstrators being pushed to the ground and struck repeatedly by officers.
Kaz Daughtry, the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations, argued that the demonstration was not peaceful and that protestors spit on and threw water at officers, lit "incendiary devices", and rode on the roof of an MTA bus.
"[46] At a WOL demonstration during the 2022 Al-Aqsa clashes in Jerusalem, organizer Saadah Masoud attacked Matt Greenman, a Jewish man wearing an Israeli flag as a cape.
[47][48] WOL's protest outside the NOVA exhibition was condemned by local and national politicians, including White House spokesperson Andrew Bates and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.