A controversial touring real estate expo, billed as “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event” and offering properties in the occupied Palestinian territories, has become the focus of dueling pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrations in New York City.
Less than a week after pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel supporters clashed on the Upper East Side over the Israeli real estate event at the Park East Synagogue, organizers held another event Monday at Young Israel of Midwood Synagogue on Ocean Avenue. The organizer is holding seven events across New York state — including in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens — as well as in Canada before heading to London, drawing competing protests.
Monday’s protest was organized by the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation Al-Awda for New York and New Jersey (PAL-Awda NY/NJ), which also led last week’s demonstration. Organizers called for an end to the ongoing sale of Palestinian land, including in the occupied West Bank.
The organization cited alleged violations of New York civil rights law and international law. In 2024, the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories violates international law and declaring settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.
It was the first time the ICJ had issued a ruling on the legality of the occupation. While the opinion is not legally binding, it carries significant political weight. Several European leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, have strongly criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza. On May 11, 2026, European Union foreign ministers agreed on new sanctions against individual Israeli settlers and organizations in response to a surge in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
The NYPD established a buffer zone with barricades stretching one block in each direction from the synagogue along Ocean Avenue and Avenues M and L to control access. Police also set up separate protest pens within sight of the synagogue and deployed officers to keep the opposing groups apart. Despite those measures, scuffles broke out between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and pro-Israel counterprotesters.
Four protesters were arrested, according to the NYPD. Two pro-Israel protesters were charged after allegedly throwing eggs at a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the barricades at Ocean Avenue and Avenue M, and one pro-Palestinian activist was arrested for allegedly pulling a woman’s hair. Details on the fourth arrest were not disclosed to Brooklyn Paper.
As police drones and an NYPD helicopter hovered overhead, groups of pro-Palestinian activists carrying banners reading “Israel is killing children” and chanting “Gaza” marched through Midwood side streets. They were followed by groups of Jewish counterprotesters, some wrapped in Israeli flags, and youths on scooters weaving through the crowds while hurling racist and homophobic slurs at pro-Palestinian activists and, in some cases, threatening to kill them. According to The Intercept, one protester said he had been pepper-sprayed by a pro-Israel counterprotester.
In a statement issued before the protest, Assembly Member Michael Novakhov condemned the anti-Israel demonstration, calling it “another deliberate attempt to intimidate and harass Jewish New Yorkers in their own community.”
The pol, who represents Midwood, accused Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Democrats of blurring the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism while refusing to unequivocally condemn protests targeting Jewish communities and houses of worship.
“When mobs gather outside synagogues, chanting hateful rhetoric and targeting visibly Jewish neighborhoods, that is not peaceful activism. It is intimidation,” Novakhov said. “Statements from our Democrat Mayor Mamdani that fail to clearly condemn this behavior send a dangerous message that the safety concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are secondary.”
He reiterated his support for legislation creating buffer zones around houses of worship, including proposed 25-foot and 100-foot buffer zone bills currently before the New York Legislature. Novakhov said New Yorkers should not be subjected to intimidation outside places of worship and that public safety and religious freedom must come first.
Update 5/12/26, 6:40 p.m.: This story has been updated with comment from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office.
