A video that posted to X on Friday showed New Yorkers ripping into a man who was caught tearing down flyers of Israelis who were missing or who had been kidnapped following Hamas’ deadly October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
The video was posted by the account NY Scanner — which posts breaking news in New York City — and featured a man in a checkered blue and white shirt walking through Queens tearing down multiple flyers of the missing Israelis.
In the first part of the video, the man tears down flyers on a street light as the person recording the video asks him multiple times why he is tearing them down and demands that he put them back.
Friday morning in Forest Hills, Queens. Seems like some good old New Yorkers are pissed. pic.twitter.com/TY7gcV9nak
— NYScanner (@nyscanner) October 27, 2023
In the second part of the video, the man in the checkered shirt is confronted by a group of men who are blocking him from tearing down more flyers. One of the men takes out a card and says he’s a veteran before another steps in and gives the poster-tearer a profanity-laced speech about how America is a free country.
“I’m not f***ing Jewish,” the man defending the fliers said. “He’s not Jewish … it doesn’t f***ing matter. This is f***ing the U.S.A. This is New York City.”
“You don’t have a f***ing right to tear down … to touch that s***,” he added. “This is a free country.”
“We can put up f***ing signs,” he continued. “Okay.”
The poster-tearer started to back off and claimed that he wasn’t doing anything. But the man defending the flyers replied, “You are doing something, you are offending us, motherf***er.”
The man ripping down the posters then asked the New Yorker if he had proof about whether the Israelis on the posters had been kidnapped and the other man responded, “You have proof they are not kidnapped? No, so shut the f*** up.”
He then told the man to move along and got close to his face. The sign-ripper replied and said, “don’t touch me” and the New Yorker responded that he was “dying to put” the man “in the hospital” before the clip ended.
Related: Students And Campus Staffers Caught Tearing Down Posters Of Missing Israelis