An Israeli living in the City of Los Angels, Eyal Dahan, has told Israel Hayom that the area in which he and his family live "looks like a war zone" since riots over the death of George Floyd began – and some Palestinians are taking advantage of the chaos to wreck synagogues,
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A number of Los Angeles synagogues have been vandalized or even destroyed during the riots, including one in Beverly Hills. According to Dahan, the buildings have not been targeted by any of the peaceful protesters demonstrating against Floyd's death, but rather Palestinians who "exploited the opportunity to destroy synagogues."
"I saw a PLO flag and them shouting to 'free Palestine.' I don't think it was black protesters who did this damage," he says.
Dahan, a clothing supplier who has lived in the US for 41 years, says the chaos is "immense."
"The army [National Guard] is in the streets. Businesses have been burned and torn apart. [Rioters] tore down pharmacies, stole all the medicine. All the electronics stores have been destroyed. It started bad, and because the police didn't pressure them, it got worse," he says.
Dahan says that businesses that haven't yet managed to get back on their feet from the coronavirus crisis are crashing.
"It was terror on Saturday and Sunday, the entire city was engulfed. Yesterday [Monday] there was some quiet, but that night the break-ins and looting started again. … Right now, 90% of the demonstrators are peaceful, but the 10% who come after them have been looting and causing huge damage."
Dahan says that the National Guard deployment has been only partially effective.
"They brought in the [National Guard] and they started to patrol the big shopping malls, but the small stores, which are barely hanging on, caught it. The [National Guard] can't arrest civilians, they can only protect certain places," he says.
While speaking to this newspaper, Dahan reports a new wave of rioting and looting: "Now the looting has started again. After eight or nine at night, they start their mess."
Dahan was in Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots in 1992 and says that "this time, it's completely different. I didn't think it would happen again, I thought that the police learned a lesson about how to handle it, but it was the rioters who learned. Social media helped them form groups, split people – like platoons in a war. It's completely organized," he says.
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