An Israeli man was violently assaulted by a group of roughly 20 pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles on Sunday, in an attack he says targeted him simply for being Jewish. The incident is the latest in a wave of violent confrontations tied to the war in Gaza spilling onto U.S. streets.
The victim, 24-year-old Ariel Yaakov Marciano, moved to the United States earlier this year. He told Ynet he had come to Los Angeles for his cousin’s bar mitzvah when he and another Israeli, visiting from Las Vegas, were identified by demonstrators waving Palestinian and Mexican flags.
Marciano, who wore a Star of David necklace, said the group recognized them as Israeli after hearing them converse in Hebrew. “One of them hit me from behind on the head, and I started bleeding,” Marciano recounted. “Others pushed me, tore the chain from my neck and when I pushed one attacker, they all jumped on me.”
A video he posted to Instagram shows him bloodied and shaken, pleading with Israelis in Los Angeles to join him at the pier, saying he had been ambushed.
Marciano said that as he attempted to make his way to a police station, shouting “God bless Israel,” he was pepper sprayed. He added that one assailant brandished a knife and warned him, “You’re lucky I don’t stab you.” He expressed concern for his companion’s family, noting that one of the man’s children suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. “I don’t know what happened to them,” Marciano said.
Marciano claimed police nearby did not intervene, saying the crowd was too large to control. “I can’t blame them,” he added, though his remarks highlight growing frustration among Jewish residents over perceived inaction from authorities.
The assault comes just a week after another reported attack on Israelis in Los Angeles. In that incident, several men walking home from shul near Wilshire and Crescent Heights were confronted by a group demanding they chant “Free Palestine.” One man, Eyal Dahan—whose two sons serve in the IDF—replied, “Long live the IDF.” He was punched, his kippah knocked to the ground, and another man in his group was slashed on the hand.
Dahan later identified one of Marciano’s alleged attackers as the same individual who assaulted him. “They’re paid $150 for three hours to protest. They’re very violent,” Dahan said.
Marciano’s cousin, Guy Illouz, was abducted by Hamas from the Nova music festival on October 7 and later killed in captivity. Another cousin was killed during Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
Yet Marciano insists he will not hide his Jewish identity. “I lost one cousin in this war and another in Operation Protective Edge. I won’t take off my Star of David,” he said.
In a bizarre twist, hours after the attack, Marciano was dining in a restaurant when a stranger approached him and returned his stolen necklace. “He was a Chinese man who told me, ‘Here, this is yours.’ I don’t know how he found me, but the chain came back. I will keep wearing it.”
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One Response
Here the police won’t intervene because they are outnumbered. Elsewhere the police won’t intervene when there’s one person. One starts to wonder if they defunded the police, do you see any difference in a police force that doesn’t really do anything?