A pair of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters interrupted a book event featuring CNN’s Dana Bash at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington D.C. on Thursday evening, making a number of bizarre claims as they attempted to confront the cable news anchor. The second speaker alleged with no evidence that Bash reported on Israeli hostages in order to receive “millions from Zionists” and the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying organization, better known as AIPAC.
Video of the protesters yelling at Bash was shared on social media, taking place at the event meant to promote her new American history book as she was joined in conversation by journalist Kara Swisher.
The edited footage begins with a young woman wearing a surgical mask standing up and shouting at Bash, beginning, “After World War II, every single journalist that was complicit in their war crimes was charged.”
The protester repeated, “You belong behind bars,” before adding, “We know who you are. We know what you’re saying.”
They charged that the war in Gaza as Israel seeks to kill Hamas terrorists wasn’t a war, but rather “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.”
“There are children getting bombed, bombed, bombed, bombed, bombed,” the masked protester said, snapping her fingers with each time she said “bombed” before charging that Bash was “complicit in the genocide.”
That protester went on to attack one of Bash’s tweets about the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas. It was unclear which tweets were being referred to, as the protester seemed to be incorrect about when Bash’s tweets were shared, but she may have been referring to several tweets from Bash about the six hostages killed by Hamas as the Israeli army sought to rescue them.
You can watch Bash’s exchanges with the protesters in this video:
The young woman complained that at the same time, Israelis were holding “over 10,000 political prisoners” in what the person claimed were “death camps” and “concentration camps for Palestinians.” The claim could be referring to Palestinians convicted of crimes held in Israel.
“I came here to ask her why she’s telling lies on public air every single day,” the protester added. While Bash is frequently on CNN, her work isn’t normally broadcast on public airwaves since it’s made available via cable and digital providers.
As the protester yelled at Bash to look her in the eyes, she was asked to take off the surgical mask that she was wearing. After a few more comments, security came to escort the young woman away, at which point she held up her hands and called Bash “a killer” before chanting “Bloody Bash” at her on the way out.
The second protester seen in the clip stands up and tells Bash, “My friends have been dying in Gaza and you have not been reporting it. You call yourself a good journalist? Report the truth.”
That young woman goes on to make antisemitic insinuations, accusing Bash, who is Jewish, of ulterior motives behind her reporting related to Jewish people.
“But instead you want millions from Zionists. You want millions from AIPAC,” the protester claimed.
Atlantic journalist Yair Rosenberg responded to the footage, writing on X, “Let’s be clear on what’s happening here: A masked person yells at a Jewish CNN journalist that she is taking ‘millions’ from AIPAC, using the money to buy her house(!). This is antisemitic mad-libs, using Israel as a flimsy pretext to try and hound Jews out of the public square.”
He went on to add, “As ever, we should resist the impulse to define Palestinians or Israelis by their most unhinged advocates, especially overseas. But obviously on a practical level, ugly antics like these harm both Jews and the Palestinian cause, and help no one.”
A member of the crowd is heard in the video telling the second protester, “You’re hiding behind that mask.”
The protester responded by attacking Bash’s home, yelling, “You’re taking millions and you’re living in that house all alone. That multi-million dollar house. You’re taking it to spew lies about the Palestinian people.”
Rosenberg also noted that the protesters appeared to be abusing the use of medical masks “to covertly engage in anti-social and antisemitic acts,” which “harm the cause of those who genuinely need to wear the masks for medical reasons. Not that the mask itself is an inherent problem.”
That second young woman continued to allege that Bash lied about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, while not citing specific examples.
The person went on to bring up student protesters, arguing, “They are just trying to exercise their free speech to help their family and friends back home.”
They turned to the crowd as they continued to argue her points, and while she was asked multiple times to remove her mask to show her face, she did not do so.
“We have tried to sit with politicians day after day and they don’t listen to us. And meanwhile our family and friends are dying. What else are we supposed to do?” the protester asked before the video ended.
Bash was promoting her new book, written with David Fisher, “America’s Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History.” It tells the story of the 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election.
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