From Lara Friedman, Foundation for Middle East Peace

December 10, 2024, 10:15am - Livestream: The House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a 2-panel “hearing” entitled, “Desecrating Old Glory: Investigating How the Pro-Hamas Protests Turned National Park Service Land into a Violent Disgrace.” (hyperlink above goes to the livestream)

For a sense of what this hearing is going to be like, see the helpful hearing memo published by the Committee, which among other things laments that at the protest in question involved “burning American flags, assaulting police officers, and raising foreign flags on American soil.” As a reminder: (a) assaulting police officers is illegal; (b) whether some members of Congress like it or not, the Supreme Court has ruled that burning the American flag is protected free speech; (c) it is entirely legal to fly foreign flags on US soil — and it is so commonly done that it is totally unremarkable when people do so, as demonstrated in parades every year where various Americans celebrate their heritages, and as demonstrated every year during various international sporting events, and as demonstrated EVERY SINGLE DAY as supporters of Israel – in Congress, in synagogues, in churches, and anywhere else they can think of, raise/fly/wear the Israeli flag [there are rules regarding the flying of the US flag alongside a foreign flag].

The memo also asserts — as a matter of fact, rather than as an unsubstantiated allegation (which is what it is) — that the groups involved in these protests “have ties to foreign organizations like Hamas and the Chinese Communist Party”].  Panel 1 witnesses will be: Mark Lee Greenblatt, Inspector General, U.S. Department of the Interior; and Charles Cuevelier, Associate Director, Visitor and Resource Protection, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Panel 2 witnesses will be: Kenneth H. Spencer, III, Chairman, United States Park Police Fraternal Order of Police; Alex Goldenberg, Director of Intelligence, Network Contagion Research Institute [learn more about NCRI and its Israel-focused work]; Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center [you can see their work on Israel-related issues here]; and Harry Dunn, Former United States Capitol Police Officer.