Pro-Palestinian Marchers in Eugene Disarm Far-Right Attacker as Fascist Violence Continues

photo via Robert Scherle / Double Sided Media

On October 21st, hundreds took to the streets of Eugene, Oregon in solidarity with Palestine, as the state of Israel began to carry out a wave of deadly attacks on those living in Gaza. Currently, the wave of bombings and missile strikes has led to the deaths of over 5,000 people and the wounding of over 12,000 as hospitals across the occupied territories in Gaza are on the verge of collapse.

During the march in Eugene, as Double Sided Media reported:

A half hour into the march, as the crowd walked south on Pearl Ave, a white GMC Sierra 2500 pickup truck sporting multiple right-wing flags—including the Gadsden—suddenly pulled into the intersection of E. 8th Ave. and Pearl St., blocking the march. As the march approached, a tire was a reportedly slashed, and the driver, wearing a Guy Fawkes-type mask, pulled a handgun as he exited the truck. He quickly turned to the rear and began firing several shots that sounded like compressed-air.

Two individuals within the march rushed to the front, drew their own handguns, and ordered the man to immediately drop his weapon and take off his mask to which he complied. After doing so, he took his mask off. As the two individuals kicked the now-unmasked man’s weapon away, Eugene police officers rushed-in with weapons drawn.

The two individuals were interviewed on the scene and the counter-protester was arrested with charges pending. In their press release, EPD said that the weapon was a “splatter ball gun.”

The next day in so-called Minneapolis, as Unicorn Riot wrote:

An older white man drove his vehicle through pro-Palestinian protesters and brandished both a box cutter and a knife on Sunday afternoon. The attack is part of a rising trend of violence on protesters and came as thousands of people held a busy Minneapolis intersection performing a “die-in” for the thousands of Palestinians being killed in the deadly Israeli bombardment of Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

The man first threatened protesters with a box cutter and later with a knife, said witnesses on the ground and a protest marshal. Video of the man brandishing the knife can be seen below. Some protesters hit the man’s car in response. At least one person had their foot run over and another has bruised ribs from the car attack. No other injuries were publicly reported.

These attacks are part of a larger trajectory of far-Right violence that has not ended with Trump leaving office. On September 28th, a far-Right Trump supporter, identified by antifascists online at Ryan Martinez, was arrested by police after shooting an Indigenous protester (who was quickly hospitalized) in so-called Española, New Mexico at a protest calling for the removal of a statue of the conquistador, Juan de Oñate, called by the organization The Red Nation.

The statue was put into storage during the George Floyd uprising and was supposed to be put back on display at the Rio Arriba County building, which has become the site of ongoing Native-led demonstrations, prayer, and protest – successfully delaying the statue being re-erected.

This is the second time that a far-Right counter-protester has shot and injured someone over the statue. On June 15th, Stephen Baca shot a protester at a rally calling for the statue’s removal.

A report posted to Counterflow commented on the recent far-Right violence in Eugene, Oregon and beyond, writing:

An older white man drove his vehicle through pro-Palestinian protesters and brandished both a box cutter and a knife on Sunday afternoon. The attack is part of a rising trend of violence on protesters and came as thousands of people held a busy Minneapolis intersection performing a “die-in” for the thousands of Palestinians being killed in the deadly Israeli bombardment of Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

People who are oppressed, imprisoned, ghettoized, blockaded, colonized, and occupied have a right to resist by any means necessary. On Saturday October 21st over 300 working people, students, Muslims, Anti-Zionist Jews, and committed comrades of all varieties in Eugene, Oregon extended our full, unwavering solidarity to the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation against genocide and ethnic cleansing by the US-backed state of so-called “israel.”

A half hour into the march, a fascist provocateur in a white pickup truck bearing fascist American flags pulled into an intersection blocking the march, pulled a handgun as he exited the truck, and fired several shots that sounded like compressed air. Two brave comrades in the march rushed to the front, drew their own firearms, and ordered the man to drop his weapon and take off his mask, while protestors fled out of the intersection. Other comrades rushed to make sure the young children in their keffiyehs at the front of the march could find their families, while a protestor who broke their leg in two places fleeing the fascist shooter was escorted to safety.

Just as Zionist settlers exercise extra-judicial terror of the fascist Zionist entity as they enact pogroms daily against the Palestinians, shooting, burning, humiliating, and killing with impunity, fascists in the US feel called to exercise this same terror in support of the weaponized wing of US imperialism and the genocide it is actively undertaking. But the imperialists and their thugs (whether in uniform or not) are nothing but paper tigers. The masses of Palestinians and all oppressed peoples struggling in solidarity with them show us this as they struggle to defeat––and will defeat!––the imperialist axis of terror and genocide.

The fear we felt that day was nothing compared to the fear that pervades the daily lives of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank who are resisting by any means necessary occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Like the Palestinians and their resistance, we will not let that fear intimidate us and will continue in the belly of the beast of US imperialism to rise with the Palestinians against the Zionist entity and the fascist terror of the US.

Solidarity to the fighters in Eugene who successfully neutralized a fascist threat! Intifada until victory! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!