Fetterman Calls Out His Own Party After ‘Pro-Hamas Sh*theads’ Protest Outside NYC Synagogue

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) blasted what he called pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah “sh*theads” on Wednesday morning, following a protest outside of a Manhattan synagogue on Tuesday night. Fetterman retweeted a clip from the protest and called out his party for not joining him in condemning it.

A social media user named Rabbi Poupko shared a video from The Forward of the protest and added the caption, “To summarize the evening: the mob came to a Synagogue, forced a Jewish day care to close early, came with a Hezbollah flag, cheered for intifada, and said ‘we don’t want no Zionists here’. We cannot normalize this behavior.”

Fetterman shared the post and added, “Mob of Pro-Hezbollah / Hamas shitheads raging against law enforcement and terrorizing the NYC Jewish community near a synagogue and day care.”

“Where’s my party’s condemnation?” added Fetterman, who has recently been courted by President Donald Trump to switch parties.

The Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh and Hannah Feuer reported on the protest outside of Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side, noting some 100 people participated in the demonstration targeting “an event promoting real estate in Israel and the West Bank.” The demonstration took place just days after a new law went into effect mandating that the NYPD distance protests from houses of worship, a measure that City Council Speaker Julie Menin pushed following a 2025 protest at the same synagogue.

The Forward reported that the protestors were successfully “kept nearly a block away from the house of worship by barricades and a heavy NYPD presence” and added:

Chants of “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “We don’t want a two-state, we want ’48” rose from the crowd — slogans Zionist organizations view as antisemitic and a call for violence and removal of Jews in the region.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) was asked about the NYPD keeping the protestors away from the synagogue during a Wednesday presser.

“Can you assess how you think things went last night at the Park East Synagogue protest? Do you think the police effectively enforced a buffer zone? Is that what essentially happened? And was the right to protest sufficiently protected in your view? And then I have one more question,” began a reporter.

“Yes, I think that I’ve made it clear time and time again that we in this city believe in the sacrosanct nature of the right to protest and also are committed to ensuring that any New Yorker can safely enter or exit from a house of worship and that access never be in question while we also protect the First Amendment. And I do believe that the police ensured that yesterday,” Mamdani replied.

“And as you talk about ways to prevent anti-Semitism, I noticed yesterday that when you put out a statement about the protest in advance of the protest, you noted that you agreed with the protesters. You’ve weighed in on the subject of Israel in a couple of other ways in recent days. And I just wonder whether, you know, are you considering whether you personally putting your views about Israel out there is in any way fueling anti-Semitism in the city? Do you ever think maybe you should just not weigh in or just not bring it up?” pushed the reporter.

“I think that critique of the policies of a government are very much separate from bigotry towards the people of a specific religious faith. And there is no tolerance for anti-Semitism, there is no tolerance for hatred of Jewish New Yorkers, which we have seen time and time again, whether it be in the graffiti-ing of swastikas on a number of homes across Queens recently,” Mamdani replied, adding:

And I’ve also been clear to New Yorkers: my honest opinions about the fact that when we have a real estate expo that is promoting the sale of land, which includes the sale of land in occupied West Bank in settlements that are a violation of international law, that that is something that I firmly disagree with and that I also believe that many New Yorkers firmly disagree with because it has been at the heart of an ongoing effort to displace Palestinians from their homes.

Watch the clip above.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!