Palestine Advocates Give Their Side of Barclays Fracas

By JENNIFER SZULMAN

There are two sides to every story.

Such is the message communicated by Pro-Palestinian activists after weeks when they say they were  “demonized” in the media over an attack on a Jewish community leader at the Barclays Center earlier this month.

Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian 20-year-old student at Hunter College joined community leaders on the steps of Borough Hall on Tuesday to rebut the claims made last week at a press conference held by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams where he denounced the assault on Kings Bay Y’s Executive Director Leonard Petlakh. Kiswani says she too was a victim – but of an Islamophobic attack  at the hands of a member of Petlakh’s crew.

Kiswani charges that some of Petlakh’s associates crept up on her from behind and punched her in the stomach in a premeditated attack after the basketball game between the Nets and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv. She says they also snatched her Palestinian flag away from her. Kiswani added that Barclays Center guards dismissed her because she was a visibly Muslim woman and instead assisted Petlakh, a Jewish male also assaulted at the same game.

“It is painful to know that asking for help from security and police after being assaulted led to nothing that day other than being further demonized and victimized by the people who were supposed to protect me,” said Kiswani.

Community leaders and Kiswani expressed their outrage that much of the media has focused on the assault of Petlakh and that until now, the other side has been silenced.

“We have to connect the dots to understand what precipitated Nerdeen’s attack,” said Conor Tomas-Reed, faculty member at CUNY Medgar Evers College. “Some people cravenly threaten and assault Arabs and Muslims at the same time they claim victimhood, a cynical abusive gesture to exonerate themselves of any wrongdoing. This duplicity should not be tolerated.”

The police department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the attack on Kiswani. However, Lamis Deek, Kiswani’s attorney called for more accurate coverage in the media and that the DA properly investigate Petlakh and his associates, saying they made phony claims of anti-Semitism to gain an advantage and calling alleged victim Petlakh, “the oppressor.”

It is not clear if Petlakh himself or one of his associates attacked Kiswani, but Kiswani’s legal team was working to secure footage of her attack. Police now have the footage.