Staff Reports
An anti-Israel protest by members of a group called Queers for Palestine led to a traffic snarl and, ultimately, not much else. The protesters tried to block the exit to Walt Disney World in Orlando on Saturday but found that their efforts were over in about 15 minutes, most of them spent in lockup.
'Queers for Palestine' Block a Highway in the South, Protest Lasts Only 11 Minutes via @WestJournalism https://t.co/n79n65z32h
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Three demonstrators were taken to the Orange County Jail and their vehicles were towed after the protest blocked the westbound I-4 exit to Disney Springs, according to WOFL-TV in Orlando. The group claims that Disney “supports genocide” because it backs Israel without acknowledging the loss of Palestinian lives and is set to feature an Israeli superhero in an upcoming film, “Captain America: Brave New World.”
The protesters chanted “Free free Palestine” and held a banner that read “Free Palestine,” but for all their ardor, no one was particularly impressed. One irate motorist shouted at the protesters that they were “losing people to your cause because of this.” The motorist added, “Think a little bit. You are causing people to actually hate you.”
This wasn’t the only reason the protest went south. Florida Highway Patrol, which has a zero-tolerance policy for this sort of thing, arrested and cleared the protesters “within 11 minutes,” according to Fox News’ Bill Melugin. This wasn’t a surprise, considering Florida’s zero tolerance for highway-blocking as a form of protest.
The protesters might have lasted a bit longer had they been a bit more, well, adhesive in their methods, The Post noted. This might have worked somewhere else, but this is Florida and southern hospitality doesn’t extend to this kind of behavior.
What this incident shows is that Florida doesn’t play when it comes to deterring unlawful protests, especially those that disrupt traffic. Plus, the Queers for Palestine group clearly struggles with basic protester tactics, even in areas where these tactics are severely frowned upon. They aren’t just a farce in their lack of ability to figure out the central contradiction in their name; they can’t even figure out the most basic of protester tactics, even in locals where police have zero tolerance for those throwing a wrench into traffic by blocking major highways.
