Just a short walk from where an Egyptian national firebombed a Jewish group, a woman held a bullhorn to her mouth and called the group’s leader “a genocidal cunt” to her face.
“Rachel Amaru is a genocidal cunt,” the woman shouted in a video obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. She yelled it over and over while mocking Amaru for praying for the Israelis that Hamas is holding hostage.
“She loves to pray for 20 people. Twenty people who are alive,” she yelled. She ignored the fact that Hamas is also holding 28 deceased hostages.
Flanking her side was Aaron Stone, a Boulder city council candidate and an apparent ringleader behind a slew of anti-Israel counterprotests targeting Run For Their Lives, a group that hosts weekly marches intended to raise awareness for Israeli hostages. The group was the victim of a terrorist attack less than three months ago, when Mohamad Soliman shouted “We have to end Zionists” as he threw molotov cocktails, killing one and injuring 15.
Stone made no effort to distance himself or stop the woman from hurling insults. Instead, he stood by silently until the pro-Israel protester filming the agitators passed him.
“Good to see you here,” he said calmly as agitators continued to scream at the Jewish group.
Harassment against Run For Their Lives has become so pervasive recently that the group’s weekly marches “will no longer be publicly advertised and will take place under heavy security at undisclosed locations,” the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) announced Wednesday.
“In recent weeks, anti-Israel protesters, including a candidate for Boulder city council, have stalked and screamed vile insults at participants, even mentioning organizers’ children,” the group said. The JCRC “has reviewed videos where protestors hurled slurs like ‘genocidal c**t,’ ‘racist,’ and ‘Nazi.’ The harassment has spilled into Boulder city council meetings, where Jewish residents have been intimidated and bullied.”
Stone has played no small part in that. He’s helped organize counterprotests that follow closely behind Run For Their Lives during their weekly marches, shouting the names of babies he says the IDF killed, and has called Amaru a “Nazi” on at least one occasion, video obtained by the Free Beacon shows.
Stefanie Clarke, the co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado, said it’s unacceptable that “Jews in Boulder are once again being forced into hiding,” particularly so soon after Soliman’s terror attack.
“The fact that someone seeking a seat on City Council is at the center of this harassment should be cause for alarm,” she said in a statement. “Boulder cannot claim to be a city of inclusion and justice while giving a platform to Jew hate.”
For the most part, Stone lets his fellow agitators do the dirty work of hurling slurs and insults while he stands by quietly. But rather than condemning or distancing himself from their behavior, he defended it in an interview with the Free Beacon.
“I could say that everybody in the Run For Their Lives group could also be construed as wanting to bomb babies, and I definitely don’t think that’s true,” he said when asked to respond to the woman calling Amaru a “genocidal cunt.” “And I think there is some genocidal behavior within the group.”
He added that he wouldn’t personally use the word “cunt,” but didn’t condemn his colleague for using it.
“I don’t feel that is probably appropriate, but I don’t know, maybe she has more insight or interactions with the person she was calling that,” he said.
That isn’t the only time Stone defended his colleague’s aggressive behavior.
During an Aug. 17 counterprotest Stone helped organize against Run For Their Lives, one agitator could be heard from a distance screaming at a woman who seemed to largely agree with his cause, according to a video Stone uploaded to YouTube. The disruption apparently stemmed from the agitator shouting accusations at Run For Their Lives that one of its members called for more Palestinian babies to die.
Stone sent the Free Beacon a video showing the agitator shouting, “More than 1,000 children under the age of one murdered by the IDF.” When a pro-Israel demonstrator yelled back ‘not enough,’ the agitator singled out the person he believed said it and screamed while walking alongside the group—even though Stone had told the police they would remain behind Run For Their Lives.
Run For Their Lives later said the pro-Israel demonstrator’s comment did not reflect the group’s views, calling it “inappropriate and offensive.”
Stone agreed that his colleague “did look like an agitator” and said “you can’t always help who also supports your cause. But unlike Run For Their Lives, he refused to disavow his colleague’s behavior.
“I don’t think it was necessary to be up and close into people’s faces, but they all have their own way of protesting and they all have their own background and why they’re doing what they’re doing,” Stone told the Free Beacon. “I can’t really make a judgment on whether or not he should feel entitled to do that or not.”
Stone claimed that Run For Their Lives members have repeatedly “said things like not enough babies have been bombed,” but said he’d need to ask his colleagues for additional videos since he doesn’t “keep lots of recordings.”
Just before the Aug. 17 counterprotest began, meanwhile, that same agitator told Stone that at an earlier demonstration, “security was the only reason that I did not get physically attacked.” Stone replied that he was armed with pepper spray and holds a third-degree black belt.
Stone said he isn’t affiliated with any political group and claimed he entered the city council race to condemn Israel’s war on Gaza and to push Boulder to divest from the Jewish state. He said he supports the release of the Israeli hostages, but said the two million Palestinians in Gaza are also prisoners in need of freedom.
He also compared Israel to Nazi Germany while condemning Run For Their Lives.
“When they carry flags of Israel down the street, with what Israel is currently doing to the Gaza strip, it brings back images of what was happening in pre-war Germany,” Stone said.
Jessica Schwalb contributed to this report.
