It’s abomination on wheels.
Residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are appalled by a modified Ford F-150 that arrived in their Jewish neighborhood and hipster mecca a few months ago bearing a blood-soaked and menacing anti-Semitic message.
The black pickup truck is covered in a gory pro-Palestinian wrap that includes blood splatter and a picture of a bloody handprint – a reference to the infamous Ramallah lynching in 2000, when two Israeli reservists were brutally murdered by a brutal mob.
The truck also has fake bullet holes and a large portrait of the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat painted on the hood, and two Palestinian flags are flying on top of the truck.
“I never thought I’d ever feel scared to be Jewish in Brooklyn, especially in Williamsburg,” said a woman who has lived in the area for 15 years and declined to give her name out of fear.
“And while I understand that the owner of that truck went to great lengths to decorate it that way, I can’t help but feel targeted that it’s parked in the heart of our neighborhood, across from Chabad. It feels very intentional,” she added.
“I think this is an intimidation tactic,” said Williamsburg resident Michael Safir, who called the vehicle a “Hamas truck.”
“There’s so much anti-Jewish content in it. And what really pisses me off is that it feels like this is a response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.”
Safir, who is Jewish and lives in the neighborhood with his wife and three children, said he and many other locals are “very upset about this horrible truck and want it gone from our neighborhood.”
While this car paint job may be constitutionally permissible, it clearly violates every other law.
The truck has no registration or inspection stickers on its windshield, only a “Liberate Palestine” sticker.
The car also has no license plate, just what appears to be an illegal “ghost” license plate that reads “OH GAZA.” Fake ghost license plates are typically used to avoid traffic tickets and tolls.
If you want to see who’s in the driver’s seat, forget it: All windows, including the windshield, are dark-tinted. Excessive tinting is illegal.
Trucks usually park near the corner of North 4thNumber The store is located at the intersection of Street and Bedford Avenue and is owned by 21-year-old Jose Litef, according to his half-brother, Anas Armand. Armand, 34, and Litef both own
The Original King of the Caribbean There’s a food truck on the same corner.
Less than a block from Bedford Street is Chabad of North Brooklyn, which provides preschool and other services to Jewish children and is less than a mile from South Williamsburg, home to one of the largest Hasidic communities in New York City.
On Wednesday, a Washington Post reporter found a pickup truck illegally parked at an intersection, about halfway up the curb and just inches from hitting a mailbox.
When asked about local complaints, Litev refused to comment and instead jumped into the front seat and hid behind the tinted glass to avoid being photographed.
He sat in his car for about five minutes, blasting Arabic music from a speaker mounted on the outside of his pickup truck.
After spotting two NYPD officers, he illegally drove his car into a crosswalk on the other side of the intersection, got out and claimed the reporter and cameraman were “harassing” him.
“There’s no need to show them anything!” Litev fumed, insisting that he wanted to file a complaint.
The officer, however, told the reporter and cameraman that they were not breaking any laws. The officer then briefly inspected the back of the car, asked about the “license plate” and whether the window tint was legal, but then left without doing anything.
Filled with hatred, the driver got back in his car and drove off.
But Armand argued that Litev was “too young” to understand why a blood-red handprint or other markings on a pickup truck are offensive to Jews.
In the 2000 Ramallah lynching, two Israeli reservists were killed and dismembered after mistakenly entering a Palestinian-controlled city.
One of the killers, Aziz Salha, was filmed waving his bloody hands in celebration.
“He knows nothing of that sort, that’s for sure!” said Armand.
Litef was born in the United States, his half-brother said, adding that both men are of Palestinian descent and “love” Palestine.
They’ve been operating a Caribbean food truck in Williamsburg for six years without incident and Ahman insisted they wanted to be good neighbors.
“I told him to keep his hands off it,” he said. “This is a business.”
But on Thursday, the pickup truck returned to the intersection unchanged.
City Council Member Ina Bernikoff (R-Brooklyn), a staunch opponent of anti-Israel hatred, said the truck was the latest example of “terrorist-minded thugs living among us” who are “trying to make life unbearable for Americans and sow fear in the hearts of the Jewish community.”
“They want us to stay indoors. They want to scare us into submission. And ultimately, they want to destroy us.”
