An anti-Israel activist who allegedly attacked a Jewish man during a protest outside Israel’s consulate and Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York in April is using social media to claim that he wasn’t at fault, despite facing federal hate-crimes charges.
According to the watchdog group Canary Mission, in a TikTok video, Saadah Masoud claims: “A Zionist who came to one of our protests masked up, wearing a weapon and everything, swinging at everybody, and I disarmed him and now they are trying to charge me with a hate crime for that one.”
That’s not how the federal government sees it.
A federal complaint filed on June 10 states that based on a “review of video surveillance,” Masoud “approaches Victim-1” (identified at the time of the assault as Matt Greenman, a Jewish man from Westchester, N.Y.), “grabs Victim-1 by the shoulder and throws Victim-1 to the ground.”
“ … [Masoud] begins striking Victim-1 on the head and the face, while shoving away bystanders who attempt to intervene,” the complaint continues, noting that the attack continued for “nearly 20 seconds.”
Masoud was arrested in June and released on bail; he is presently on “home detention” with a monitoring device pending a court date.
In the TikTok video, which is no longer available for viewing, Masoud resorts to the old canards of Jews controlling to media, claiming he is being portrayed as an “evil guy [who] beats up Jews in New York City. … They, they control the media. They control everything.”
According to Canary Mission, Masoud, who is out on bail, “has a history of violence and of physically assaulting Israel supporters.”
They claim that he previously led a group of anti-Israel protesters in New York in attacking two Israel supporters and punching one of the men in the head. That assault in May 2021 came during an anti-Israel protest during the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, during which the Gaza-based Palestinian terror group fired more than 4,000 rockets at civilian populations in Israel.
In a statement, Canary Mission said Masoud “is a danger to Jews and the public at large. We hope the Justice Department will see a conviction of his hate crime in the courts.”
