Pro-Hamas Protestors Attempt To Breach Athens Hotel Housing Israeli Tourists

Riots broke out at Omonia Square in Athens on Tuesday, as demonstrators gathered outside the Israeli-owned Brown Acropol Hotel, where the group believed that Israeli guests were inside. Participants chanted anti-Israel slogans and attempted to breach the premises looking for the Israelis.

Greek police responded with gas grenades to disperse the group and restore order. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece confirmed the absence of any Israeli casualties resulting from the violent episode.

Pro-Hamas demonstrators also reportedly tried to infiltrate another hotel sheltering Israeli tourists. The violent attempt was met with a robust response from Greek anti-riot forces, who used crowd control measures to secure the premises. Meanwhile, unrest extended to the Egyptian Embassy, where police deployed chemical agents and flash-bang grenades earlier in the day to thwart demonstrators from breaching the embassy walls.

The Communist Party of Greece had previously organized a massive 10,000-person march to the Israeli Embassy in October.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Thanks, Gary ! Your last sentence is telling: “The Communist Party of Greece had previously organized a massive 10,000-person march to the Israeli Embassy in October.” It’s clear who is behind the anti-semitic movement globally.

  2. This Israeli hotel company was expanding in Greece and hopefully this awful incident won’t interrupt their expansion plans there.

  3. Communists tend to be opposed to religions and not very religious in any traditional sense of religion.

    No Abrahamic faith seems to be an effective religion of peace. The history of Christian colonization of the world and wars in the 20th century speak to Christian-majority countries’ peoples killing way more people more widely across more countries than people of the Jewish- and Muslim-majority countries combined over the same period. And the actions of the Jewish-majority country in the last several months also show a failure of people to be peaceful followers of the religions of peace.

  4. The moment protesters look for Jews to kill is the moment all of us should stop calling them protesters.

  5. “Communists tend to be opposed to religions and not very religious in any traditional sense of religion.”

    Communists are sneaky and conniving snakes. When they see an institution that seems to have a similar mindset – and which can be useful to them – they go all in on supporting them. Hence the red/green fellowship between commies and radical muslims (and their supporters). Lenin just loved useful idiots and college campuses are fertile ground for them.

  6. I understand that with recent events, this might be new to a lot of folks out there, but for quite a few years now there is a “Red-Green” alliance between Communists (with all their nuances: Marxists, Leninists etc etc) and Radical Islam. Up to the 80’s it used be with Arab nationalism, but as the idea of “Pan Arabism” crumbled, and with the demise of the USSR, these two radical forces have been aligning closer in the last 20-30 years.
    I mean, you see demented things like “Trans Liberation” people support the Taliban govt, or the Iranian Mullah regime. And they do not even question what the hell is wrong with that – they’re perception is that the great evils in our world is US Imperialism, whatever they associate as “White” (All Jews fit into that column somehow by the way) and that any force in the world which can be extreme enough to destroy those effectively is an ally, even if “not perfect”.
    And just like with the birth of Communism, they start with “Old world we will destroy to the ground”, and a eutopic almost belief that they’ll build a new, just, better world and all that nonsense – but they never do. They just destroy.

  7. AngryFlyer,

    The dangerous “Green” fellowship was with the US and UK governments and the royal Arab tools. It had the Carter and Reagan Admins and the Thatcher government teaming up alongside fundamentalist Sunni Muslims so as to wage “holy war” against the “Godless Commies”. That anti-communist fellowship gave the world Osama bin Laden with the Al-Qaeda gang. That proxy was and the Israeli pitching of battles between Hamas and the PLO were core to beefing up the abilities of Hamas and produced all sorts of ugly blowback. Netanyahu himself was a big backer of Hamas — he wanted a Hamas that could threaten the PLO, divide Palestinians and have a more convenient PR excuse to cover for his refusal to abide by international law and move forward with a two-state solution with full compliance under international law delivering a Palestinian state under those rules.

  8. @GUWonder – you are partly correct when you say “That anti-communist fellowship gave the world Osama bin Laden with the Al-Qaeda gang”, but two things to note:
    1. The radical Islamists (with their different nuances) enjoyed material support as you say, but the wicked ideology was and is there, and it is also supported by parts of the population depending on the place and circumstances.
    2. The same thing is happening in our world right now – you have an alliance being built between Putinist Russia and the Shia axis that Iran has created. Together with some help from the CCP (not an alliance at all, but growing material support). You also have radical leftists in western countries excuse any Islamist terrorism as “Freedom fighting” and all that nonsense, while promoting massive immigration from Majority muslim countries with no restrictions (which of course is having counter right-wing reactionism as well).
    And lauding all of these, their western propaganda wing is the far-left in the US and Europe. This is how you get to a demented situation where “Trans Liberation” activists support the Taliban govt, or when US “human rights” folks go to give a speech to the IRGC (and many, many more loonie stuff like these).

  9. Putin and Netanyahu were in cahoots so much for so long that even with Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Netanyahu stuck close to Putin. Netanyahu remained a Putin ally until Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023. That speaks volumes about what kind of person Netanyahu is and what kind of “ally” the Netanyahu regime is to the US.

  10. GUWonder,
    Anyone that believes a two state solution is realistically feasible is, for now and anytime soon, delusional. Something like 80% of Gazans supported Hamas before Oct 7. Hamas always has been, and continues in its weakened but still viable state, to be for a one state solution with Hamas in charge. Now that we are where we are, it is likely safe to say that a single state controlled by Hamas would not just expel Jews but massacre many of them too (revenge is the most powerful emotion). Thus the need for Israel to destroy the remaining organized Hamas military units and tunnels in Rafah is high to get to a two state solution someday. Unless Hamas agrees to allow Israeli forces to be allowed to reenter Gaza in the future, (no permanent ceasefire), Hamas must be defeated by the IDF in Rafah. Defeating Hamas in Rafah should be a slow squeeze from the east and south, and from the Rafah Crossing area to the west so that people can flee north. That approach could take many months but saves most of the million plus Gazans in Rafah. Joe might grudingly accept this IDF military tactic but surely will change his mind if this tactic is not successfully completed by the beginning of August. This militart tactic could suddenly stop, or hardly begin, if Hamas capitulates on the main stumbling block, their insistence that the ceasefire be permanent. Once Hamas agrees to a ceasefire that is NOT permanent, the ceasefire begins and likely becomes a long term ceasefire. Then the rebuilding of Gaza begins. But the two state solution only becomes viable (along with a permanent ceasefire with Gaza and the West Bank) in the future when the remaining Hamas dominated politcal entity in Gaza and other Palestinian politcal parties accept a two state solution imposed on them by the international community.

  11. Israeli society today is so far right wing that there won’t be a two state solution inclusive of Palestinians anytime soon even if Hamas magically disappeared. Israel is increasingly vested in there being no sovereign Palestinian state inclusive of the West Bank under any circumstances — even the circumstances of a wonderful world free of Hamas and Hamas-type “thinking”.

  12. @GUtlessWonder – I love how you frame your (questionable) numbers in such a way as to completely eliminate the 1000-year history of Islamic and the Arab colonization of the world, including Jerusalem. How convenient. And no Western nation was killing anyone in the name of Christianity (or Judaism) in the 20th Century, it had petered out before that, and was a spent force by the mid-19th century. Any claims to Christianity as a driving force in colonization were just lip-service by them when the real concern was secular power. But Islam and the pseudo-religion Communism, sure, by the millions (you can probably throw some Hinduism or Sikhism for good measure, but they’re pikers compared to the other two). Just goes to show your anti-Christian bias and excuse making for your side. Never comdemn any revolutionary act, for it only furthers the revolution, so one day the true revolution may come, right?

  13. How is your white Christian nationalist” preaching coming along, C_M? You couldn’t make the “Unite the Right” torch-burning rally under the former guy so you’re waiting for the next such rally between preaching sessions?

    The antisemitism which drove the big part of the Israeli-Palestinian problem today is rooted in European Christian antisemitism and the European colonial games of divide and conquer that also led to uprooted Jewish communities in Muslim-majority parts of Africa and Asia in the 20th century.

  14. Rog,

    The Ottomans never managed to be extensive “religion of peace” colonizers in the Americas; nor did they manage to pull that off in the East Asia/Asia-Pacific region; nor did they manage to pull that off in most of Africa.

    It was Christians who have had that barbaric “religion of peace” distinction across way more of the world, across more centuries and against more people than the other Abrahamic faiths.

  15. A group of rats, only rats support Hamas, time to deploy rat controls.

  16. And not one mention from Gary’s story or any contributors asking about the welfare of the staff and guests of this hotel..whatever their religion might be!

  17. The article says “absence of any Israeli casualties” from
    that situation in Athens. Other sources said there were no guests or staff injured. Then it sounds like more bruised egos than anything else, perhaps in part because of some kind of refusal to allow visitors from the street to use the hotel restrooms.

Comments are closed.