If there’s one thing you can count on from the anarchists, it’s, well, anarchy.
I suspect many of our local anarchists aspire to the second dictionary definition of anarchy: “The organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government.”
But what we so often see from them is the first definition: “A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority or other controlling systems.”
It seems to me that they simply want societal disorder, and because so few people agree with their philosophy, they resort to vandalism and intimidation to gain attention.
As I’ve said before, these tactics do not work. They just harden the resolve of people to continue their efforts, whether it’s pursuing a Business Improvement District downtown (committee members’ vehicles were vandalized this summer), continuing to provide police protection in our city (cop cars were burned in West Asheville last August), or pursuing better public safety policies. (A City Council member’s vehicle was vandalized last year after she signed a letter of support for the policies.)
It’s not like anarchists as an organized body claimed responsibility for these crimes, but it’s certainly in their playbook.
Most recently, an anarchist seminar devolved into violence and what I consider antisemitism — at a public library, for crying out loud. I’m referring to the melee June 29 at the West Asheville Public Library during the “Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair” seminar.
If you didn’t catch that clever acronym, it’s ACAB, which stands for “All Cops Are Bastards” in the anarchist/revolutionary world. The group listed the event as “Another Carolina Bookfair,” which creates a decidedly tamer acronym, on the West Asheville Library meeting room use agreement it filed with the county.
I reached out to the contact listed on the form but did not hear back by deadline.
On its webpage, ACAB billed the three-day event in “so-called Asheville, NC,” as a way “for all of us committed to liberation and world-building in the here and now to plot and play, mourn and love, co-educate and collaborate.”
But it also said the event would be “an anarchist ritual of spiritual recovery” that “carves out time and space to gather and rethink our strategies for destroying this world in order to open the door for many others.”
Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, I suppose.
How it went down
About 80 to 100 people had gathered at the public library to hear a talk titled, “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance.”
Among those who attended were local activists Monica Buckley and David Moritz, self-desribed Zionists who have attended other pro-Palestinian rallies in support of Israel. Both are Jewish and, as Zionists, support the creation and continued existence of Israel.
Their friend Bob Campbell, who is not Jewish but supports their cause, sat with them. Campbell, 80, has bladder cancer and undergoes monthly chemotherapy.
Buckley and Moritz were livestreaming the event on Facebook, and that’s when the trouble started. Someone alerted the speaker, who asked, “Like positivity live streaming?”
“They’re Zionists,” someone replied.
The speaker made a comment that’s hard to hear on the video, saying something about someone getting arrested and making a comment about murder.
He asked the audience how they wanted to deal with the live streaming.
A woman said, “You guys should leave.”
The speaker said, “This is a talk about humanitarian discourse and patriotism and get the (indecipherable) out,” drawing laughter. Then he asked again how those attending wanted to handle it.
“I think they’re not [expletive] welcome,” a woman said.
“That works for me,” the speaker said.
Another woman said, “I’m just a big ‘no’ on recording, like we can have this conversation together but we don’t need to be recording it, so if you want to put your phone away that’d be great.”
Then people started crowding around Buckley, Moritz, and Campbell.
Moritz said, “What are you guys afraid of? I thought you want your message sent out.”
More people surrounded them, and one woman blocked the camera with a notebook.
“Free, free Palestine!” chants began, followed quickly by the fracas.
I interviewed Buckley, Moritz, and Campbell, and all three said they saw no signs or other indications before or during the gathering that video recording was prohibited. Moritz said he called the library beforehand to confirm the event was open to the public.
It’s worth noting Buncombe County’s policy on using library meeting rooms states, “Meeting rooms will not be booked for private events. All events must be free and open to the public.” The library system does not set rules on video recording.
Buckley and Moritz also pointed out that attendees were blocking the exit door. Before the scuffle broke out, the speaker, they said, lauded the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, which left 1,200 Israelis dead and ignited the ongoing war in Gaza that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Moritz told me he and Buckley did not feel safe, and that’s why they started live streaming. After people crowded around them, someone snatched Buckley’s phone, which was unlocked.
“Instead of people helping her get her phone back, they jumped her,” Moritz said.
Moritz put his phone in his pocket and jumped over a chair to try to protect Buckley.
“They just surrounded me and started punching me,” Moritz said. “Bob got up, and the guy in red with a mohawk manhandled him and ended up throwing him out of the conference room.”
Eventually, Buckley’s phone was found outside, away from the library.
The video stopped, but Buckley’s phone continued to record audio. People hollered, “Shut up!” and “Whooooo!” and “Get the [expletive] out,” and something about “the children of Gaza.” Some people were laughing.
There is nothing funny about this. Buckley, Moritz, and Campbell were all beaten and injured – a deeply troubling mob reaction, especially when it comes to Campbell.
At age 80 and fighting cancer, Campbell was not looking to fight. Still, he went to help Buckley.
“About the time I got to her, I was hit from behind and knocked down to the floor,” Campbell said. “He just kept forcing me down, and eventually, they (dragged) me out into the lobby.”
The guy hit him a couple of times while Campbell was already down, he said, “Just to make sure.”
I’ve always said nothing brings people over to your side like beating the hell out of an 80-year-old man with cancer. Great work, ACAB.
The bullying tone of the anarchists is clear on video, and they just as clearly aimed to intimidate the three victims.
As a journalist, I’m all about openness, not hiding what you’re up to, especially when you’re holding an open meeting in a public library, and you haven’t made it clear you don’t want any recording. So if someone’s live streaming, too bad.
The presence of Buckley, Moritz, and Campbell was provocative only because the anarchists made it so. The video shows them sitting quietly, listening to the speaker, and not engaging with anyone.
They were silently live streaming, which didn’t become an issue until someone in the crowd made it one.
Once again, it looks like anarchists aiming to provoke, well, anarchy.
As Moritz pointed out, it’s ironic that a group that is all about tearing down government, democracy, and society — basically ridding the world of rules — wanted to impose so many at this event.
Moritz told me he is unashamedly Zionist, but he said he’s not a provocateur and did not have that intent. I asked him what he thinks the anarchists really want.
“They do want chaos, they want violence, they want the overthrow of our current institutions,” Moritz said.
He finds it ironic that they claim to be anarchist when “they impose more rules than anyone.”
“So they’re not really anarchists — that’s just a cover word for being wannabe dictators,” Moritz said.
Moritz, a real estate developer, suffered bruises and lumps on his head. Buckley had scratches and bruises, and she has an injury to her hand. Campbell’s arms were covered in bruises after the brawl.
Buckley acknowledges she and Moritz have attended pro-Palestine events, where they waved Israeli flags and carried signs in support of Israel. But she’s adamant they sat quietly and just came to listen to the presentation, an assertion the video backs up.
Moritz, Buckley, and Campbell believe the crowd’s actions show they’re antisemitic.
“I think their intent is to make everyone afraid of them,” Buckley told me, adding that they want to make Zionists feel culturally unsafe.
Buckley made another strong point: You can’t attack people and drag them around because they have a different political view.
Buckley, who is gay, says her “queer life has been completely shut down” because of her Zionist activities. She remains adamant the anarchists will not shut her down.
“Absolutely not. Absolutely not,” she said. “There’s no way I’m going to be intimidated by them.”
Anarchists claim “fascists” came to “provoke a conflict”
Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair released a statement after the event, referring to Buckley and Moritz as “two well-known fascists” and stating they intended to “to provoke a conflict and sell a false narrative that the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair is an antisemitic event.”
The statement refers to Moritz and Buckley as “white supremacists” and claimed Buckley bragged about instigating the brawl and stayed in the neighborhood afterward “harassing and threatening community members from a car.”
“This escalatory behavior is no surprise,” the statement continues. “It was a planned disruption by individuals with extreme, genocidal beliefs who have publicly called for the suppression of solidarity with Palestinians.”
From watching the video, it’s crystal clear that the anarchists were the only ones who provoked a conflict.
Buckley and Moritz issued their own statement in response, “categorically” rejecting ACAB’s news release as an effort, as Moritz said, “to smear us and defer any responsibility that is all theirs.”
“They should be apologizing to us for the violence that their conference attendees imposed on us,” Moritz said. “Any attempt to avoid responsibility is shameful, and trying to victim blame us is just terrible.”
ACAB targeted only the two Jewish people in its release, Moritz said, which “confirms their antisemitism.”
It’s pretty tough not to see this attack as anything other than antisemitic. We’ve had several recent antisemitic incidents, including the vandalism of a Merrimon Avenue restaurant with a swastika, and a full-page ad bashing Jewish people that ran in the Asheville Citizen Times.
As I noted in a news story about the ad, the Anti-Defamation League reported that since Oct. 7, “antisemitic incidents reached the highest number of incidents during any two-month period since ADL began tracking in 1979, according to preliminary data…”
For 2023, the Anti-Defamation League tallied 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the country, a 140 percent increase from 2022 and the highest number on record since it began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.
Whatever your opinion of the war in Gaza, attacking Jewish people is not the answer. I believe the war clearly has shifted from defensive to offensive and has involved way too much reckless loss of civilian life. But I also imagine if we were attacked by an organization that believes we have no right to exist as a country, we would probably be engaged in a war with a similar goal of eradicating that enemy.
It has become a heated topic in Asheville, including at City Council meetings. Regarding the library assault, Mayor Esther Manheimer, who is Jewish, issued a statement but steered away from calling the incident antisemitic.
“Asheville is a city that has thrived and honored the diversity of all its residents,” Maheimer said. “We will continue to do so and not be cowed by individuals resorting to violence.”
The Asheville Police Department, which has made one arrest in the case and issued another news release Friday asking for help identifying other potential suspects, referred to the incident as “an assault.”
“We at the APD remain steadfast in our commitment to reducing all acts of violence in our community, particularly those targeting vulnerable groups like our Jewish Community,” Chief Mike Lamb said in the release.
Buncombe County, which operates the library, issued a statement, too, noting the ACAB meeting was “not a library sponsored event.”
“As an organization, we will continue to review our meeting room policies and procedures with a focus on community safety and community need,” the county said. I asked spokesperson Lillian Govus if ACAB would be banned from future use of library meeting rooms.
“I’m not able to answer that at this time,” Govus said via email.
In ACAB’s statement on Instagram, one of the commenters offered a fairly cogent view of the anarchists’ behavior.
“What bothers me here is that our side took the bait,” the commenter said. “If they were there to agitate, we allowed ourselves to become agitated, and now we look like the bad guys and the cops are hunting anarchists. That’s sloppy work on our part and we should know better. I hope we do better in the future.”
I’m impressed by the clarity of that thought. I hope ACAB heeds this person’s advice.
The three victims remain determined to continue their support for Israel. They are not exactly shrinking violets. You can frequently find them on a downtown overpass over I-240 waving Israeli flags.
That includes Campbell, who acknowledges that he felt “beat up and dehumanized and kind of sad” after the attack. But he also remains unshaken in his belief in the bedrock American principles of free speech and the right to assemble.
“I don’t want to spend my life, or what’s left of it, being afraid to go anywhere in the United States, or watching out where I go,” he said.
No one around here should have to.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go toavlwatchdog.org/donate.
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