NYC provocateur
‘Hater’ sparked DC MAGA-teen mess
A fringe religious zealot from Brooklyn admitted to The Post on Tuesday that he touched off the controversial confrontation outside the Lincoln Memorial by berating a group of white, MAGA-capwearing Catholic high-school students from Kentucky.
“The word of God — it sparked it all,” said the man, who identified himself as “Chief Ephraim Israel” of the House of Israel.
“They seen what they’ve done. They’ve been told. I believe they are from Kentucky. They’ve never been spoken like that to by a black or Hispanic guy in their lives. The words of God.”
He added: “It was piercing. Their souls was getting ripped. They were catching darts and ninja stars all into their soul.”
Israel was caught on video verbally attacking both Native American activists and the students from all-male Covington Catholic HS for more than an hour on Friday before activist Nathan Phillips appeared and began chanting.
A clip of Phillips, a Native American, pounding a drum in the face of Covington junior Nick Sandmann — who smiled silently as his schoolmates mockingly chanted along — went viral and initially sparked outrage at the kids’ conduct.
President Trump on Tues- day blasted news coverage of the incident.
“Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be,” Trump tweeted.
Covington Catholic was closed Tuesday over what the school and the Diocese of Covington described as “threats of violence” that cops shared upon learning about a planned protest.
About two dozen Native American activists gathered outside the school’s gates Tuesday morning and were opposed by a smaller group of school supporters, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Also Tuesday, Twitter suspended an account that helped spread a video of the confrontation that went viral over the weekend.
The @2020fight account claimed to be run by a California teacher named Talia, but was actually the creation of a blogger based in Brazil, according to CNN Business, which said Twitter shut it down following inquiries from the network.
During an interview in a Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment, Israel defended the outrageous insults he hurled at the Covington students, who he at one point called “a bunch of f----ts made out of incest.”
Israel said the students tried in vain to shut him up by loudly reciting what Sandmann — who’s set to appear Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show — has called “schoolspirit chants.”
Israel, who said he’s 36 and works as a porter, also said the Native American activists “were trying to stop everything” and “de-escalate the situation.”
“They actually interrupted what we was teaching,” he said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors American extremists, has labeled the House of Israel a black-na- tionalist hate group.
The group’s members — often referred to as “Black Israelites” — are infamous in New York City for publicly preaching inflammatory rhetoric in Times Square and elsewhere.