Vandals break windows with Palestinian flags at Nabala Cafe for second time in two months
For the second time in two months, Nabala Cafe in Uptown had its windows — many featuring Palestinian flags or art with messages like “Free Palestine” — smashed overnight.
An employee found the shattered glass strewn across the sidewalk and in the cafe, owner Eyad Zeid told the Sun-Times Friday.
He said the cafe plans to reopen Saturday morning, with the name of the cafe painted on the boarded-up front door.
“I’m OK as I can be, it’s just one thing at a time,” Zeid said. “I figured something would happen. We’ve had people write some pretty nasty messages and put stickers up outside on a consistent basis. So, it’s not like after the window was smashed last month, things stopped — it was just lesser stuff."
No one has been arrested. Chicago police said the incident is not being investigated as a hate crime.
When a window was broken in September, the vandal was seen on video pacing around the area before breaking the window with the Palestinian flag in it, Zeid said. He believes it was the same man both times, wearing a keffiyeh to hide their face.
Nothing was taken either time, and police said the person never entered the building.
The window cost Zeid more than $1,000 to replace, covered by community donations. Replacing four broken windows will cost five to six times as much, Zeid estimates, including a clean-up crew and closing for a day.
He said he won't ask the community for money, but was told someone else already planned to.
“It’s great to see people come through and support however they can, [but] I wish it was under better circumstances," Zeid said. "It would be a lot to ask people for money ourselves.”
Nabala Cafe isn’t alone. In April, someone smashed a window with a Palestinian flag at Andersonville’s Women & Children First bookstore. Around the same time Nabala Cafe was vandalized in September, bullet holes were found in the windows of the Muslim Community Center in Irving Park and a week later at a Muslim-owned martial arts studio in Lincoln Square.
No one has been arrested in those cases and they're also being investigated as criminal damage to property, according to Chicago police.
Despite the damage, Zeid said he will continue to display the Palestinian flag and be vocal about his beliefs.
“I hope it makes people have a little more courage,” he said. “We have to acknowledge that the U.S. is complicit in this, and we can’t keep covering this as not a genocide.”
Anne Igoe was on her way in to pick up the cafe’s “viral chocolate bars” when she saw the smashed windows and a sign on the door saying it was closed.
“I’m angry there are people in this city who want to bring violence into our communities, and specifically violence against Palestinians,” Igoe said. “It makes me want to come here and shop even more.”