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A California-based company that specializes in providing on-demand crowds for protests says that despite receiving more than 100 requests to get involved in the anti-Israel demonstrations across the U.S., it plans to stay away.
“One of the big things with any cause that we take on is, I want to see an opportunity to constructively engage and to change minds and to make a difference,” Adam Swart, the CEO and founder of Crowds on Demand, told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “Right now, what I see with the Israel-Palestine demonstrations is a lot of noise. It’s two sides yelling at each other, but no one’s convincing the people on the fence. No one’s attempting to make an argument to people who don’t really understand the issue … it’s everybody galvanizing their own side.”
Swart started Crowds on Demand in 2012 when he was a student in college.
At the time, he was working on a lot of political campaigns, mainly for Democrats, though today he considers himself more middle of the road.
Anti-Israel protesters gather in Washington Square Park in New York City on May 3. NYU’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition hosted the demonstration. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
Context key
Back in the day, protest organizers could get thousands of people to show up by simply handing out some fliers and offering some free pizza. But these days, Swart said, you’ve got to do more to motivate people.
That is why he started offering money to people to attend demonstrations.
“Imagine the greatest speeches of all time. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream Speech,’ right?” Swart said. “But delivered to five people, it wouldn’t have had the same effect … it wouldn’t have had the same context.”
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. (AP Photo/File)
By delivering large turnouts to protest, Swart found he could dictate the context of what the protest was about.
Living in Los Angeles, it was easy to find actors to stand in at protests, he explained, because actors were always looking for gig work. The jobs ranged from things like publicity events to demonstrations.
But since then, things have changed because Swart said he does not staff protests or events with actors. Instead, he finds people who are enthusiastic about a cause to stand in. If there is a protest about the construction of a cement plant, his company would find environmentalists to take part in the demonstration, and they would then get paid for being there.
Climate protesters rally outside the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Washington, D.C. (Fox News)
Time is money
“We’re compensating them for their time, not for their opinion,” Swart said, much like how commentators in the media are paid for their time rather than their opinions.
Swart, who splits his time between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, as well as Phoenix, said he is a big supporter of the First Amendment because his business relies on freedom of speech and expression.
So, when it comes to anti-Israel demonstrations, Swart said it is important, no matter how misguided they may be, to be able to demonstrate and have their voices prominently heard.
That is, however, until the demonstrators begin to break the law.
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Anti-Israel protesters wave flags in Washington Square Park in New York City on May 3. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
“The campus communities and the broader community in the cities deserve to not be disrupted on their way to work,” Swart said. “They deserve to be able to live in their dorms, to go to class in peace, right? Graduation should take place without interruption, right? Both can exist, and it’s important that we come to an agreement.”
“Again, it doesn’t legitimize the illegal activity that these people are doing. My goal is to mediate something, to allow life to return to normal,” he added.
Nothing hateful or illegal
Over the past 12 years, Swart has provided crowds for everything from labor and management disputes, business disputes, pro bono efforts on behalf of Afghan refugees, and basically “every cause under the sun” that is not hateful or illegal, he said.
“We’ve gotten over 100 requests at this point, including dozens of quite lucrative ones from people some folks might recognize, and we’ve really turned them all down,” he said. “It’s not that I wouldn’t engage on this issue at all, but all the requests we’ve gotten are not constructive engagement.”
Swart said he has no plans to get involved in anti-Israel protests nor is he planning any actions on behalf of foreign governments that do not want to be disclosed.
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Police use chemical irritants and crowd-control munitions to disperse protesters during a demonstration in Portland, Oregon. (AP Photo/Noah Berger/File)
“If we feel that we’re being pitched by a foreign actor that wants to cause harm to the United States, I’m a proud American patriot. I would never work with those people, and we’ve declined to work with those people in the past,” Swart said. “I take our obligation seriously, and I want to be constructive, and I want to only do things that make our country a better place.”
That is not to say Swart will not work with foreign governments. He said that if a foreign actor brought his company a proposal to help build up the image of their country in the U.S. without being disruptive to democracy, he would consider it.
“We have no objection with working for … foreign actors that want to build up their reputation in the United States and want to do positive good,” he said. “But we don’t want to work with anyone who has an intention of doing anything negative.”
Raising ‘awareness’
A company offering crowds on demand for protests could be considered stirring the pot.
Swart disputes that view, saying that everything his company provides is legal and nonviolent.
“I like to think of what we do is raise awareness, and it’s because you can’t ignore a large crowd of people,” he said. “So, we raise awareness. Then, the cause has to speak for itself. But what we do is, we serve as a catalyst.”
Despite receiving many requests with high-dollar values attached that Swart said he’d otherwise be eager to accept, he’s content to stay out of the anti-Israel fray.
“They’re just not the ones that I want to take on because they’re not actually constructively addressing the root of the problem,” he said.
Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital.
Story tips and can be sent to Greg.Wehner@Fox.com and on Twitter @GregWehner.
