About

Ambamelia Tears Down Greek Flags Thinking They're Israeli Flags is a viral video of TikToker @ambamelia (Ambzz) tearing down a string of Greek flags flying at a New Jersey gyro restaurant, Efi's Gyro, thinking they're Israeli flags, then says, "Free Palestine." After ripping down the string of flags, she yells at two of the restaurant's employees, possibly the owners, assuming they support Israel in the Hamas-Israel conflict, before they correct her, insisting they are Greek flags. The video was posted to TikTok by the user in mid-October 2024 and quickly became the subject of backlash on X / Twitter as it drew controversy, with many insulting the intelligence of the poster, including people such as political commentator Ian Miles Cheong, who reposted the video and called her a "low IQ activist."

Origin

On October 15th, 2024, TikToker^[1] @ambamelia posted a video that begins with the caption, "The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG." In the post, the user approaches and tears down a string of Greek flags flying at a Greek food restaurant. She mutters to herself, saying, "Free Palestine," several times. She then approaches the restaurant counter and yells at the employees, "You know there's a genocide."

Two employees who appear to be the owners of the restaurant walk outside and confront the TikToker, who says, "I don't stand for this," and, "I don't stand for Zionism." She repeats that "there's a genocide," says, "They're killing children," and insists, "It's nothing against people who are Jewish […] but this is not okay."

The male restaurant owner then tells her that the flag is Greek. She responds, "Oh, I thought it was Israel. My bad. Really?" She says, "My bad," again, then laughs to herself. The female owner scolds the TikToker for tearing down the flags, telling her it's not okay to do what she did as @ambamelia asks, "You want it [the flags] back," to which the woman says, "Of course, we want it back."

The video gained over 2.8 million views in a day and was largely criticized in the comments, with one user garnering over 115,000 likes on a post reading, "why did you post this?!! 😭😭😭🤣" The video has since been deleted.

The restaurant in the video where the incident took place is Efi's Gyro in Montclair, New Jersey.^[8]

Spread

The viral video of the altercation was reposted several times on social media in mid-October 2024, often to criticize the subject of the TikTok post.

On October 15th, 2024, X^[2] user @stillgray, aka Ian Miles Cheong, reposted the video, writing, "This low IQ activist tore down Greek flags because she has no idea what the Israeli flag looks like," garnering over 61,000 likes and 8,000 reposts in a day.

The video inspired numerous reactions as it continued to spread, with many calling the TikToker "uneducated," among other sentiments.

Also on October 15th, X^[3] user @JasonBadum commented, "We have an epidemic of stupidity on this country," garnering over 3,200 likes in a day. On the same day, X^[4] user @tweeterazzis posted a Peter Parker's Glasses meme referencing the video, garnering over 4,700 likes in the same span of time.

On October 16th, 2024, X^[5] user @visegrad24 posted the video, writing, "That’s a Greek flag ma’am," garnering over 3,000 likes in under a day. On the same day, X^[6] user @ayeejuju posted the video, writing, "ain’t no way she tore down Greek flags at a restaurant because she thought it was the Isreal flag 😭😭," garnering over 1,100 likes in a few hours.

That day, The Jerusalem Post^[7] published an article about the video.

Numerous reposts of the viral video, as well as articles from various media outlets, also appeared on Reddit between October 15th and 16th, 2024, including the subreddits /r/PublicFreakout,^[9] /r/nottheonion^[10] and /r/2westerneurope4u,^[11] each of which received thousands of upvotes and comments in less than 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References