File image: Hundreds of protesters gathered within sight of the US Capitol, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans (Photo: PTI)
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered within sight of the US Capitol, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans and criticizing the Israeli and US governments as they marked a painful present, the war in Gaza and the exodus of some 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from what is now Israel when the state was founded in 1948.
About 400 protesters braved steady rain to gather on the National Mall on the 76th anniversary of what is called the Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe. In January, thousands of pro-Palestinian activists gathered in the country’s capital for one of the larger protests in recent history.
It called for support for Palestinian rights and an immediate end to Israeli military operations in Gaza. No Peace on Stolen Land and End the Killings, Stop the Crime/Israel Out of Palestine, echoed through the crowd.
The protesters also focused their anger on President Joe Biden, whom they accused of feigning concern over the death toll in Gaza.
Biden Biden, you will see that genocide is your legacy, they said. The Democratic president was in Atlanta on Saturday.
Reem Lababdi, a sophomore at George Washington University who said she was sprayed by police last week as they broke up a protest camp on campus, acknowledged that the rain appeared to hold back the numbers.
“I’m proud of everyone who came out in this weather to express their opinions and deliver their message,” she said.
This year’s commemoration was fueled by anger over the ongoing siege of Gaza. The latest war between Israel and Hamas began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 prisoners, and the Israeli army has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters.
Speaker Osama Abuirshad, executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, gestured to the Capitol dome behind him.
This Congress does not speak for us. This Congress does not represent the will of the people, he said. We pay for the bombs. We pay for the F-16s and F-35s. And then we do the poor Palestinians a favor and send them some food.
Speakers also expressed anger over the violent crackdown on several pro-Palestinian protest camps at universities across the country. In recent weeks, long-term camps have been broken up by police at more than sixty schools; just under 3,000 protesters have been arrested.
The students are the conscience of America, said Abuirshad, who compared the university demonstrations to previous protest movements against the war in Vietnam and apartheid South Africa. That’s why the authorities work so hard to silence them.
In addition to pressing Israel and the Biden administration to immediately end hostilities in Gaza, activists have long pushed for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, an Israeli red line in decades of start-and- stop negotiations.
After the Arab–Israeli War that followed the establishment of Israel, Israel refused to allow them to return as this would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within Israel’s borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers about six million people, most of them living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In Gaza, refugees and their descendants make up about three-quarters of the population.
At several points during the rally and subsequent march, demonstrators staged a call-and-response, with the speaker naming several cities in Israel and the occupied territories. The answer: raageh! Arabic for I’ll be back!
The demonstrators marched for several blocks along Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues as police cars closed the streets ahead of them. One lone counter-protester, waving an Israeli flag, attempted to march to the front of the procession. At one point, one of the protesters grabbed his flag and ran away.
As tensions rose, members of the protesters’ security team formed a tight phalanx around the man, both to impede his progress and to protect him from hotheads in the crowd. The standoff was broken when a police officer intervened, led the man away and told him to go home.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: May 19, 2024 | 7:49 am IST