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The Largest Pro-Palestinian Protest in U.S. History was “a Turning Point.” Now it’s Spreading

Henry Hicks IV

When 20-year-old Hanan flew from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to join the National March on Washington for Palestine, he expected there to be, perhaps, 25,000 other protesters. But what he encountered at Freedom Plaza on November 4 was a stunning rolling sea of marchers overwhelming the blocked off streets. The march pulled in an estimated 300,000 supporters, making it the largest rally in solidarity with Palestine in U.S. history.

“I wanted to make sure that there’s a cease-fire,” says Hanan (who declined to give his full name due to concerns about harassment).

Every day, I see kids dying on my phone, and I want to do something to [stop] that. I want to make sure that the kids stop dying.

The march comes after a month of sustained Israeli assault on Gaza, which followed an attack by Hamas on October 7 that killed more than 1,000 people in Israel and saw about 220 people taken hostage. More than 11,000 people in Gaza have been killed by the Israeli military in this act of collective punishment, including more than 4,000 children and at least 155 others in the West Bank.

Comparable to the size of Las Vegas (but with three times the population) Gaza has faced nearly 1,000 Israeli Defense Forces bombs per day since the conflict began, often targeting refugee camps, hospitals, schools and mosques. Some 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced while the Israeli government has largely blocked the flow of electricity, water, food and fuel into Gaza. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine, as well as a former director for the United Nations New York office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have referred to the ongoing assault as an ethnic-cleansing event. Despite this, as well as amidst growing support both domestically and globally for a cease-fire, President Joe Biden and Congress have continued to support the effort, claiming an Israeli “right to defense,” advocating for flashpoint humanitarian pauses and advancing legislation to send funding and weaponry to aid in Israel’s military.

The energy at the historic march was pointedly enraged, rather than solemn, however. It included a spirited rally, the mass of protesters charging through the streets of the nation’s capital, and remarks from 35 speakers who called out to the vast sea of supporters from a large stage just a few blocks away from the White House.

“Our liberation projects will continue to overwhelmingly resource power, freedom and dignity […] to all of us and open new paths to our liberation, decolonization, return,” says Tara Alamani, an organizer with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, who commands the audience with an unshakable resolve in her voice.

“Liberation! Decolonization! Return!”

The electric crowd of marchers—students, artists, faith leaders, parents and organizers, among many others—echoed her calls back to her, chanting in firm unison with one another:

“Liberation! Decolonization! Return!”

Yara Shoufani, 30, and a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), worked as one of the many organizers who shepherded the National March on Washington for Palestine to fruition. PYM, which has 14 chapters spread throughout North America and Europe, began staging local actions following the onset of the Israeli government’s violent and indiscriminate campaign in Gaza. But they also quickly saw the need—and opportunity—to scale up to an unprecedented level.

“As we started to see the genocide unfold on our people in Gaza, there was an immediate sense that we need to do something,” says Shoufani. “We could not continue to do what we’d always been doing. We needed to go further. We needed to take things to the next step… The amount of energy and persistence and determination to stop the genocide was so clear to us. So, we convened with other like-minded organizations and made the decision to start to organize a march on D.C.”

PYM was joined by nine other groups that formed the initial coalition that came together to sponsor the march. That coalition was soon joined by almost 250 organizations and groups who endorsed the effort, including ones with a national reach and campus-level organizations.

“[It] felt like this was a new wave or a turning point in the struggle for Palestine,” says Layan Fuleihan, 32, education director at The People’s Forum, one of the initial cosponsoring organizations. “To have a moment where we could come in full force to Washington, D.C., and make [our] demands heard, was really important to so many people.”

There were three demands put forward by march organizers: end unconditional U.S. aid to Israel, an immediate cease-fire and to lift the ongoing siege of Gaza.

“We don’t want to just hold the line, because that line is not at all far enough,” says Fuleihan.

“Our goal—if we’re in solidarity with Palestine—is to end the occupation. To finish with apartheid. To end the 75 years of brutal [treatment]. It’s been an ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and an ongoing ethnic cleansing. This is the moment where we can’t limit ourselves.”

Shoufani agrees:

“In this particular moment, we are definitely seeing a level of mass movement that feels really historic—and is building on the over 75 years long of people’s struggle. … People [at the November 4 protest] just kept saying that they felt like everything was changing, that nothing would ever be the same after this march.”

Ileana Roque Gonzales, 45, traveled to D.C. from Immokale, Fla. She caught a flight, arrived in the morning and planned to return home that evening. For her and so many others, Palestinian liberation has been an urgent issue for decades, and one with renewed urgency in this current moment.

“It’s appalling that we’re still marching against genocide… This has been going on for so long,” Roque Gonzales says. “[But] this horrible event that happened a month ago, [the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel’s response], it brought our attention back to Palestine and to the area… This time feels a little different.”

In addition to the hundreds of organizations that endorsed the march, the action was attended by a wide array of supporters, all coming from diverse geographic, religious and professional backgrounds. Blocs of LGBTQ attendees marched with pride and in solidarity. Entire families rallied together, offering bullhorns to young children to lead in chants such as “Hey hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go!” Joining them, notably, was an organized cohort that marched as Biden administration staffers. While marching in the crowd, they held spray-painted signs:

“BIDEN. YOUR STAFF DEMANDS A CEASEFIRE.”

An administration staffer who was part of the demonstration spoke to In These Times on condition of anonymity, saying that they, along with numerous other colleagues throughout the administration, “feel so disappointed and defeated by the administration’s response to [the crisis in Gaza] and hope that pressure from both the inside and outside can help change that.”

The group of staffers, including congressional staff who would later host a walkout and vigil on the steps of the U.S. Capitol days later, self-organized in the days leading up to the march.

“It seemed clear that so many of us were feeling the same and willing to do something about it… I want people to know that there are folks on the inside who stand with them; and from many people’s reaction to our group during the march itself, that seemed to have a real impact,” they say.

Jewish activists were also a part of the broad coalition that marched on November 4, rallying under the banners of “Not in our name” and “Never again is now” in an effort to upend the false narrative that Jewish safety and Palestinian liberation are in opposition to one another.

Herb Meisner, 26, a Jewish organizer with the D.C. chapter of IfNotNow, attended the march wearing a yarmulke and tallit. He says that it was important for him to attend and for him to do so while proudly representing his Jewish identity.

“I’m a teacher at a local synagogue here, New Synagogue Project. I came [to the protest] from being an educator [at classes] today, grabbing a coffee and then coming to this protest,” he says.

“This is the most Jewish thing I can do… I refuse to be quiet when a government, including America, is using my name to do war crimes and atrocities.”

While many of the protesters were local to D.C. or the surrounding DMV area, so many others, like Hanan and Roque Gonzalez, traveled by plane, bus or train to get there.

“We had 36 buses from New York City. The buses kept selling out,” recounts Fuleihan. “It’s a lot harder to get a bus from Florida than it is to get one from New York, but it still happened… There were buses from Houston, even. People were on the bus all day and all night to get there.”

Shoufani says that the march “was so critical because it shows us that at the height of all of the repression, all of the surveillance, all of the dehumanization, people are choosing to challenge the fear that they might be feeling, get on a bus and overcome all the barriers in order to take part in a march.”

“We are stronger in numbers. We are stronger when we choose to challenge that fear… It really felt like a community coming together in order to do something that was historic, and to stand on the right side of history,” Shoufani says.

Fuleihan adds that protesters coming to the march “[sent] pictures of planes full of people wearing keffiyehs. In the United States, going in the airport with one of these is … there was a time where you didn’t do that. And now we’re talking about people flying to D.C. together to express this. It’s really impactful.”

Organizers were confident that the spirited energy generated on November 4 will flow outward into local communities, which will elevate the profile of the Palestinian’s struggle, strengthen local organizing efforts and hopefully result in a sustained movement that will continue raising the temperature.

“We can’t all come to DC every single weekend, of course. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not out [organizing]. And that doesn’t mean that we can’t have an impact,” continues Fuleihan.

“In fact, the more we call for a diversity of tactics, the more we can really grow the movement. Everyone, in their own context, suddenly can be someone who’s educating about the Palestinian condition and the Palestinian cause… who is helping shift consciousness in their own community—and that’s really going to make a huge impact.”

Many of the protesters who joined the historic march plan to do just that.

“[I’ll be] telling my friends, telling my coworkers, raising awareness in my community,” says Hanan. “Telling the people that don’t know about this… and just making them realize what’s happening.”

Roque Gonzales plans to “[take] more time and more energy to speak to family members that might not know all the nuances around what’s happening, and what has been happening for a long time. That is what I’m going to be focusing on—starting with family, starting with friends and going from there.”

Meisner says he’ll be “continuing to shout, continuing to share my voice, continuing protests—civil disobedience, if it needs to be.”

PYM and the People’s Forum, say plans are already in motion to keep the ongoing movement for a cease-fire in Gaza and for broader liberation for the Palestinian people.

“We’re working toward something that is not just to say that we made history on November 4, but to actually say, ‘Okay, how are we going to build from here? How are we going to build a sustained movement in order to get our demands?’” says Shoufani. “The morning after the march, we didn’t have a cease-fire. Gaza is still under a siege. A blockade which has been going on for [nearly] 17 years now. And the United States is still sending money to Israel for weapons, and weapons to Israel. Our job is not done, and we know that our job is not done.”

One next step the movement has undertaken includes staging the Global Shutdown for Palestine, an action organized by PYM, National Students for Justice in Palestine, ANSWER Coalition, The People’s Forum and International Peoples’ Assembly. The Global Shutdown, piloted on November 9, calls for mass disruption across all industries—education, media, manufacturing and more.

“We’re calling on mass shutdown of all industries—refusing to continue with business as usual while genocide is unraveling before our eyes,” says Shoufani. In its first wave, the action involved the mass mobilization of students and media workers. Distributed around the country—and the globe—more than 500 actions were held on November 9 to support a cease-fire and a liberated Palestine. Students walked out of classes in Oregon, Arizona, California and several other states. In New York City, protesters and writers occupied the offices of The New York Times, brandishing mock newspapers referring to the historic death toll of journalists caused by the violence overseas and demanding that the editorial board call for a cease-fire.

“[The November 9 shutdown] won’t be the last,” says Fuleihan. “No matter what, people are going to be on the street every day until the demands are met. People are not going to accept anything less at this point.” Polling shows that 66% of American voters support a cease-fire and de-escalation in Gaza.

And, as stated by Feileihan, the people’s energy has persisted. On Sunday, November 12, over 10,000 protesters filled the streets in Austin, Texas, to call for a cease-fire—again, pulling in the attention of national media and signaling the broad unity among Americans on this issue.

Fuleihan says, “Biden, look at your own streets.”

“I believe the culture of deference that exists within the administration and much of D.C. is not healthy,” says a Biden Administration staffer. “With this issue and many others, it only further entrenches the disconnect between what political leadership does and what the American people want.”

“The Palestinian cause is gaining more and more support,” says Hanan, hearing the crowd’s cries for a free Palestine reach their peak as the trod begins its push down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House.

“This support is grassroots, and it’s going to eventually get to the top. Our politicians will see this. And it will make a difference.”

(Courtesy: In These Times, an American independent, nonprofit magazine dedicated to advancing democracy and economic justice.)

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Hundreds of Thousands Join London March to Demand ‘Cease-Fire Now’ in Gaza

Jake Johnson

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as Israeli forces ramped up their aerial and ground assault on the Palestinian enclave’s hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, intensifying the territory’s humanitarian crisis.

Described as one of the largest political demonstrations in U.K. history, the march moved ahead despite criticism from British Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who suggested earlier in the week that the protest should have been banned by London police given that it coincided with Armistice Day. Braverman accused the police of giving favorable treatment to “pro-Palestinian mobs.”

“I am horrified by the tone, language, and incitement our own government is using to whip up hatred against its own citizens—citizens who are standing up in solidarity with the besieged and bombed citizens of Gaza,” British Army veteran and march participant Nadia Mitchell wrote for OpenDemocracy. “Personally, I cannot think of a more appropriate day to demand a cease-fire than on the day we remember the mother of all cease-fires, to remember and honor those who sacrificed their lives in pursuit of peace and an end to war.”

Some U.K. lawmakers, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP John McDonnell, joined Saturday’s march alongside hundreds of thousands of peace activists, union members, and people of all faiths.

“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” demonstrators chanted.

Reuters reported that “police said far-right groups opposing the march were present in central London in ‘significant numbers,’ leading to skirmishes with officers near the Cenotaph war memorial, close to the Houses of Parliament and in Westminster.”

“Officers in riot gear sought to contain the far-right protesters, some of whom threw bottles at them, and police vehicles sped around the city to respond to reports of tensions in the streets,” the outlet added.

Participants in the mass demonstration, meanwhile, marched from London’s Hyde Park to the U.S. Embassy to protest the Biden administration’s unwavering military and political support for the Israeli government as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb.

The head of the World Health Organization told the United Nations Security Council on Friday that Israel’s bombing and siege are killing one child on average every 10 minutes in Gaza.

“Nowhere and no one is safe,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, deputy medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, told The Washington Post on Saturday that hospitals in northern Gaza have become “a graveyard” due to mounting Israeli attacks.

Medical workers at al-Nasr pediatric hospital were forced to leave babies in incubators behind as they evacuated south, Abu Mughaisib said.

“The medical staff evacuated because of the shelling on the pediatric hospital, and they couldn’t save the babies to take them out, so they left five babies alone in the intensive care on the machines and the ventilators,” he told the newspaper. “That’s the situation: leaving babies now alone on the ventilators.”

Saturday’s march was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and other advocacy groups.

“We march to call for an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and a #CeasefireNOW,” PSC director Ben Jamal wrote on social media. “We march in respect of the rights of all to live in freedom and with dignity.”

The demonstration is part of a growing international movement supporting a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as Western leaders, including Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden, refuse to demand an end to Israel’s siege and relentless bombing campaign.

Earlier this week, as Israeli forces encircled northern Gaza, Biden told reporters that there is “no possibility” of a cease-fire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly rejected a proposed five-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of some of the hostages held by Hamas.

Video footage of Saturday’s march shows the streets of central London packed with demonstrators expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza and demanding an end to Israel’s assault, which began after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel last month.

London authorities estimated that around 300,000 people took part in Saturday’s march. Organizers said turnout was as high as 1 million.

“This footage shows the true will of the British people,” wrote Ahmed Alnaouq, a London-based Palestinian journalist and co-founder of the nonprofit We Are Not Numbers. “Hundreds of thousands are protesting peacefully despite rounds of vicious smear campaigns and intimidation. “All say in one word: CEASE-FIRE NOW!”

(Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. Courtesy: Common Dreams, a US non-profit news portal.)

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The Growing Diplomatic Backlash Against Israel’s War on Gaza

Alessandra Bajec

In the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza following Hamas’ 7 October attack, a host of countries have moved to recall their ambassadors or sever diplomatic relations in condemnation of the relentless bombardment of the besieged enclave.

Bolivia was the first country to cut ties with Tel Aviv in late October, followed by Belize this week. Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, Chad, and South Africa have all pulled their ambassadors from Israel in the face of its refusal to agree to even a pause in the conflict, as public anger amounts across the world over the soaring death toll and the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

South Africa, in particular, has been acutely critical of Israel’s war. On Wednesday, the country’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor called for an end to “this real crime against humanity”, saying there were “very, very clear similarities” between Israel’s occupation and the former system of apartheid in South Africa.

Pandor also reiterated calls for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to hold Israel accountable for violations of international criminal law resulting from its ground offensive and airstrikes in Gaza.

South Africa’s active stance reflects the pledge of solidarity with the Palestinian people expressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa last month in his closing remarks to the National Executive Committee of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), when he said Palestine echoed the history of apartheid and South Africa’s struggle against white-minority rule.

Lessons from South Africa

South Africa’s vocal opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza reflects its long history of support for Palestinians and the ANC’s deep links with anti-discrimination activism, with many drawing parallels between how apartheid ended and the struggle against Israel’s military occupation.

The governing party has itself often likened Israel’s ongoing treatment of Palestinians to the apartheid regime that lasted from 1948 to 1994, with solidarity for the Palestinian cause dating back to the years of struggle against white-minority rule.

In a famous speech in 1997, three years after becoming the country’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, said: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” He frequently stated that “Palestine was the greatest moral issue of our time”.

In resisting apartheid, South Africans have long acknowledged the importance of international solidarity in challenging an oppressive system, with international boycotts and sanctions against the South African government in the 1980s eventually playing a key role in the downfall of the apartheid regime.

This historical accomplishment has inspired the growing Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which draws on the same fight to isolate what it sees as a system of racial domination, and the weight of global solidarity efforts could well play a crucial role again in Palestine.

“It is clear that like the apartheid state of South Africa it is going to take a massive boycott, sanction & divestment campaign to force justice for the colonized Palestinian peoples,” Ajamu Baraka, an international human rights activist and organiser, tweeted last week.

But unlike white South African leaders, who eventually chose to end their system of supremacy, Israeli leaders have maintained and entrenched the 56-year military occupation.

“The biggest difference between the South Africa’s late apartheid regime and that of Israel is that there has not been any serious attempt to reach lasting peace from the latter party for decades now,” Ryan Cooper, the managing editor of the American Prospect, wrote in a recent article.

“In South Africa, they understood that apartheid could not continue and indefinitely suppress a large population. But that’s not the case for Israel,” Bruce Riedel, non-resident fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, told The New Arab.

In a 2013 policy brief, Samer Abdelnour, co-founder of Palestinian think-tank Al-Shabaka, noted that while agreements between white Afrikaners and anti-apartheid leaders brought about the dismantling of apartheid, in Palestine agreements have concluded with “the advancement of segregation and Palestinian dispossession”.

Abdelnour also argued that in the South African case huge global pressure was exerted to end racial segregation within a one-state solution, whereas in Palestine the international community is prone to back statehood “without any serious contestation of Israeli apartheid”.

Global backlash against the war on Gaza

Widespread protest marches have been held around the world calling for a ceasefire since the war in Gaza began. South Africans themselves have staged demonstrations almost weekly by the US Consulate in Johannesburg and Israeli embassies in Pretoria and Cape Town.

The rising death toll in the besieged Palestinian territory and increasing unease in Washington have significantly strained the US’ posture amid mounting pressure domestically and abroad. There are concerns in the White House about the potential for further diplomatic backlash overseas in response to Israel’s military aggression.

Cutting diplomatic ties may get the US leadership’s attention, though whether it will persuade the United States and other allies of Israel in the West to meaningfully pressure Tel Aviv is uncertain.

Although the Biden administration has increasingly shifted its public messaging to underscore the importance of safeguarding civilians and following international law, it has so far avoided direct public criticism of Israeli actions.

US allies in the Arab world have also clearly voiced anger at the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s claims of self-defence. But Arab nations, notwithstanding their outcry over the war, don’t seem willing to make serious moves vis-à-vis Israel as they rejected a proposal to cut diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv during a recent Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh.

Jordan is one key regional player whose diplomatic gestures could have an impact. With close to half of its population being of Palestinian descent, sharing a long border with the West Bank and Israel, and serving as the custodian of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, for the Hashemite Kingdom the Israeli onslaught on Gaza is a matter of national security.

Despite a nearly 30-year-long peace treaty with Israel, bilateral relations have been particularly complicated in the last decade, mainly due to tensions over Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

In reaction to the indiscriminate Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the Jordanian parliament unanimously voted on Monday to review agreements signed with Israel, including the 1994 peace treaty.

Riedel, from the Center for Middle East Policy, pointed out that though Israel and Jordan’s relationship has been marked by many crises, the current war has put enormous pressure on Amman to take a strong stance against Israel.

“If this crisis continues to go on, Jordan might have to break ties which would send a very powerful signal,” the Middle East analyst said, adding that severing its relations with Israel would “undermine” the much-needed financial and military assistance provided by the US. He also maintained that the United States is “highly unlikely” to take any dramatic step like cutting off its military or diplomatic support to Israel.

The longer the offensive in Gaza drags on, and the humanitarian situation worsens, the more Arab countries could be pressured by their own populations to take further steps against Israel.

Yet, any such initiatives are expected to have little impact on the war’s conduct in Gaza as Israeli leaders don’t appear to show concern for global public opinion. “The Netanyahu government is extremely right-wing, it doesn’t pay attention to outside pressure,” Riedel added.

Nick Witney, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told TNA that “it is high time the rest of the world applied pressure as per South Africa” though “much depends on how bad things get in Gaza”. Some Western leaders, however, are shifting ground amidst calls for action from their own populations and the global south.

Despite multiplying appeals for a decisive international response, continuous pressure by the Biden administration on Israel to declare a humanitarian pause has produced very few concessions.

Tel Aviv has only agreed to symbolic four-hour daily pauses of military operations in Gaza, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that there will be no ceasefire without the release of hostages held by Hamas.

(Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis. Courtesy: The New Arab, a pan-Arab news website headquartered in London.)