More than 1,000 protesters with the organizations If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace descended on the US Capitol complex in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, demanding a ceasefire amidst ongoing violence in Gaza.
The massive demonstration began in the city’s National Mall area before protesters entered the Cannon House Office Building. There, individuals gathered on the floor in the building’s rotunda and chanted protest slogans, many of them wearing black t-shirts that read “not in our name” and “Jews say cease fire now.”
“Look at what's happening in Gaza. Look at the devastation in Gaza,” said Linda Holtzman, 71, a rabbi from Philadelphia who traveled to Washington for the protest. “If you want to be able to live with yourself, you need to stand up and end the genocide.”
“Open your eyes,” said Holtzman in a message addressed directly to US President Joe Biden.
Protester Hannah Lawrence from Vermont agreed, urging Biden to “use [his] power to save innocent lives.”
U.S. Capitol Police officers detain demonstrators protesting inside the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
© AP Photo / Mariam Zuhaib
“We are here because we abhor violence,” said event organizer Medea Benjamin in an interview with Sputnik. “We don't want people killed anywhere, and we are desperate now to stop the killing in Gaza.”
The account for US Capitol Police on the X platform addressed the arrest of over 100 protesters who were detained for their participation in the act of civil disobedience, explaining that “demonstrations are not allowed inside Congressional Buildings.”
Former US Justice Department prosecutor Ronald Sievert told Sputnik that demonstrators who were arrested for their involvement in the protests on Capitol Hill are likely to face trespassing offenses similar to charges leveled against protesters from the January 6, 2021, storming of the federal building. "I would not expect lengthy jail time except for those who assaulted officers," Sievert said.
Benjamin joins a number of prominent Jewish Americans who have spoken out against US support for Israel recently, including commentator Katie Halper, “Chapo Trap House” co-host Felix Biederman and academic Norman Finkelstein.
Large pro-Palestinian protests also continue to take place internationally in England, Scotland, and throughout the Arab world. German police used water cannons to disperse pro-Palestinian protests Wednesday. A French court upheld a ban on pro-Palestine protests enacted over a week ago by the Macron government, but demonstrators have taken to the streets regardless.
Back in Washington, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) released a statement Wednesday that appeared to be aimed at intimidating Jewish protesters, calling Jewish Voice for Peace a “pro-Islamic antisemitic group.”
“I am formally requesting that the United States Capitol Police preserve all video surveillance footage, photographic evidence, police reports, and arrest records,” read the statement concerning Wednesday’s peaceful protests. “The insurrectionists involved must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Greene’s comments mirrored a deteriorating democratic situation in Israel on Wednesday as a committee aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned opposition lawmaker Ofer Cassif from parliamentary proceedings for 45 days. Cassif criticized his punishment as “political persecution,” calling it “another nail in the coffin of freedom of political expression in Israel.”
“As the hours tick by, the magnitude of the horror is revealed – horrific crimes that the mind does not tolerate against children, women and the elderly,” read a statement by Cassif blasting Israel’s recent conduct in Gaza. “Monstrous beastliness and scenes reminiscent of the Holocaust, nothing less than the burning of families and houses on those who are in them. There is no sane person who can not be shocked, seething and disgusted by these sights.”
“The ‘government of atrocities’ is bringing a disaster upon both the people of Israel and the Palestinian people, and now also conducts a McCarthyism-style hunting campaign against critical voices within Israeli society.”
Netanyahu’s current cabinet has been criticized by observers as “beyond extreme” and includes at least one official who has openly self-identified as a fascist.
Israel Defense Forces continued to indefinitely delay a promised ground invasion of Gaza on Wednesday, instead firing rockets at mosques and other buildings in the territory. Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed two Palestinian teens in the West Bank amidst protests over Tuesday’s destruction of a Gaza hospital.
Israel has been engaged in attacks on Gaza since an October 7 surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas that killed 1,400 Israelis. The death toll among Palestinians quickly eclipsed that tally, in accordance with Israel’s official policy of “disproportionate force,” now standing at at least 2,750 per Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Unbalanced coverage in Western media has endangered Muslims globally as well; on Wednesday, hundreds gathered near Chicago, Illinois, to mourn the death of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death by his landlord. Reports indicated the landlord became radicalized by Islamophobic talk radio programs.
Israel has been engaged in violence against the country’s indigenous Palestinian Arab population since large numbers of Zionist settlers arrived in the territory in 1948.