In Washington, DC, on Saturday, hundreds of anti-war organizations and pro-Palestine groups converged for what is almost universally agreed to have been the largest demonstration in support of Palestine in US history.
According to the organizers, roughly 300,000 people attended the protest, which filled Freedom Plaza and extended down much of Pennsylvania Avenue, as well as several surrounding streets.
However, the DC rally and march was just one of several around the globe, which still managed to eclipse the American demonstration. In London, perhaps twice as many rallied, and in Jakarta, an estimated 2 million people marched against Israel’s monthlong bombardment of Gaza, which has killed more than 10,000 people.
Still, media reports gave vague numbers in their reports that downplayed the protest numbers, reporting only “thousands,” and trying to recast the purpose of the demonstration as being to oppose US President Joe Biden, rather than to demand Biden’s administration use its diplomatic weight to force Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza.
Rev. Graylan Hagler, a senior adviser for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and pastor emeritus of the Plymouth United Church of Christ in Washington, DC, told Radio Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Monday that the demonstrations were an eruption of outrage driven by pain at what the Palestinian people have suffered since Israel’s creation in 1948, when 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of the new country in an event they call al-Nakba: the Catastrophe.
“It was a massive march - hundreds of thousands, I don’t know the number, but you couldn’t easily walk down the street and you couldn’t even hear the speakers, because there were so many people. The reality is that it was one of the largest pro-Palestinian marches in DC that ever happened,” Hagler told hosts Michelle Witte and John Kiriakou.
“Folks were calling for a ceasefire, calling to dismantle the Apartheid regime in Israel, calling for a free Palestine. It was young folks, old folks, families, everybody you can imagine,” he said. “And the fact is, there was also a media blackout, by all means and purposes, here in DC, because the media didn’t want people to know the extent of the march and the extent of the protest.”
One of the chants at the protest, led by a prominent American Muslim leader, was that “in November, we remember” - that is, that American Muslims and Arabs should refuse to vote for Biden or the Democrats as punishment for their unflinching support for Israel.
“I think people are going to remember. There is a need for Biden to figure out: where is his administration’s stance? They got blood on their hands, and blood is on the hands of the American people as we allow continued unbridled support for the genocidal enterprise that Israel is carrying out against Palestinians. People are going to remember.”
“But for them to just reduce it to a political discussion that has ramifications on the elections in November is to try to diminish the impact of this march and what it means,” Hagler said. “What it means is that the ideology in America is changing against Israel. We’re starting to see Israel for what it is: it’s an Apartheid state, it needs to be challenged, it needs to be deconstructed like we deconstructed South Africa in the anti-apartheid movement. There is white supremacy in Israel on steroids and it needs to be challenged.”
Hagler said the White House’s claims that there is nothing more it can do to influence Israel to halt its assault on Gaza “are enough to make a preacher cuss.”
“The reality is, it’s so ludicrous, because this administration needs to show some backbone, needs to try and be the purveyors of justice and morality that they want to be seen as. Right now, the blood is flowing and kids are being killed and families are being destroyed. I marched with a woman who was from Gaza on Saturday, who was a Palestinian Christian, born and raised in the church in Gaza that was just bombed. Her family went there for refuge and was bombed. That’s what’s going on. The Biden administration needs to understand that its hands are not tied, it’s got to use its moral weight and it’s got to use its legislative weight to change the course of this war.”
The hosts asked Hagler about one news story dominating the headlines: a reported precipitous rise in antisemitism over the last month, presented in media reports and by pro-Zionist organizations as a consequence of the rising support for Palestine and criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza.
“Let’s talk about language. One of the things when we talk about antisemitism. I went to a conference in Philadelphia a month and a half ago on Palestine Writes, made up of writers, poets, dancers, essayists. They were called antisemitic just for being Palestinians. They were called terrorists for just speaking out about the culture of Palestinians. And we forget that Palestinians are a semitic people. Somehow this term has been taken over, used, controlled, when in fact people have been fired because they are Palestinian. That’s antisemitic. The writer of ‘Mornings in Jenin,’ her writer was fired from her job because her employers went back and looked at Facebook posts where she participated, as a Palestinian, in Palestinian marches, and so they fired her. That’s antisemitic.”
“Jews can’t capture the term all by itself. The way the term is being used now is to try to silence folks, to tie down and to malign people who are engaged in talking about human rights, to malign people and to diminish the discussion of people who are talking about genocide in Gaza, and the number of people who are being arrested and imprisoned in the West Bank. To talk about Israel and to be critical of it is not to be antisemitic, but in fact it is to be pro-justice, pro-human rights, and pro-protection of life.”
“We’ve been silent too long. We have not cried the tears for 75 years of Palestinian oppression, we have not been outraged for 75 years of Palestinian oppression, we have not been outraged over a blockade that has been imposed on Gaza since 2005. It’s time to be outraged, not just for what happened on October 7, but to be outraged about what happened from 1948 on up to the present.”
When asked about a bill introduced by US Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) that would ban Palestinians from entering the United States and revoke the admittance of people with Palestinian Authority passports since October 1, Hagler replied: “it’s called racism: that’s what it is. There’s no other word for it, it is basically racist in its character and in its supposition.”