{"id":270369,"date":"2024-07-29T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=270369"},"modified":"2024-07-26T04:27:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T03:27:28","slug":"thousands-shut-down-the-us-capitol-to-protest-israels-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/thousands-shut-down-the-us-capitol-to-protest-israels-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands Shut Down the US Capitol to Protest Israel\u2019s Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Wire – Jewish Voice for Peace – July 2024<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Jul 2024 –<\/em> Thousands of people of conscience from across the US turned out to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s visit to D.C. this week \u2014 including hundreds of American Jews who were arrested while engaged in prayerful civil disobedience, demanding an immediate arms embargo on Israel.<\/p>\n

If the last two weeks have shown us anything, it is that the political terrain can shift on a dime. President Biden has dropped out of the Presidential election, and it is clear that grassroots pressure against his support for Israel\u2019s genocide played a role.<\/p>\n

Now is the moment to escalate movement demands for an arms embargo. The U.S. government needs to end its support for this genocide now.<\/p>\n

\u2018Jews say stop arming Israel\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A day before Netanyahu\u2019s address to Congress, hundreds of American Jews occupied<\/a> the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in prayerful civil disobedience, demanding an immediate arms embargo on Israel.<\/p>\n

The sit-in, held by Jewish Voice for Peace, came nearly nine months after JVP\u2019s mass protest in the same location, when U.S. Jews gathered in the hundreds, ten days into the genocide, to demand a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

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October 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

Yesterday\u2019s sit-in was led by over a dozen rabbis, who wore hand-made prayer shawls emblazoned with the words \u201cNever Again for Anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of protesters \u2014 including students, Israeli Americans, and the descendants of Holocaust survivors \u2014 joined them in prayer and song, donning red shirts with the messages \u201cJews Say Stop Arming Israel\u201d and \u201cNot in Our Name,\u201d and holding banners that called for an end to Israel\u2019s genocide. Over 400 people were arrested by Capitol Police.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Guilty of genocide\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On Wednesday, as Netanyahu prepared to address a joint session of Congress, thousands of people of conscience took to the streets<\/a> in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

The protest was organized by a Palestinian-led coalition. JVP members were there, too, alongside representatives from over 100 grassroots human rights organizations, demanding that the U.S. government\u00a0immediately cease weapons transfers and military funding to the Israeli military. The National Labor Network for Ceasefire, representing millions of American workers, joined<\/a> the protest as well, and the President of the American Postal Workers Union addressed<\/a> the crowd with leaders from United Auto Workers and other unions.<\/p>\n

As protesters marched to the Capitol, carrying signs calling for an end to U.S. military funding to Israel and demanding Netanyahu\u2019s arrest for war crimes, police clad in riot gear attacked them with pepper spray and pushed them back by force.<\/p>\n

Over 130 Representatives and Senators decided not to attend Netanyahu\u2019s address to Congress, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the likely Democratic nominee for President, Vice President Kamala Harris \u2014 far exceeding the 58 members of Congress who skipped his speech in 2015. As Netanyahu attempted to justify the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, asking Congress for bipartisan support to \u201cfinish the job,\u201d the lone Palestinian American representative in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, defiantly held up a sign that read \u201cGuilty of genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shifting terrain<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Just a few days before thousands of us gathered in D.C. to demand the U.S. stop funding Israel\u2019s genocide, President Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential election. This is a massive shift in the political terrain of the U.S.<\/p>\n

For the last nine months, Americans have watched in horror as Biden funded, armed, and provided political cover for Israel\u2019s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. And every day since the genocide began, the movement for Palestinian liberation has made it clear that Biden has the power to end U.S. support for this slaughter immediately.<\/p>\n

In that time, the Israeli military has killed at least 39,000 Palestinians, over 15,000 of whom were children. Full-blown famine has set in as Palestinians across Gaza starve to death under Israel\u2019s brutal siege. This is not war; it is genocide.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s full-throated support for Israel in the face of these atrocities isn\u2019t only a reprehensible policy \u2014 it\u2019s also been a deeply unpopular one. Polling, protest, and organizing have made it clear that Americans don\u2019t want their tax dollars funding the mass slaughter of innocent men, women, and children. But Biden has refused to listen to his constituents.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Biden\u2019s unwavering support for Israel\u2019s genocide played a major role in making him unpopular. Our movements have real power.<\/p>\n

A critical opening<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Biden\u2019s decision reminds us that everything can change on a dime, including the political conditions we once regarded as unmovable. Now, it\u2019s up to our movement to exploit this moment of chaos to recenter Gaza in the national conversation.<\/p>\n

We refuse to wait. If this genocide continues until the next president takes office, there may be no one left alive in Gaza. Biden is still the sitting president, and members of Congress are in office right now. They are responsible for every single human being in Gaza who has been shot, starved, tortured, and bombed with U.S.-made weapons. They must stop supplying Israel with the weapons it is using to commit genocide \u2014 and we\u2019re not letting up the pressure until they do.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we\u2019re capitalizing on the momentum of this moment to push our electeds to enact a meaningful shift in policy by finally imposing an arms embargo on Israel.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding advisory opinion stating that \u201cIsrael\u2019s presence in the Occupied Palestinian territory\u201d is \u201cunlawful\u201d and should end immediately. In this interview with<\/em> +972 Magazine, Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu breaks down the ICJ\u2019s historic ruling. Read more…<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – jewishvoiceforpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span> <\/b><\/i>BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span>campaign<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span> to protest the Israeli barbaric <\/span>genocide<\/b><\/span><\/span> in Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the many thousands of Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up and tortured in Israeli prisons.<\/span><\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/b><\/span><\/span> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/b><\/span><\/span> BARCODE<\/b><\/span><\/span> STARTS WITH<\/b><\/span><\/span> 729<\/b><\/span><\/span>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. <\/span>DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9:<\/b><\/span><\/span> BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE! <\/b><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Jul 2024 – Thousands of people of conscience from across the US turned out to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s visit to D.C. this week \u2014 including hundreds of American Jews who were arrested while engaged in prayerful civil disobedience, demanding an immediate arms embargo on Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":270370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[229,3287,2009,609,87,865,88,475,427,1378,1765,70],"class_list":["post-270369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","tag-activism","tag-anti-zionism","tag-anti-war","tag-demonstrations","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-netanyahu","tag-palestine","tag-protests","tag-us-congress","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270369"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270374,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270369\/revisions\/270374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}