Washington DC – US President Joe Biden may have been preparing to address Congress, but protesters gathered outside the US Capitol had their own message: “Stop funding Israel” and “Complete the ceasefire now.”
About 150 protesters gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue – the thoroughfare that connects the White House to the headquarters of the US Legislature in Washington, DC – ahead of Thursday’s annual address.
Organizers said they wanted to block Biden’s passage, or at least make him find another route, on his way to the 9 p.m. local time (0000 GMT Friday) speech. Five months into the war in Gaza, they said greater pressure than ever was needed, with more than 30,000 Palestinians dead and nearly two million facing a humanitarian catastrophe.
“As President Biden prepares to deliver the State of the Union address, we are here to say: no more genocide with our tax dollars,” Cat Knarr of the Campaign told Tel Aviv Tribune United States for Palestinian Rights.
Protesters near the Capitol unfurled a Palestinian flag the size of a swimming pool on the asphalt of the avenue. They held signs reading “Biden’s legacy is genocide” and “End the occupation.”
“When Palestine is attacked, what do we do? Stand up, fight back! » they chanted, some holding electric candles.
“From Washington to Palestine, occupation is a crime,” they said.
As the eyes of the nation prepare to watch Biden, protester Joanna, a 39-year-old accountant by day, said it was more important than ever to take to the streets.
“I feel like they are killing me with my hands with my tax money,” she said.
“I simply cannot remain silent while genocide is happening. It’s wrong because it’s wrong, so I have to use my voice every day.
Organizer Knarr also thinks of the people of Gaza every day: “As a Palestinian, the granddaughter of a man who survived the Nakba, these are my people, and I have no choice but to wake up every day and think about what they are going through. The Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their historic lands and villages in 1948 during the creation of Israel. Around 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed during the Nakba.
U.S. officials said Biden was preparing to announce plans to build a temporary port to deliver more aid to Gaza. It comes shortly after the administration began dropping aid to the enclave and Vice President Kamala Harris called for a short-term “ceasefire” as part of a agreement to release captives, in a rhetorical turn, but largely meaningless.
Yet after months of unequivocal support for Israel’s war — and continued transfer of aid and weapons — protesters say the administration is still only playing at the margins.
For its part, the United Nations said famine was imminent in the enclave and that Israel continued to slow aid deliveries to and within Gaza. An increase in reliable land deliveries – not sea or air drops – is needed to prevent more deaths from hunger, UN officials said.
Knarr dismissed the new Biden plan, which is expected to take weeks to implement, calling it “another publicity stunt.”
“After financing all these bombs dropped by Israel, which completely devastated Gaza and killed 30,000 Palestinians,” she said. “It’s just infuriating that Palestinian lives are not valued.”
Thursday’s State of the Union comes days after voters in several states sent a message to the Biden administration at the polls. In Minnesota, more than 45,000 voters voted “no commitment” in protest. This came a week after at least 100,000 Michigan voters did the same.
Thursday’s protest highlighted that same solidarity, organizer Jennifer Falcon told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“We are now seeing people expressing their anger in the voting booth and that is something that Democrats should be very afraid of,” Falcon said. “(Democrats) have lost the morality to use Trump as a fear tactic and people have had enough.”
The State of the Union is typically a time when U.S. presidents salute their administration’s successes and offer a vision for the future.
But Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Huwaida Arraf said the protesters in Washington, D.C., actually represented the ideals Biden claims to stand for.
“We know that as Joe Biden stands before millions of people and enlightens the people, that the State of the Union is prosperous and the people are doing well,” Arraf, brandishing a megaphone, told protesters in a speech.
“We know the State of the Union, the State of the Union is genocide,” she said. “We will not accept a president who claims to fight for democracy while ignoring the majority of citizens he represents. »
Shortly after his speech, the presidential motorcade approached Pennsylvania Avenue, taking a left turn to avoid protesters heading toward the Capitol.
