by Nick Pope and Arjun Singh
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, D.C., for a protest against Israel’s war to eliminate Hamas on Saturday, just blocks from the White House.
Numerous anti-Israel activist organizations, including Code Pink and , organized the so-called “National March on Washington: Free Palestine” protest, which saw tens of thousands of attendees descend upon Freedom Plaza, waving Palestinian flags and protesting against the Israeli military response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, just a few hundred yards away from the White House. The huge crowd chanted slogans accusing President Joe Biden of being complicit in a “genocide” against the Palestinian population while also repeatedly chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a phrase which is often interpreted to be an explicit call for the erasure of Israel and its people, according to the American Jewish Committee.
The protest began around 2 p.m., when organizers began to deliver speeches and lead chants with the assembled crowd, the Daily Caller News Foundation observed. At one point, protesters chanted “We say no, genocide Joe,” referencing their dissatisfaction with Biden’s pro-Israel position.
“Israel, with the full backing of the U.S. government, is carrying out an unprecedented massacre in Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians are being killed with bombs, bullets and missiles paid for by U.S. tax dollars,” Code Pink, one of the principal organizers of the protest, states on a webpage promoting the event. “This is the latest bloody chapter in the colonial project of Israel, founded with the objective of dispossessing Palestinians from their land.”
Code Pink is an anti-war activist organization that has defended the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim population, which many human rights experts have determined to rise to crimes against humanity, according to The New York Times. The organization’s leader, Jodie Evans, is married to tech billionaire Neville Roy Singham, who the Times has described as standing in the center of “a global web of Chinese propaganda” consisting of nonprofit groups and media projects.
The National Students For Justice in Palestine also assisted to organize the event, according to Code Pink’s promotional materials. Individuals who appeared to be affiliated with the United Auto Workers and the Council on American-Islamic Relations were also present at the event, the DCNF observed.
Many organizations and individuals on the political left have consistently protested against Israel for fighting back against Hamas. Democratic Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Greta Thunberg, chapters of Black Lives Matter and university students across the country have all called for an immediate ceasefire or adopted even more expressly pro-Palestinian positions.
Some individuals traveled from as far away as Wyoming, Montana and British Columbia, Canada, to attend the protest, the DCNF observed.
Left-wing critics of the Israeli response often paint its ongoing military operations against Hamas as a continuation of an ongoing “genocide” or colonialism. The population of the Palestinian territories increased by about 4 million people between 1960 and 2020, according to data from Statista.
Code Pink, the National Students for Justice in Palestine and the White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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Nick Pope and Arjun Singh are reporters at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Pro-Palestine Rally” by CAIR.
