Marx21 has previously reported from the spirited demonstration that marched from the Israeli embassy to the UN in New York City October 9th. The city has seen a plethora of other demonstrations since. In this round-up, we report on three of them, plus protests in Portland Oregon and Tempe Arizona. Written by Marx21 members M. N. Dahan and Eric Fretz in New York, Nathaniel in Arizona, and Noëlle in Portland.
New York City: “Jews Say – Stop Genocide Against Palestinians.” October 13
Over a thousand people rallied in Brooklyn, New York on a Friday night behind the banner “Jews Say – Stop Genocide Against Palestinians.”
Politicians and the press have been insistent on using the Hamas attacks as a way to pull the more progressive Jewish community away from what was a growing solidarity with Palestine. That made this demonstration, called by Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and others, especially important. Speakers drew cheers saying “As Jewish New Yorkers, we are here to say, ‘Not in Our Name,’” “Genocide is Not a Jewish Value” and urging participants to “throw your bodies on the gears of the U.S. war machine.”
We marched from Prospect Park to Senator Chuck Schumer’s nearby apartment, filling the entire block and chanting not just “Not In My Name,” but “Free, Free Palestine.” Later in the night people sat blocking the street in a planned act of civil disobedience. Over 50 people were arrested, including Alissa Wise from JVP and other rabbis, and 81-year old Jewish New Yorker Professor Rosalind Petchesky. The same day similar protests happened outside Congressional offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, called by JVP and other Jewish groups opposing the imminent catastrophe in Gaza and the US support for it.
If Not Now and JVP called on the crowd to join in planned actions in Washington DC “to demand that Biden implement a ceasefire and force Israel to halt its war on Palestinians in Gaza.”
DSA & JVP Say “Cease Fire Now” in Midtown Manhattan, October 20
Many hundreds gathered on a rainy Friday for a “Cease Fire Now” rally for Gaza called by New York City DSA along with Adalah and Jewish Voice for Peace.
While the rally was called for Bryant Park, protesters gathered on the front steps of the main New York Public Library on 5th Avenue. The speakers talking through a megaphone were hard to hear through the crowd and their umbrellas. From what we could hear, speakers mainly focused on the tragedy in Gaza, and the call for an immediate ceasefire, while against killing on either side. Morgan Bassichis of Jewish Voice for Peace told the crowd “We will not let Jewish pain and Jewish fear and Jewish grief be weaponized to justify the collective punishment of Palestinians, to justify the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.” DSA members circulated a leaflet calling on people to email their Congress people. Protest marshals were alert to make sure no antisemitic messages were present.
The crowd had grown to over a thousand when they marched to the nearby office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, where many sat in the wet street outside and blocked traffic in a planned act of civil disobedience. They chanted “Senator Gillibrand, we will not stop until you call for a ceasefire.” Finally, 139 protesters were arrested, including Brooklyn state Sen. Jabari Brisport (a DSA member) and City Council Member Shahana Hanif. Brisport posted the next day “Last night I was arrested with 100+ peace activists calling for an immediate ceasefire. We will not let our leaders repeat the mistakes of the past by escalating this war.” Hanif added “A ceasefire is the only way to bring all hostages home!”
However, one veteran activist told me “I hate all this ceasefire stuff,” and handed out a sign that read “Cease Genocide.” Right now, as bombs fall on Gaza and people fear the horrors of an IDF invasion, support for a ceasefire is understandable, and it would currently be an obstacle to Israeli and US plans. A poll published October 20th showed 66 percent of US voters “strongly” or “somewhat” agree that “the U.S. should call for a ceasefire” (including 80% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans). But there are implicit dangers of “ceasefire” being the main demand of the movement. On its own, it implies a return to the status quo of apartheid, colonization and occupation, without all-out war. It ignores the ongoing violence by West Bank settlers, and the policing of occupation. And importantly, it ignores the right of an occupied population to armed resistance. Currently, socialists should be willing to back demonstrations where “ceasefire” is a demand along with others like “end the occupation.” We would not support the demand for “ceasefire” if it signified the unrealistic goal of laying down arms by “both sides” during a continuing occupation.
Portland, Oregon, Rallies October 19 and 21
Portland Oregon saw two rallies for Palestine in short succession, the second larger than the first. On Thursday, October 19, several hundred rallied outside Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s office in Portland demanding he sign the House Ceasefire Now resolution.
“What we’re seeing is the genocide of the people of Gaza and we’re saying this must stop,” said Heather Dorfman, a Portland member of Jewish Voice For Peace, who helped organize the rally, along with Portland State University’s Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights and other groups.
JVP organizer Sara Jaffe said “We’re here, in addition to calling for ceasefire, to say that it’s time to end the genocide of Palestinians, it’s time to end the current and ongoing blockade on Gaza that denies Gazans access to the basic necessities of life, and it is time to demand that the US stop sending billions of dollars every year to fund the Israeli military and Israeli apartheid.”
Organizers led the crowd in singing “Ceasefire Now” and “Not in Our Name.” People also chanted “End the Blockade” and “Free Palestine!”
On Saturday 21, a much larger emergency “All Out for Gaza” demonstration again started outside Blumenauer’s office in the afternoon. Well over a thousand people chanted “Free, Free Palestine!” and “Gaza Gaza don’t you cry, Palestine will never die!” as they marched from Blumenauer’s office, across the Burnside Bridge, and into downtown Portland. People also chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.”
Although there is an attempt by pro-Zionists to pretend that these chants are antisemitic and imply the elimination of Jewish people, this is patently a lie. In fact, the chants show a growing awareness that peace will only come with an end to the occupation. The often-proposed two-state solution not only looks impossible now, but would not solve the problems. No where in the world is ethnic cleansing and division into competing ethno-states an answer to racism, occupation, or genocide. The only lasting peaceful solution would be a democratic and secular state for Jews, Muslims, Christians.
Portland DSA was present, along with contingents of revolutionary left groups including Marx21 and Party for Socialism and Liberation, who brought many signs. But there were many marchers outside of any organized group, and the vast majority of signs were hand-made.
Machers in Portland were conscious of being part of protests around the world. If Israel starts a full ground invasion of Gaza, streets in the Middle East will explode in rage, and we in America must join them.
Tempe All Out for Palestine, October 21
Close to 2,000 people marched in Tempe Arizona in an “All Out for Palestine” protest on a sunny Saturday, October 21st. The event was sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine at Arizona State University, along with Phoenix Metro Black Lives Matter, Mecha de ASU, Ankabayan (a Phoenix Filipino Community Org), Code Pink, and others. We gathered at Arizona State University, and marched through some main avenues chanting “From the River to the Sea, Set Palestine Free!” and “Resistance is justified.” A poster party beforehand resulted in scores of hand-painted signs in the colors of the Palestinian flag. Many also carried printed “No to Genocide” signs. There was a good turnout of local ASU students on the demo, along with members of the local Arab communities (some wearing Keffiyehs), the organized left and others.
Many voiced opposition to US support for the Israeli military.
Palestinian-American May Ratsi said “I feel frustrated at the world for being unfair and unjust to the Palestinian people. I am frustrated at our government for giving billions of dollars and weapons to bomb the children in Gaza. … I think that’s why we are all here.”
Many, like ASU alumni Leena, felt that “We are simply asking for humanity.” But several protesters were interested in discussing strategies or Palestinian liberation.
Eslam Hag attended with his family, saying he wanted to show his daughters how “they speak up” against what is wrong.
Although many on the March shared the frustration, horror and anger at the effects of occupation, speakers also held out hope for the struggle.
A speaker from Students for Justice in Palestine discussed the alarming rise of islamophobia and antisemitism, and told the crowd, “I want to tell them we are not terrorists, we are resistors!”
The rally ended with Palestinian poet Ahmad Abdallah reading “When we are up here saying, ‘Free Palestine’ — it’s not a demand, it’s a spoiler.”
There will be another Arizona All Out for Palestine rally in Phoenix, October 27th. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyu19NPumBT/
Tens of Thousands “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” in Bay Ridge, October 21
The day after the Bryant Park event, on the October 21st National Day of Action for Palestine, there was a significantly larger demonstration in Brooklyn called by several Palestinian organizations, including Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and Samidoun.
A huge crowd gathered quickly packing a full block on 5th Avenue and spilling over into several adjoining blocks in the Bay Ridge, which has seen more Arab residents moving into what had been a more conservative Italian neighborhood.
The extent of the rally can be seen from aerial drone footage.
WOL posted “at least 50,000 people flooded the streets of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to demand an end to the ongoing U.S. sponsored genocide of the Palestinian people, an end to the siege of Gaza, and the full liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. The more they try and silence us, the louder we become.”
Chants like “Free Free Palestine” have been shared by all the recent demonstrations, but on Saturday the more radical chants were noticeably more common than on Friday. “There is only one solution: Intifada, Revolution!” was enthusiastically chanted. There was no apparent support for a two-state solution, and people picked up the chant “We don’t want no two states, we want Forty-Eight,” referring to the unitary Palestine (which included Muslims, Christians and Jews) that existed before the UN partition and the Nakba. Chants were mostly in English, but Arabic chants were also taken up by much of the crowd. A group of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews, who had walked many miles to the demonstration on the Saturday sabbath, spoke to the crowd to appreciative cheers, and led a chant “Judaism Yes, Zionism No, The State of Israel Must Go.”
The rally included people of all ages, including family groups, and seamlessly integrated Arab and non-Arab participation. This included a solid participation of Jewish individuals besides the small but more visible (and all male) Orthodox contingent. It also seemed that a cohort energized by the BLM protests have enthusiastically took up Solidarity with Palestinians and the cause of struggle against the Zionist settler-colonial state. Revolutionary Left groups were a small minority, but their banners and papers were welcome. There was no visible presence of the DSA, who had been out the night before.
Speakers were consistent in opposing the occupation of Palestine, and supporting Palestinian resistance. Nerdeen Kiswani, of Students for Justice in Palestine and WOL, was one of many speaking against US support for Israel, telling the crowd “these officials are telling us to our face that they support the genocide of Palestinians.” Another speaker noted she is always asked, “do you condemn Hamas.” She answered to cheers, “you know what, I’m not going to answer until you condemn 75 years of Israel’s nasty attacks.” She noted that 4,550 Palestinian Political Prisoners have been in Israeli dungeons longer than the 200 hostages taken by Hamas. They include 170 Palestinian children who, she said, should be “released first.” (The numbers she quoted corresponded to older figures from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza. Since then, reports AlJazeera, numbers of Palestinian political prisoners have more than doubled to 10,000).
After a few hours of speakers and chanting, the crowd started to move through Bay Ridge. As with many demonstrations here, the organizers had not negotiated an official permit to march, but with this many people there was no question of stopping them taking the streets, and the mood was positive.
Police Violence
After more hours of marching, the crowd started to thin out. There was still a committed core left as night fell, and the police started to step up their interference, eventually barging into the crowd and trying to stop the march.
Initially off to the sidelines, the NYPD had brought in the hated “Strategic Response Group,” already condemned by the NYCLU for its abuse of power and lack of accountability. At one point, a NYPD helicopter flew low over the crowd in a loud and intimidating fashion.
That night there were nineteen protesters arrested in Bay Ridge, according to the NYPD. WOL reported that three of them were minors, and at least two protestors suffered injuries from the actions of the NYPD.
WOL posted footage of a cop charging into the crowd and repeatedly striking protesters with his baton.
Much of this treatment of the New Yorkers protesting in Bay Ridge runs counter to the commitments the NYPD made to resolve a raft of lawsuits filed in response to police violence during the 2020 George Floyd protests. But that pending settlement, which on paper would commit the NYPD to graduated, proportional, and rationally justified responses to protests, has not been enacted.
“From New York to Palestine: Globalize the Intifada!”
(all photos by the authors)
Marx21 US 
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