Massive D.C. protest against Netanyahu met with heavy police response

On July 24, tens of thousands took to Washington, D.C.’s streets to protest war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu’s United States Congress address. The police presence in response to the pro-Palestine and pro-human rights protesters was unprecedented. 

The jackbooted police presence included local, state, and federal forces, some of them from secret agencies (not unlike the Gestapo – the German Secret State Police). The NYPD even sent 200 officers to assist the Capitol Police, the D.C. metropolitan police department, the Secret Service, and the U.S. Park Police in their repression of anti-Netanyahu protests. And repress, they did. 

After a rally near the corner of First and Constitution Avenues, the protesters began a march around Capitol Hill. They were almost instantly confronted by the police, whose first action to “de-escalate” the situation was to shower the demonstrators with pepper spray and pepper pellets. 

Eventually, the march made its way to Union Station, where a mob of frothing-at-the-mouth police officers again confronted them. Even before the protesters burned a bust of Benjamin Netanyahu in effigy, along with U.S. and Zionist flags, the police engaged in a series of provocations against the demonstration. These provocations included riot-gear-covered officers marching through the crowd in formation and restricting access to the train station. Once the war criminal sculpture was burned in effigy, the police deployed more chemical agents and brutally arrested multiple protesters. 

It should be noted that many of the individuals who the police attacked throughout the day were easily identifiable as Jewish activists by their clothing and signage. This is important to note because multiple U.S. officials, including current Vice President Kamala Harris, condemned the protests as anti-Semitic and unpatriotic. Harris was joined by her opponent, fascist demagogue Donald Trump, in condemning these allegedly anti-semitic protests. 

The political mainstream threw similar slander at student organizers who pitched campus encampments across the country in solidarity with Palestine. In fact, Jews could be found on both sides of the encampment issue, some standing with the Palestinian people and some standing with the genocidal U.S. war industry. 

The repression our movement faces isn’t going to lessen, but that should not deter us from filling every single street with our solidarity for Palestine and our movement against imperialism. Neither Harris nor Trump is our ally or the ally of the Palestinian people.

Arrest Netanyahu for war crimes! Free Palestine! 

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.