Jarod Facundo
Protesters in Washington calling for a cease-fire in Gaza position themselves near an entrance to the White House grounds, October 16, 2023.
WASHINGTON – “We’re calling on the U.S. government to do everything in its power to stop a genocide from unfolding in Gaza,” said Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of IfNotNow, one of the two American Jewish organizations hosting the demonstration at the White House on Monday. The event, featuring over 1,000 protesters calling for a de-escalation of tensions in the Middle East, was part of a growing response to the pressure facing the Biden administration to unconditionally support Israel’s counteroffensive following Hamas’s incursion into Israeli settlements, which left more than 1,400 dead, and another 3,400 injured. Israel’s swift response so far has left almost 2,800 Palestinians dead and another 10,000 injured, with a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip expected any day now.
Casualties in Gaza are likely to rise. Israel issued a warning to the United Nations days ago for civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours. Still, 70 Palestinian evacuees were killed by an Israeli airstrike even after following the orders. Meanwhile, Hamas urged Gazans to stay in place; the organization’s military wing is holding upwards of 100 Israeli hostages. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have already been displaced from their homes.
Amid the escalating geopolitical tensions, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, the demonstration’s organizers, arrived at the White House with a clear message: demanding the Biden administration exert its leverage to order a cease-fire in Gaza.
On Monday afternoon, The Intercept reported that 13 progressive Democratic lawmakers had signed on to a resolution urging the White House to call for an “immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.” The demonstration gave an outside voice to those efforts.
Around 1,500 demonstrators arrived in front of the White House, carrying signs with slogans such as “My Grief Is Not Your Weapon,” “No to War, No to Apartheid,” and “Stop Genocide in Gaza.” The protesters spread to the edges of the White House’s gated compound, blocking entrances frequently used by federal employees and members of the White House press corps. For example, demonstrators blocked Fox News’s Peter Doocy from exiting the White House grounds.
By strategically assembling themselves at the edges of the entrance, the demonstrators sought to send their message to White House staff members, rather than positioning themselves front and center at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for public view.
Before arriving at the White House, a demonstrator, Rose Espinola, told the Prospect that they considered risking arrest to demand a cease-fire a “deeply Jewish ritual.”
Another attendee, a 23-year-old Jewish American named Thomas, told the Prospect, “My worst fear is some kind of a genocide by Israel against Palestinians living in Gaza … A small faction of Israelis talk in a way that’s dehumanizing Palestinians and acting like these are expendable lives, taking advantage of the chaos in [Gaza].”
He added, “If Biden with the kind of leverage we have doesn’t call for a cease-fire, that’s a situation where so many lives can be lost.”
Thomas also noted Israel’s recent reversal of blocking water from southern Gaza because of pressure exerted by the Biden administration, which to him signaled that there’s room for the U.S. to prevent further violence against Palestinians. “Continuing to shift the rhetoric can make a pretty big difference,” he said.
In total, more than 30 activists were arrested at the demonstration for alleged unlawful entry and entrance blocking, The Washington Post reported.
President Biden was still in Washington on Monday, receiving briefings at the White House. But on Wednesday he travels to Israel and then on to Jordan. The Israeli news site Walla has reported that any ground invasion of Gaza has been “postponed to an unknown date,” at least until Biden is out of the region. This underscores the importance of the administration’s voice.
Even as the White House has resisted the most hawkish elements of the Republican and Democratic Parties, anything short of demanding a cease-fire, according to Zimmerman, sets in motion a path where the U.S. may get “deeply embroiled in setting off a chain of reactions across the region that would be catastrophic for a lot of people.”
The danger in the absence of a cease-fire, according to Zimmerman, has become all too real in the lives of Palestinian Americans. She was referring to the tragic murder of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois who was stabbed to death by his landlord, which the local sheriff's department reported as a likely anti-Muslim hate crime. Al-Fayoume’s mother sustained injuries too and is expected to survive. The White House immediately responded: “This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are.”
“I hope there’s some soul-searching happening in the Biden administration this week,” Zimmerman said. “Israeli and Palestinian voices have been saying for years that [U.S. foreign policy toward Israel] is unsustainable for Palestinians and a direct security risk to Israelis.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. military has prepared approximately 2,000 noncombat troops on standby to support Israel.
