The chant of the night was “Not in our name; not on our dime!”
As bombs rain down on the Gaza Strip, a shift in public consciousness is taking place on Palestine/Israel. It’s being led by Palestinians and by anti-Zionist Jews, by young people of all races inspired by the racial-justice mass protests of recent years and who refuse to accept that responding to Hamas’ atrocities with even bigger atrocities is okay.
Last night, thousands of Jews and their allies filled Grand Central Station and the surrounding streets chanting “Ceasefire now!” and “Let Gaza Live!” One protester stood on a ledge above a ticket booth holding a sign that read “Never again for anyone.”
Roughly 300 protesters were arrested in what organizers called an “emergency sit-in.” The event was led by Jewish Voices for Peace. Metro North service was suspended during the protest. One sympathizer told The Indypendent, “No worries, I’ll take the train up to Harlem.”
archive link: https://archive.ph/tmlq5
There are plenty of people who need to see protests like these. Too often do I see people on both sides in this conflict assume that the Israeli government=all Jews and Hamas=all Muslims.
War and terrorism are a messy topic. Violence provokes emotion and clouds judgement, and instability brings uncertainty. Together, it’s easy to fall back to hasty prejudice and black-and-white thinking, because nuance is difficult and fog of war makes even factual reporting difficult.
I don’t blame people for making those assumptions, but events like this one to help rectify that should be reported on at least as much as the actual violence, to ground people and support deescalation.
Yeah. I recently was hanging out with some Jewish friends and they’re all so frustrated. They want peace, not revenge. Anti Zionism began as a Jewish philosophy and more people need to understand that
