By Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tens of hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Washington on Tuesday for a “March for Israel” to indicate solidarity with Israel in its warfare with Hamas and condemn rising antisemitism.
Streets had been closed round a lot of downtown amid heightened safety, as individuals gathered in shiny sunshine on the Nationwide Mall, many draped in Israeli and U.S. flags.
“We’re right here to indicate the world that we gained’t be exterminated once more,” mentioned Marco Abbou, 57, a private coach from Hackensack, New Jersey, who’s initially from Israel.
Protests and public demonstrations — each pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel — have rippled all over the world since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group Hamas rampaged via southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 individuals, based on Israel, and taking about 240 hostages again to Gaza.
Israel responded with a strict blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza, and an aerial bombardment and floor offensive that Palestinian authorities say has killed greater than 11,000 individuals, round 40% of them kids.
In addition to protests, the battle has sparked an increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents in america together with violent assaults and on-line harassment, based on advocacy teams.
Organizers of Tuesday’s demonstration mentioned they estimated 200,000 individuals had been attending to indicate U.S. assist for Israel, demand the discharge of hostages and condemn antisemitic violence and harassment.
Folks within the crowd held up indicators displaying the names and images of individuals kidnapped by Hamas, and chanted “convey them dwelling”. Different placards included “We have now no the place else to go” and “civilians who reward the slaughter of Jews aren’t harmless.”
Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and chairman of the chief of the Jewish Company for Israel from 2009-2018, known as for the group to struggle for Israel.
“We’ll struggle towards those that attempt to give legitimacy to Hamas. We are going to struggle for Israel. We’ll struggle for each Jew. We are going to struggle towards antisemitism,” Sharansky mentioned.
“We defeated Soviet Union. We’ll defeat our enemies as we speak.”
The most important demonstration in Washington to date associated to the battle on Nov. 4 drew hundreds who known as for the U.S. authorities, Israel’s predominant backer, to name for a ceasefire.
‘NOT INTERESTED IN PEACE’
“A ceasefire is a pause that might enable Hamas to rearm,” mentioned Ariel Ben-Chitrit, 33, a federal authorities employee from Herndon, Virginia, who was carrying a blue and white Israeli flag at Tuesday’s protest.
Ben-Chitrit expressed remorse Palestinian civilians had been struggling and Gaza hospitals being subjected to excessive circumstances, however mentioned the one method to finish the battle was to eradicate Hamas.
“Hamas has confirmed they don’t seem to be thinking about peace,” he mentioned.
The Biden administration has rebuffed requires a ceasefire however has urged Israel to grant pauses within the combating for civilians to maneuver to safer places and for humanitarian assist to enter Gaza.
Underscoring assist within the U.S. Congress for Israel, busloads of senators and members of the Home of Representatives attended the pro-Israel rally. Senator Charles Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic majority chief, and the highest-ranking Jewish elected U.S. official, rescheduled his weekly press convention to attend.
“Hamas’s aim was to scare us. These perpetrating the poison of antisemitism and bigotry all over the world try to scare us,” Schumer mentioned. “However we is not going to enable historical past to slip again to the times of the Holocaust when Jews had been focused and murdered and butchered.”
Authorities ordered an elevated police presence for the demonstration, the Home’s Sergeant at Arms mentioned on Monday, but it surely added there was no particular risk and measures had been being taken out of an abundance of warning.
Tuesday’s rally included Orthodox Jews carrying lengthy black coats and black felt hats, gaggles of youngsters, and self-described “progressive liberals” reminiscent of Erica Taxin, 56, a yoga studio proprietor from Philadelphia.
She mentioned she disagreed with different progressives calling for a ceasefire.
The militants “didn’t simply take hostages however killed kids and peacemakers,” she mentioned, referring to murdered Israeli activists who advocated peace with the Palestinians. “How does which have something to do with social justice?”
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog mentioned in a video tackle that outbursts of antisemitism anyplace are a humiliation to all civilized individuals and nations.
“Jews in America have to be protected. Jews everywhere in the world have to be protected,” Herzog advised the group.
The one counter demonstration witnessed by Reuters correspondents was exterior the primary crowd enclosure, the place a number of dozen Orthodox Jews from anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta chanted “1, 2, 3, 4, Zionism no extra,” and “down, down the state of Israel.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Extra reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis; Modifying by Daniel Wallis)
