At the same time, US Capitol police arrest dozens of Jewish peace protesters in Washington
A group of elderly Jewish people who want to see an end to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians have chained themselves to the fence of the White House, demanding immediate action from US president Joe Biden to secure a ceasefire and chanting, “Biden, Biden, pick a side, Ceasefire not genocide”:
On Twitter, the group said:
We are Jewish elders, bubbies, tetas, and grandmothers chaining ourselves to the White House, demanding the US stop funding and arming genocide against Palestinians. This is not complicated. Never again means never again for anyone.
As the elders chanted outside Biden’s residence, US police arrested dozens of Jewish and Palestinian peace protesters, who had mounted a sit-in at the Senate to call for a ceasefire and the abandonment of a Biden plan to send billions more in military aid to Israel.
A spokeswoman for one of the groups involved in the protest said:
Funding more death and destruction of human life.. makes no one secure and instead fuels hatred and continued war.
The Senate must heed our urgent demand to stop funding militarism and instead invest in life.
The action by Jewish protesters to condemn Israel’s actions and demand a ceasefire undermines the false narrative pushed by the UK media and Establishment that all Jewish people intrinsically support Israel and its aims and that anti-zionist Jewish groups are somehow ‘fringe’ elements who should not be allowed a voice. In the US, despite moves by Congress to equate anti-zionism automatically with antisemitism, very many Jews are non- or anti-zionist and are fully supportive of Palestinian freedom, self-determination and right of return. Jewish groups have also been prominent in pro-Palestinian marches here, though the UK media often tries to avoid showing them.
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