March of hate

Thousands of protesters traveled to the nation’s capital this past weekend to attend the National March for Palestine. This event began on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and finished at the Capitol. The March for Palestine was a pro-Palestinian rally supposedly calling for an end to US aid for Israel. This march went far beyond protesting foreign policy and expressing support for Palestinian rights. Instead, attendees called for the destruction of the state of Israel by spewing hatred and antisemitic propaganda. 

The main sponsors of this event were the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an organization that has called to sanction Israel due to claims of human rights violations. These solidarity movements have disguised their antisemitic ideologies through the lens of social justice, and are incredibly conflicting to any overarching goal of peace in the region for both Israelis and Palestinians. These organizers had one goal, to further incite hate against Jews and Israel. 

Antisemitic attacks have spiked in the United States and all over the world since the deadly conflict between Israel, a democratic state, and Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist organization. During the eleven-day conflict, Hamas fired over 3200 rockets into Israel directly aimed at innocent civilians, causing both Israeli and Palestinian casualties. As a result of misinformation and media bias over the conflict, anti-Israel sentiment has turned from criticizing a government to targeting the Jewish people as a whole. These antisemitic attacks have culminated in forms of physical violence, destruction, and slurs against Jewish people worldwide. 

What began as standing in solidarity for Palestine turned into shouting a widely known terrorist chant: “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.” This phrase calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the land of Israel, and for the mass destruction of the Jewish state. Additionally, according to the BDS Report, swastikas were present at the rally, as was blood libel, and posters containing the Star of David crossed out with blood-colored ink. 

This was no peaceful protest, and it was never intended to be. The mission of this march was to further the goals of BDS, spread antisemitic propaganda, and call for the destruction of the Jewish state. It only created further division and will continue to do so through the delegitimization and dehumanization of Israel in order to push a pro-Palestine agenda that leaves no room for peace.