WASHINGTON DC - "Free Free Palestine! End the Occupation Now!" were the chants of hundreds of protesters as they left the Washington Hilton at Connecticut and T Streets on Saturday April 20. Coffins with Palestinian children in them led the march as symbols of what is happening in the Israeli occupied territories of Palestine.

The march stretched from the Hilton to O Street linking up with International Monetary Fund and World Bank protesters at H and 18th Streets where the combined march numbered 3,800 to 5,500 according to Washington DC and Baltimore Indymedia estimates. When combined with the marches organized by A.N.S.W.E.R. and the A20th Coalition which converged at Pennsylvania and H Streets, the number for the day probably exceeded 75,000. Hundreds, maybe thousands, came from the Baltimore area where activists organized eight busloads from the All Peoples Congress, American Friends Service Committee, the Communist Party, and Goucher College. Penny Howard of the Coalition against Global Exploitation/Baltimore DAN reported that it took about two hours for all the protesters to file into the Mall.

Why were people there? Yisroel Dovid Weiss, an orthodox Jew from New York City and a member of Neturei Karta (translated "tour the city"), said he and other members of his group were there to "clarify to the world that Zionism and the State of Israel do not represent the Jewish people." Weiss said that "Zionism started 100 years ago ignoring the teachings of the Torah." Judaic teaching is opposed to the "oppression of people and the stealing of land." Weiss and his comrades were protesting to "take some of the animosity off the Jewish people." Weiss also argued that "Zionism is the main cause of anti-Semitism around the world" today and that the only way to end it is a "true peace."



Weiss also criticized the mainstream media for biased representation of the sentiment of Jews on the Palestine issue. Last month, he said, 20,000 Jews protested in New York City (a police estimate), but the mainstream US media did not cover it. However, media in both Iran and Israel provided fair representation of these New York City protests. In Israel, according to Weiss, some members of his group have been beaten, and even killed, by Israeli police in demonstrations.

Weiss emphasized that the spiritual side of Judaism says that the "Jews have to be in exile because God put them in exile." Since 1948, the Israeli government has made refugees of Palestinians in the land of their historic residence. (See the speech given by a Neturei Karta representative at the April 20th rally: www.netureikarta.org/speech20apr02.htm).

We then spoke to Samirah Barwish, a 16 year old Palestinian woman who grew up in Ramallah, but is now a resident of Philadelphia. Barwish, like Weiss, noted the bias of the U.S. media in its reporting on what's happening in Palestine. She said "there have been massacres, even children have been killed." According to Barwish, the Israeli government claims that they are "using tactics to deal with terrorists, but often go after those who are not terrorist." Barwish, who went to her first political protest on September 29 in Washington DC, said that "even though I am from Ramallah, I cannot easily learn about what is happening there because of Israel."

We asked Samirah Barwish about what she thought of the pending United Nations investigation into the situation in Jenin. She responded that what the UN finds will be what Israel wants it to find. It is significant, she said, that Secretary of State Colin Powell did not go to Jenin. Barwish said that all that the Palestinians want is "freedom and peace," adding "We [Israelis and Palestinians] can live together."

U.S. dissidents often made their points graphically. The banner of S.U.S.T.A.I.N. (Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israeli Now!) proclaimed "Our Taxes Fund Israeli Apartheid." An individual protester carried a banner that proclaimed "Every Israeli gets $20,000 from our [US] taxes!" Kim McCoy, a Syracuse University student in art history and anti-global capital activist, was part of the "Death Squad" (at the recent protests against the World Economic Forum in New York City, McCoy was a radical cheerleader).

The "Death Squad" combined art and politics on their t-shirts, all black with white lettering. McCoy's shirt informed us that the US government has given $96 billion dollars to Israel, that between September 2000 and March 2002, 1,286 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict. 189 of these were less than 18 years old. In addition, there have been 18,000 injuries, 6,660 of these children. With such information, it is easy to link the anger and despair of Samirah Baswish with the outrage of Kim McCoy.

Many protesters carried signs criticizing the mainstream media for rarely making these links. An Indonesian man carried a sign which said "Media is Part of Global Cheater." When we asked him to clarify his message he said "the media doesn't fairly cover Islam." Another protester carried a sign with a more specific message "CNN, Fox, CBS, ABC: Palestinians are Human Too!"

Such links were not made by an individual who would only identity himself to IndyMedia reporters as "an American Citizen." This individual held a sign which said "We remember who were dancing in the streets on September 11." (This message referenced video footage shown after the September 11 terrorist attacks allegedly showing some Palestinians celebrating the attack). This counter-protester defended his position claiming that in the Middle East, "the only democratically elected government is Israel." He also said that Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat has to go.



What did other American citizens have to say on April 20? Unfortunately, organized labor was not present. While AFL-CIO president John Sweeney addressed the rally in support of Israeli policies earlier in the week, there were only a few union images present at the April 20th marches--the Black Telephone Workers for Justice, some Service Employees International Union and AFSCME members, and youthful Wobblies.

Yet, the range of groups who were present was broad. A lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender contingent carried a banner which said "From Stonewall to Palestine, People's Resistance will Triumph!"

Citizens who have been to Washington DC before on other issues were there on April 20th. Miriam Axel-Lute, a New York resident and activist with Schools of the Americas Watch, first came to DC 10 years ago supporting women's reproductive rights. Connecting the situation in Palestine to a history of US foreign policy initiatives, Axel-Lute said that the US government is "supposed to stand for democracy. It's time [for the US] to stop destroying democracies."

But what is a citizen of the United States to do? According to Jerry Mann, a Green Party member from Queens, New York, demonstrations are not enough, and lobbying elected officials will not bring socio-political change. There is little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. It is time for activists to "go straight to the people with progressive candidates."

Barbara Larcom, of the American Friends Service in Baltimore, had a different emphasis. Larcom first came to protest in Washington in 1978 for reproductive rights, then again in 1980 to protest the US-sponsored war in El Salvador, and has been to DC many times. According to Larcom, the only thing which is holding the Bush administration back from its plan to widen its "war against terrorism" from Afghanistan to Iraq is the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Demonstrations are important, but to be effective, "we need to engage in more grassroots participation and outreach." Joe Harrow, a Johns Hopkins University student and member of the Student Labor Action Committee, agrees with Larcom. He emphasized the importance of leafleting in communities and talking directly to people.

This ends the report from day one of the April 20-22 protests in Washington, DC on the US support of Israel in the conflict in Palestine, on the policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, on the "war against terrorism," and on Plan Colombia. The emphasis this first day has been on the conflict in Palestine. This will be on the agenda again. But IMF/World bank policies and Plan Colombia will be addressed by protesters as the days pass, and direct action will be a tactical variable likely in evidence.