Jewish Voice for Peace Delivers Powerful Antiwar Protest at Grand Central Station
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.”
What was it like to be there? Here is some of our live coverage from last night.
Reporting by Amba Guerguerian.
As the demonstration was in full force, Egyptian rapper WEGZ — in town to perform a sold-out show at Terminal 5 — said it was a surreal and emotional experience to walk out of Grand Central into the pro-Palestine protest that had taken over the station. Cairo, where he lives, is only 1000km from Gaza.
The heightened attention to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza wasn’t contained to Grand Central. On the train home to Brooklyn, Guerguerian wrote, “I am hearing people on the train talking about Palestine and on the sidewalk in Flatbush. … The Kazakhstani woman next to me on the subway was looking at photos of the action. It felt powerful that the two of us just talked for like 20 minutes out loud in a train taking up that sound space.”
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From the Archive
In 2017, we marked the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with a cover story that looked at how Israel has used knowledge gained from repressing Palestinians to fuel a booming export industry that caters tto repressive regimes around the world.
The Spolls of War
By Alex Kane
Indy Radio Update
Join us on Tuesday from 5–6 p.m. for another edition of The Indypendent News Hour on WBAI-99.5 FM, or streaming at wbai.org. The Indy’s John Tarleton and Amba Guerguerian will be discussing the burgeoning anti-war movement and more.
Workers Unite Film Festival Update
It's Day 2 of the Workers Unite Film Festival and there will be more fantastic working class movies playing at Cinema Village this evening. Featured films will explore the lives of EMS workers, look back on the welfare rights movement that took Las Vegas's casinos by storm in the 1970s and the great postal strike of 1970 that forced the federal government to recognize postal worker unions. For more about upcoming films at the Workers Unite Film Festival, click here. .
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