Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters waved the pan-Arab-colors flag and wore the symbolic Palestinian keffiyeh in a series of coordinated “No Xmas as Usual in a Genocide” rallies and marches across the US on Saturday.
Organizers with Shut It Down for Palestine said the organization had focused its protests on the second-most popular shopping day of the year – the day before Christmas Eve – as part of ongoing civic and commercial disruptions. Organizers said they planned to “organize actions to boycott, disrupt and rally at commercial centers”.
Coordinators with Shut It Down for Palestine decried Israel’s assault on Gaza as one of “incredible cruelty”.
“This Christmas, occupation forces are sniping Christians sheltering in their besieged churches in Gaza and Christians in Bethlehem have declared that their celebrations are canceled,” the group posted. “People everywhere must continue to declare that there can be no Christmas as usual during a genocide!”
Posts on social media channels showed protests in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and in Chicago, where a convoy of cars temporarily blocked a highway and entrance to Chicago O’Hare airport.
In New York, protests organized by pro-Palestinian groups the People’s Forum and Palestinian Youth Movement held a rally at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street – the apex of Manhattan’s luxury shopping district – where protesters chanted: “While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping.”
In San Francisco, NBC News reported, protesters gathered to call for a permanent ceasefire as well as an end to US spending on the war. Farid Babrakzai, a resident, told the outlet that instead of spending on social issues at home, the US government “would rather spend our money on war and occupation”.
Health ministry officials have estimated that more than 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza as the IDF pursues Hamas, as many as two-thirds of them women and children, following the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas. Many experts say the estimated death toll in Gaza is an undercount and warn that much of the population is near starvation.
At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, health officials said Sunday, while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in combat over the weekend rose to 15.
On Friday, the UN security council passed a resolution calling for humanitarian aid to Gaza to be stepped up and for the release of Hamas-held hostages but failed to approve language that included a call for “urgent suspension of hostilities”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, later put out a statement asserting that the only way to stop an “ongoing nightmare” in Gaza was a humanitarian ceasefire because Israel controls aid into the territory.
A total of 136 of the organization’s aid workers have been killed. “Something we have never seen in the history of the United Nations,” Guterres said. “The real problem is that the way Israel is conducting this offensive is creating massive obstacles to the distribution of humanitarian aid inside Gaza.”
Avril Benoît, the executive director of Médecins Sans Frontières USA said in a statement that the UN resolution had “been watered down to the point that its impact on the lives of civilians in Gaza will be nearly meaningless”.
Amnesty International called the US threat to use its veto to stall and then weaken the resolution “disgraceful”.
The protests on Saturday came as the Biden administration faces increasing public and political pressure to use its influence to get Israel to agree to demands for a humanitarian ceasefire.
Joe Biden said he had not pressed his Israeli counterpart, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a ceasefire during a call on Saturday. “I did not ask for a ceasefire,” Biden said.
A New York Times/Siena College poll last week found a generational and political split over US support of Israel that could be threatening Biden’s already record-low polling numbers ahead of a presidential election next year.
Asked if they approved of the president’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 33% approved and 57% disapproved, with 10% refusing the question or undecided. Asked whether Biden or Donald Trump would do a better job with the conflict 38% said Biden and 46% favored Trump.
But nearly three-quarters of voters aged 18 to 29 who typically skew Democrat said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of the conflict. The New York Times poll found that among Democrats, support for Israel or Palestine is essentially split, 31% saying they sympathized more with Israel, and 34% with Palestinians. A total of 16% said they were sympathetic to both.
On Sunday, the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, doubled down on support for Israel, telling ABC News’ This Week: “I would not invest 15 cents in a future Palestine where Hamas is still standing. They have 24 military brigades that need to be destroyed. Their leaders need to be killed and captured. And I wouldn’t invest 15 cents into the Palestinian Authority regarding a new Palestine.”
