The mass movement for Palestine returned to Washington, DC on Sat., June 8—forming a two-mile-long “red line” around the White House with a crowd that numbered in the tens of thousands. As discussed in a prior interview with The Real News, organizers of “The People’s Red Line” are seeking an immediate, permanent end to US aid to Israel. Jaisal Noor reports for TRNN from the streets of DC.
Pre/Post-Production: Jaisal Noor
Transcript
Speaker: [Chanting] Biden, Biden, you can’t hide!
Crowd: [Chanting] Biden, Biden, you can’t hide!
Speaker: [Chanting] The people are the red line!
Crowd: [Chanting] The people are the red line!
Jaisal Noor: On Saturday, June 8, thousands of anti-war activists unfurled a 2-mile-long people’s red line around the White House to demand the Biden administration halt its support for Israel.
Brian Becker: This is the beginning of a red line campaign. We’re going to go all the way until Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before the US Congress, which is a disgrace. That’s at the end of July.
We’re building public pressure on Biden. We’re building public pressure through a grassroots, anti-war movement that’s in solidarity with the rights of the Palestinian people.
Sherry Wolf: It’s outrageous that for eight months, even for eight minutes, that there’s been a genocide going on. Our government is supporting it, our government is arming Israel, our government is funding Israel, and our government is providing political support for this genocide.
Just this morning, hundreds, hundreds dead in central Gaza. And they used the pier that the Biden administration claimed would be used to bring in humanitarian aid in order to murder children in their sleep.
Jaisal Noor: The White House says Israel has not crossed Biden’s red line because it has not launched a large-scale offensive in Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, where the majority of Gaza’s residents have fled.
Dan: I think the red line was crossed many times from the first day. And Joe Biden, he’s another war criminal involved and he should be prosecuted, should be in jail. And I don’t know, what’s the red line for him? How many kids need to be killed? How much blood does he need? I think he needs to stop.
Sennéa Raslan: My name is Sennéa Raslan, and I’m here today to support the fight against injustice and the fight for collective liberation.
Jaisal Noor: And so it says here you’ve been on hunger strike. This is day 20.
Sennéa Raslan: Yeah.
Jaisal Noor: Talk about why you’re on hunger strike.
Sennéa Raslan: My goal is to help break the silence. Even though we see a lot of people here today, there’s still a lot of people in my circle that don’t talk about it enough, if at all. And I knew that me doing this would be something that would draw attention, more attention to the issue just in my small circle.
And I think it’s worked, actually. I see people speaking up now that haven’t said a word up until I started doing this. So that was my goal.
Kyra: I’m here to be part of something impactful, to show our government that this is the red line that we were promised, that we were told an invasion in Rafah is where this will end. And it did not happen. Local protesting has not been doing what we wanted.
So coming to DC — I’m from Ohio, I took a bus to come here to join in on this, to be in a historic moment, to tell Biden that this is unacceptable, and if they won’t do something about it, the people will come together and make sure that something changes.
Emily Siegel: The weapons that US sends to Israel is what is fueling the genocide that’s happening there. And what we need to do is call for an end of those weapons transfers and of funding of Israel in order to stop what is happening. I think really the US government could stop this tomorrow. They could stop this yesterday, and they’re choosing not to by continuing to send weapons.
Jeremy: Israeli occupational forces have begun their full-scale invasion of Rafah. They have stepped up their bombing campaigns on “safe zones” that they told civilians to evacuate to. They’ve bombed refugee camps, UN schools. Just deplorable, deplorable things. But Biden has done nothing. It’s all been rhetoric and no action behind it. And Biden could stop this immediately if he ended weapons shipments to Israel.
Jaisal Noor: Israel has killed at least 35,000 Palestinian civilians, and the Gaza Strip has been largely reduced to rubble. Israel says it’s responding to Hamas’s attack on Oct. [7] that killed nearly 1,200 civilians last year.
Reporting for The Real News, I’m Jaisal Noor in Washington, DC.
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