On April 5, protesters will converge on Washington to hold a massive march in support of Palestine.
The President has changed since the last big event in DC, but many of the demands have not. Activists are calling on the United States government to stop bankrolling the genocide in Gaza and sever ties from apartheid Israel.
The additional element this time around is the Trump administration’s vast deportation program, which has targeted multiple university students for participating in protests.
“This movement is made of students, workers, teachers, artists, activists, healthcare workers, tech workers and people of conscience all over the world who will not back down in the face of repression and intimidation, and will never back down so long as Gaza is under attack,” reads a statement on the march’s website. “That’s why on April 5th we are standing up to Trump and his ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, we are standing up to repression, and we are standing up to the US’s continued facilitation of the genocide in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, there will be hundreds of other rallies, marches and protests taking place on April 5. These efforts oppose the Trump/Musk right-wing agenda and are sponsored a number of unions and progressive organizations, like Indivisible, Women’s March, Public Citizen, and the UAW. This day of action calls for the administration to take it’s “Hands Off!” Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Public Lands, libraries, people’s bodies, and free speech among other things.
There’s no component of the “Hands Off!” action that leftists would find especially objectionable, save a curious call for Trump to leave NATO alone. However, there is a very glaring omission when one looks over its website: Palestine.
There’s a variety of ways to look at what’s sometimes derisively referred to as “The Resistance.” That is to say, liberal opposition to Trump.
On one hand, it completely failed to stop his initial rise or hold him accountable after his first term ended, which is precisely why he has become president again.
On the other hand, leaders like Trump have a way of radicalizing people and exposing the true face of capitalism and U.S. foreign policy. There are undoubtedly thousands of young people who became aware of politics via the horrors of the first Trump term, only to eventually develop an analysis that transcends the contours of the Democratic Party.
We will see it this time around too. People’s Forum Education Director Layan Fuleihan points out that the upcoming Palestine march is drawing attention from new faces.
“We have seen a swell of support for this crucial demonstration,” says Fuleihan. “Student organizations, mosques, labor activists, and so many others have been working day and night to fill buses. Many people who have not protested for Palestine in the past but are shocked at Trump’s wanton crackdown on civil liberties are signed up to attend. And teams of volunteers are going out every day distributing thousands of flyers and posters all over the DC area.”
During the Iraq War protests, Palestine remained a divisive issue among many progressives, but what’s the excuse for ignoring the issue now? In recent years, we’ve seen dozens and dozens of polls showing that Israel’s popularity has greatly diminished among Democratic voters. A February survey from The Economist found that just 9% of Democrats sympathize with Israelis more than Palestinians.
Organizers of the “Hands Off!” events might be ignoring the issue, but the inevitable tension is not going away.
Earlier this month, IMEU Policy Project, IfNotNow, Gen-Z for Change and Justice Democrats sent the DNC a letter pointing out how Harris’s support for Israel hurt her campaign and warning that the issue could impact the midterms.
“The chasm between the Democratic base and the Harris campaign could have been narrowed and course-corrected months prior to the election,” read the letter. “The pattern of disregarding and ignoring the issues Democratic voters care about, may it be rising costs of living or ending U.S. complicity in war crimes abroad, will not lead to winning elections.”
Randy Fine
If you want a sense of how normalized anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic sentiment is within U.S. political culture, take a look at Florida’s 6th Congressional District where State Senator Randy Fine just won an election fill Mike Waltz’s vacant seat.
In 2018, Fine (who claims to be a massive fan of Free Speech) tried to shut down Lorde’s concerts in Florida because the musician publicly backed the BDS campaign.
In 2019, he attacked a Jewish constituent for organizing a panel on Israel and Palestine, referring to the man “Judenrat”, which is word that was used to describe Jews who collaborated with Nazis.
“First, there is no ‘Palestine,’” he said in response to the event. “Second, having a bunch of speakers who advocate for the destruction of Israel but promise that this one time they won’t, is a joke. We should not engage these bigots. We crush them.”
After a 42-year-old Army veteran killed 14 people with his car in New Orleans in January, Fine tweeted, “Muslim terror has attacked the United States — again. The blood is on the hands of those who refuse to acknowledge the worldwide #MuslimProblem. It is high time to deal with this fundamentally broken and dangerous culture.”
He’s consistently celebrated civilian deaths in Gaza. When a Twitter user sent him a picture of a dead Palestinian child buried under rubble, he responded, ““Quite well, actually! Thanks for the pic!”
When Jewish Currents‘ Alex Kane asked Fine about the remarks he said, “I don’t personally feel bad when human shields are killed.”
After Israel killed 26-year-old Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, Fine tweeted, “Throw rocks, get shot. One less #MuslimTerrorist. #FireAway.”
He claimed that local lawmakers were “putting every Jewish child in the state at risk” for backing a ceasefire resolution. In October 2023 he arranged for “Regards from Randy Fine” to be written an Israeli artillery shell to be fired at Gaza. “Special delivery from me to Hamas,” he wrote on Facebook.
Fine claimed he would move to Israel if Kamala Harris won the 2024 election. After Hamas returned the remains of Shiri Bibas and her two sons to Israel, Fine wrote, “‘innocent palestinian civilians’ took a baby and a little boy hostage. They strangled them a month later. And then mutilated their bodies to try to hide it. There are demons that live on Earth. They deserve no state. They only deserve death.”
At a public meeting last month, Fine told an attendee in a keffiyeh to “enjoy your terrorist rag.”
He recently called for people who distribute anti-Israel literature to be jailed for 5 years.
Fine’s candidacy was publicly backed by Trump, who encouraged him to run for the seat in the first place.
Fine’s victory comes amid more brutal Israeli attacks on Israel and a reinvigorated domestic crackdown on Palestine protesters. Students are being disappeared for supporting Gaza under the guise of an antisemitism strategy.
Call for your country to stop sending Israel weapons and you might be tagged as a terrorist. Call for Palestinians to be slaughtered and you might get elected to congress.
Odds & Ends
🏫 ‘It’s not the time to be afraid anymore’ Columbia students fight back against deportation threats
⚖️ Trump administration says it has revoked at least 300 visas for Palestine advocacy
✏️ Schools are no place for the ADL: Examining the ADL’s ‘No Place for Hate’ program
🇾🇪 Yemen is acting responsibly to stop genocide and the U.S. is bombing them for it
🇮🇱 Electronic Intifada: Trump takes support for Israel to new extremes
🛂 Zeteo: ICE Revoking Students’ Immigration Statuses Without Their or the University’s Knowledge
🇺🇸 Truthout: Bernie Sanders to Force Vote on Blocking Bombs for Israel’s Destruction of Gaza
🐦 New York Times: A Mysterious Group Says Its Mission Is to Expose Antisemitic Students
🇮🇷 Responsible Statecraft: The war over war with Iran has just begun
🚫 Jewish News of Northern California: UC Davis law school suspends student government over Israel boycott
🎒 Informed Comment: Protesting Harvard’s Dismissal of Directors of its Mideast Center over Israel-Palestine as Attack on Academic Freedom
🫏 In These Times: Democratic Party Leaders and “Free Speech” Warriors Shrug as Trump Deports Dissidents
🇵🇸 Jerusalem Post: Pittsburgh University suspends pro-Palestinian group SJP from its campus
🇩🇪 The Intercept: Germany Turns to U.S. Playbook: Deportations Target Gaza War Protesters
📝 Common Dreams: A Reminder Amid Group Chat Outrage: US Strikes on Yemen Are Unconstitutional
I’d like to toss this in with the Odds’ & Ends collection, an essay from Jewish Currents on the education scene:
To truly oppose the right’s attacks on education, Jewish communities must face Palestinian history….But if there was ever any notion that Jewish institutions could simply tinker around the edges of anti-racist and anti-imperialist curricula without becoming collaborators in a broader autocratic project, events since October 7th have dispelled it. In the name of “Jewish safety,” mainstream Jewish groups across the country have backed a wave of McCarthyist repression targeting Palestine-related speech and activism at educational institutions. At the K-12 level, the ADL has filed civil rights complaints against public school districts in Berkeley and Philadelphia, conflating ceasefire walkouts and lessons on Israeli apartheid with antisemitic harassment in a bid to shut them down. Meanwhile, at colleges and universities, Zionist groups, donors, and trustees have successfully pressured universities to cancel lectures, readings, art exhibitions, and—in the case of the University of Southern California—an entire commencement ceremony, to avoid platforming messages of solidarity with Palestine. At campuses across the country, student activist groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have been suspended; faculty fired and investigated; job offers rescinded; and terrifying displays of police power mobilized to arrest over 3,000 participants in nonviolent protest encampments.
https://jewishcurrents.org/more-truth
IMO anyone who engages in clear acts of violence on a college campus, whatever side they’re on, should be referred to the police. But Jewish students felling uncomfortable because they’re being told that the Only Jewish State in the World is committing acts of genocide? Cry me a river.
People like Randy Fine— and there are many like him—actually stoke real antisemitism (i.e. hatred or animus toward Jews, as opposed to criticism or hatred toward a barbaric Apartheid regime slaughtering children).
Re: The additional element this time around is the Trump administration’s vast deportation program, which has targeted multiple university students for participating in protests.
Well why aren’t we initiating class-action lawsuits over the unconstitutional requirement to pay taxes to maintain a racist, theocracy that has been taken to the International courts for apartheid, genocide, extermination, starvation, etc.? There have been SCOTUS cases and controversies over make believe gay wedding cakes or invitations.
I’m reading headlines that say Harvard University Nieman Fellows Honor +972 Magazine with Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Caroline Glick and Bari Weiss are going to have DOJ investigate Harvard for being pro-Hamas.
Well we can protest and be arrested, or just find a lawyer to file a class-action lawsuit and sign a petition.
This is a patently unconstitutional, religious, and racist example of our government trying to prescribe orthodoxy with our tax dollars to establish the Basic Laws of Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People, The Defence (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, The Absentee Property Law, enacted in 1950, and Israel’s Law of Return, enacted in 1950. All of those actions violate the establishment and equal protection clauses in addition to the humanitarian declaration of laws we have ratified since 1907 and affirmed as customary norms that our government cannot transgress:
From Title 22-FOREIGN RELATIONS AND INTERCOURSE
CHAPTER 93-UNITED STATES-ISRAEL COOPERATION
§8602. Statement of policy
It is the policy of the United States:
(1) To reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. As President Barack Obama stated on December 16, 2011, “America’s commitment and my commitment to Israel and Israel’s security is unshakeable.” And as President George W. Bush stated before the Israeli Knesset on May 15, 2008, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, “The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty.”.
(2) To help the Government of Israel preserve its qualitative military edge amid rapid and uncertain regional political transformation.
(3) To veto any one-sided anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations Security Council.
(4) To support Israel’s inherent right to self-defense.
(5) To pursue avenues to expand cooperation with the Government of Israel both in defense and across the spectrum of civilian sectors, including high technology, agriculture, medicine, health, pharmaceuticals, and energy.
(6) To assist the Government of Israel with its ongoing efforts to forge a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that results in two states living side-by-side in peace and security, and to encourage Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
(7) To encourage further development of advanced technology programs between the United States and Israel given current trends and instability in the region.
( Pub. L. 112–150, §3, July 27, 2012, 126 Stat. 1147 .)