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Chanting "free, free, Palestine," thousands gathered in Chicago on Friday to march on the Israeli Consulate in protest of Israel's bombings in the Gaza Strip.
"We want to show the world that we don't accept what's going on in Gaza," said rally organizer Awad Hamdan, who estimated the attendance to be near 10,000.
Israel started bombing Gaza on Dec. 27 in response to Hamas firing hundreds of rockets into southern Israel, which killed one Israeli citizen. The military followed their air assault with a ground invasion on Jan. 3. Authorities estimate that 13 Israelis and 879 Palestinians have been killed, 250 of which were children.
Friday's march began at Daley Plaza, where, standing among leftover holiday decorations, several speakers rallied the crowd.
"We believe that the blood of the Palestinian child is not cheaper than the blood of an Israeli child," said Zaher Sahloul, a councilman of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. "We believe that the tears of a Palestinian child are not cheaper than the tears of an Israeli child. We believe that the pain of a Palestinian child is not less than the pain of our children."
The protesters carried a banner that read: "Occupation is the highest Form of Terrorism. End the Israeli Occupation Now. STOP Terrorism." Hamdan, a member of American Muslims for Palestine, guided cheers from a pickup truck, his voice amplified.
"(The speakers) demanded something concrete and something feasible - that we need an immediate cease-fire, that the people in Palestine need immediate medical help and humanitarian aid, that the people who are starving and who are dying of thirst and babies and the women and children don't need to be a part of this conflict," said McCormick senior Mohanned El-Natour, who has family in Gaza.
The group stopped in front of the Israeli Consulate, where anti-war activist John Beacham spoke.
"There is no terrorist in Palestine, sisters and brothers," Beacham said. "The terrorists are in Washington and Tel Aviv."
The protest followed an earlier pro-Israel rally at the Federal Plaza. Three thousand attended that rally, one of 200 such events across North America last week, according to the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, which sponsored the event.
Rabbi Josh Feigelson of NU's Fielder Hillel Center said Israel has the right to defend itself.
"The question that we come to is 'What's the alternative?'" he said. "The alternative is for Israel to sit by and allow rockets to be fired."
Nathan Enfield, a Weinberg freshman who is co-president of Students for Israel, said Hamas has made it impossible to avoid civilian casualties.
"It's a Catch-22," Enfield said. "Because how can you deal with an enemy that doesn't value human life, that would use human shields as a way to defend themselves?"
Feigelson made a similar point, arguing that Hamas would have surrendered already if it cared about their own civilians.
"They value their people even less than the Israeli army does," he said.
christopherkirk2007@u.northwestern.edu
Watch footage of the protest here.
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