Jewish group protests Trump, Bibi, and growing fascist menace

On the 15th of February, the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow DC protested at Trump Hotel against both the occupation of Palestine and the growing fascist and racist menace of Donald Trump. At almost the same time American Muslims for Palestine held a similar protest at the White House. Shortly after dark IfNotNow DC marched to the White House to join the other protest on essentially the same issues. At one point they held and blocked 15th st by the Penn Ave entrance to the White House area.

One of the issue raised at the White House protest by American Muslims for Palestine was the proposal by Trump to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This inflammatory proposal has long been blocked by fears that it would lead to another general Middle East war, and in fact some groups have warned that it would be considered a declaration of war. Trump does not seem to listen to such warnings.

There was yet another march and some street blockades earlier in the day. All of these protests were triggered by the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ("Bibi") Nehtanyahu to the White House and his meeting with Donald Trump. Bibi and Trump reportedly discussed the anti-African refugee wall on Israel's southern border as a prototype for Trump's proposed wall on the Mexican border.

IfNotNow DC condemned Donald Trump for his connections to the "alt-right" neo-Nazis, who are of course often openly anti-Semitic. Speakers reminded everyone that the kind of hate Trump is peddliing against Muslims and Latinos usually comes for the Jews sooner or later. One speaker warned that some of the "evangelican Christian Zionist" groups who loudly support Israel do so because they want to get all Jews to emigrate to Israel, essentially to self-deport from the US.

Video highlights of the rally and street theater at Trump Hotel plus the departure of the march

Tearing apart a symbolic wall against both the Apartheid Wall in Israel and Trump's planned wall

Marchers turn their backs on Trump Hotel and head to the White House

The march on Penn Ave

The intersection of 15th and Penn shut down by the march (photo by Libi)

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