Multiple arrests as protesters blockade, enter AIPAC Convention
On the 1st of March, several protesters were arrested while blocking a door of the Washington Convention Center during the start of the convention of AIPAC, the "American Israel Public Affairs Committee." At first conventiongoers bypassed the blockade by other doors, leading to a determined attempt tp get into the building. Some protesters managed to sneak in while others tried to re-establish the door blockade on the inside of the doors. They were dragged outside by cops, who the conceded the top of the steps to protesters. Finally several protesters were arrested while blocking a door open so the sounds of the protest could be heard more clearly from inside.
One of the speakers at the rally on the Convention Center steps reminded everyone that Israeli settlers burned a Palestinian teenager to death in the runup to the Summer 2014 Gaza War. The implicit comparison to Daesh (ISIS) did not have to be spoken directly to be understood by everyone: Israeli settlers and Daesh are the only two groups in the whole Middle East currently known to include burning people alive in their playbook.In addition to the teenager burned alive by settlers, Israel has used incendiary white phosphorous bombs on occupied homeds in their recent wars with Palestine. Another comparion to Daesh was made by a protester whose sign bluntly said that ISIS and Israel both hijack religion for political purposes.
This round of protests occurs as Israeli Prime Minister Nehtanyahu is visiting Congress at the "request" of GOP Speaker Boehner, after not being invited by Obama. He is bypassing a head of state (The US President) to speak to a partisan gathering at Congress that at least 40 Congressional Democrats have announced they will boycott. It has been announced that the explicit purpose of this speech is to beg Congress to sabotage or block the nuclear agreement that Obama is negotiating with Iran, an agreement to limit or scrap nuclear weapons development cabability in return for some kind of foreign benefits or easing of sactions. For a foreign head of state to enter any nation in an attempt to block a diplomatic objective of that country's head of state is well beyond a "breach of protocol" and some say it endangers relations between the US and Israel entirely.
Certainly AIPAC's participation in this act of diplomatic sabotage has endangered their normally coze relations with Congressional Democrats, who are of Obama's politica party. Protesters said they considered this chaos and the probability that AIPAC will become a GOP-only lobby/bribery outfit to be a welcome and overdue development. Activists hope this will limit the impact of the lavish bribes AIPAC has long hjad a reputation for spreading on Capitol Hill to one political party and not both of them as was the state of affairs until a few weeks ago.
