'No Cease-Fire' Chants Break Out at DC March for Israel
"Difficult to see how a demonstration demanding that the carnage continues can be called anything other than a pro-war rally," said one observer.
U.S. political analyst Van Jones was booed and met with chants of "no cease-fire" after he made a plea for peace in Israel and Gaza during Tuesday's "March for Israel" in Washington, D.C.
Jones—a CNN analyst and former special adviser in the Obama administration—spoke at the massive demonstration, where an estimated 200,000 people showed their support for Israel as it obliterates Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas-led attacks that killed around 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers, injured thousands more, and left about 240 other people as hostages.
"I'm a peace guy. I pray for peace," Jones told the rally. "No more rockets from Gaza and no more bombs falling down on the people of Gaza."
The crowd erupted in a chorus of jeers and chants of "no cease-fire" after that last part.
Similar sentiment was expressed on placards like one that read "Let Israel Finish the Job" and another proclaiming, "From the River to the Sea, Israel Is What You'll See."
Other speakers at the rally included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and white supremacist pastor John Hagee, described by expert Ben Lorber as "the most powerful antisemite in America."
The Jewish-led group IfNowNow said ahead of the event that "Democratic leaders like Sen. Schumer and Rep. Jeffries should be ashamed of attending today's pro-war March for Israel rally in D.C. They're scheduled to share the stage with far-right extremists like Pastor John Hagee, who has blamed Jews for the Holocaust."
Chants of "no cease-fire" broke out again after Johnson told the crowd that "the calls for a cease-fire are outrageous."
The march comes as U.S. President Joe Biden rejects growing international calls for a cease-fire amid an Israeli onslaught that's killed, wounded, or left missing more than 40,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women, children, and elders. Instead, Biden—who has requested over $14 billion in additional U.S. military aid for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it already gets annually from Washington—is in favor of a so-called "humanitarian pause."
In addition to the more than 11,000 people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, the illegally occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Lebanon since October 7, around 70% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians—and at least one Israeli Cabinet minister—are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs during the war to establish the modern state of Israel 75 years ago. Most Gazans are the descendants of Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba.
