Tens of 1000’s of demonstrators assembled on the National Mall in Washington on Tuesday to point out assist for Israel and to sentence mounting antisemitism because the Jewish state wages conflict towards the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
Called the “March for Israel” and arranged by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the rally’s function was to point out solidarity and assist for Israel and its folks.
The gathering was in response to these nonetheless being held by Hamas since its lethal Oct. 7 assault towards Israel, by which terrorists killed about 1,200 civilians and kidnapped about 240 hostages again to Gaza.
The huge crowd waved Israeli and American flags, indicators saying their respective metropolis’s assist for Israel and laminated posters of kidnapped hostages. They chanted “Bring them home.”
Attendees got here from all around the nation and advised The Washington Times that the current occasions in Israel and assaults on Jewish Americans within the U.S. motivated them to point out up.
“In 1963, my two aunts and my grandmother came to the civil rights march on Washington and my grandmother was about as old then as I am now,” Caroline Heck Miller, 74, of Miami, Florida, stated. “I always remembered it. And I thought, ‘This is the time for me to come to Washington.’ The Jewish people have always been there to speak out for and help others who are facing injustice. And now is the time for us to speak out for ourselves.”
Steve Frankel, 63, a resident of Los Angeles who works in the actual property trade, advised The Times that he got here to the rally as a result of it was “time to speak up for humanity, justice and to protect Israel, who’s surrounded by enemies who wish to destroy her on every border.”
He stated, “We must defend Israel as a democracy and as a shared value of Western values.”
Republican and Democratic leaders from the House and Senate took to the stage to point out widespread solidarity with the rally-goers.
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Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and a Jewish lawmaker, promised that the U.S. will at all times stand with Israel.
“History shows that when antisemitism rears its ugly head, if it’s not dealt with forcefully and directly, it grows into a deadly force,” Mr. Schumer stated. “But my friends, history reminds us also of one thing, that even in its darkest days, the United States has always stood with Israel. And we will do everything to see that that never, ever changes.
“We will not allow history to slide back to the days of the Holocaust, when Jews were targeted and murdered and butchered. Instead, the Jewish people will be resilient. And today all of you are here showing we will not hide in the face of adversity in America.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, advised the gang that lawmakers earlier within the day considered a “horrific film” produced by Hamas from their very own cameras as they dedicated the Oct. 7 assault. He stated requires a cease-fire in Gaza are “outrageous.”
“It’s unspeakable. The auditorium was full of Republicans and Democrats in the House. And they wept as we watched the film together — most couldn’t sit through it,” he stated.
“These Israeli hostages were kidnapped in their homes by barbaric Hamas terrorists for simply being Jewish and living in Israel. As [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu says so well, this is a fight between good and evil, between light and darkness, between civilization and barbarism.”
The gathering was the biggest Jewish rally within the U.S. since 1987, when Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews happened on the National Mall.
The March for Israel comes days after greater than 180,000 folks throughout France, together with 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully to protest towards rising antisemitism across the globe.
