By Ariama C. Long
Clear weather quickly overtook Saturday’s projected rain and the ‘Flood Brooklyn for Palestine’ rally went on as forecasted. Hundreds of diverse protesters called on Israel for a ceasefire and western powers to stop funding for the conflict on Oct. 21, one of many pro-Palestinian demonstrations throughout the world.
The rally originated along Ovington and 5th Avenues in Bay Ridge. The Brooklyn neighborhood was once primarily Italian American, but has become a safe haven since the 1970s for Arab, Palestinian, Yemeni, Egyptian, and many other Muslim-American communities. Protesters of all ages, races, and ethnicities slowly trickled in off the nearby R train and buses and from their homes and businesses around 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Our community is coming here together to make it unequivocally clear that we stand with the people of Palestine and the people of Gaza.
Nerdeen Kiswani, head organizer at Within Our Lifetime
They carried signs and flags — some for their own native countries and many others for Palestine. Many donned keffiyehs, or Arabic scarfs, over their heads and faces. Within Our Lifetime (WOL) Head Organizer Nerdeen Kiswani, a young Palestinian woman who was born and raised in Bay Ridge, and others got up on top of a U-Haul truck to speak to the massive crowd.
“Our community is coming here together to make it unequivocally clear that we stand with the people of Palestine and the people of Gaza,” said Kiswani.
At the end of the rally on Saturday night, after marching for several hours, 19 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest when asked by police to disperse.
Throughout the years of bloody conflict between the two groups, Palestinians have found allies among a myriad of other communities including Black Americans, Africans, Hispanics, Asians; and a fair amount of Jewish peoples across the diaspora, zionist (the belief in the creation of a Jewish state) or not.
Free Palestine
The majority of Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans that the Amsterdam News spoke to see Israel as “colonial occupiers” set out to commit a “genocide” of their people, a frustration that the Hamas was born from. Meanwhile, many Israeli citizens, who have borne the brunt of Hamas attacks for decades, and their kin in the U.S. feel that Hamas is little more than a terrorist organization. Some believe the chants of “Free Palestine” are synonymous with anti-semitism.
“Nobody wants violence. Nobody,” said Dr. Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi, director and senior scholar of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University and an internationally known Palestine studies scholar. “Everyone wants to live with dignity and peace and justice. To have food and a ceiling over their heads, clean water, healthcare and for their children to go to school and return alive. Everyone wants to do that. Palestinians are not exceptionalized. But colonized people are not even allowed by their colonizers to dare dream of enjoying what everyone else does. This is especially true for multiple generation refugees who were displaced from their homes 75 years ago when Israel was founded in 1948.”
Abdulhadi is originally from Nablus, Palestine which was then under Jordanian rule and “Israeli military occupation,” she said. She grew up with images of the Civil Rights and the Black Power Movement in the U.S. She idolized freedom fighters like Assata Shakur and Angela Davis. After teaching at the American University in Cairo, she moved to New York City right after the 9/11 attack. She said it was frightening to live at the height of the city’s islamophobia and anti-Arab hostility. She said that Black organizers had long embraced the Palestinian movement, seeing themselves as allies in the struggle to end discrimination.
“People have become increasingly supportive of Palestine. We’ve been so supportive of Black struggles for freedom. How could we not?” said Abdulhadi. “We’re also demanding our own freedom.”
Jewish Activism and Support
It’s important to note that the allyship Palestine found with Black and brown communities is not unique. Jewish rabbis and organizers were intricately a part of the Civil Rights Movement alongside heavy hitters in history since the 1950s. Rabbi Abraham Heschel marched hand in hand with Dr. Martin Luther King. Jewish Americans identified with the struggle against racial injustice and persecution of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South because of their experiences with the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other Jewish organizations continue to fight against racism and anti-Blackness while promoting nonviolence.
When it comes to Palestine, however, several Jewish people AmNews spoke to said that they can understand the frustrations of Palestinian citizens and Palestinian Americans while absolutely denouncing Hamas and their attacks.
David Sable is the co-founder/partner of DoAble, a brand strategy company, based in New York City. He was previously the global CEO and chairman of Y&R and still serves on the board of UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) and UNCF. As a business leader and social activist, he has worked to end gun violence, hunger and inequality. Sable was in Israel for the holy holiday when Hamas attacked.
“This has absolutely nothing to do with the Israel, Palestine divide. This has everything to do with terrorists. I think that’s really important for the community to understand,” said Sable. “For sure there’s issues between Israel and Palestine, and I’m a believer in a two state solution, but this is about Hamas terrorists. Like they did in Southern Israel, the terrorists do the same in Africa. They behead them, they mutilate them, they take hostages. It’s the same people.”
Sable agrees with the legitimate concerns of Palestinians and unequivocally views Hamas terrorist attacks as counter to their cause for liberation. He identifies as a Democratic Zionist, who believes in a two-state solution and Israeli democracy.
Robin Strauss, a Jewish member of the Freedom Socialist Party, doesn’t believe that the Israeli state has a right to claim the land of Palestine. She’s in support of “self determination and a full right to return” of displaced Palestinian people. She feels there should be one socialist state where Palestinians and Israelis, as well as other cultures, are treated equally.
“The American Jewry and the world Jewry community is not a monolith. They think all Jewish people should all be Zionist. Those two ideas are different,” said Strauss. “Zionism is not Judaism, it’s fascism. Just like all Palestinian people do not support Hamas.”
Photos by Ariama C. Long and Tandy Lau/New York Amsterdam News.
Rise of Islamophobia and Antisemitism in the City
Brooklyn isn’t just home to thousands of Palestinians but also home to a significant Jewish and Orthodox community.
A father attending the rally told the AmNews that while he holds anxieties of bullying for his son who recently started grade school, he holds faith that New York City’s diverse makeup won’t let Islamophobia slide.
It shouldn’t be radical to stand up for this kind of injustice.
Todd P., protestor
Another protester who identified himself as Todd P., held a sign saying “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” and said that while he found Hamas’ actions to be “abhorrent,” he found the Israeli response “unacceptable.” He adds that opposing the Israeli occupation is a “radical position,” one he’s familiar with as a gay man.
“It felt like a radical position to stand up against the response for the AIDS epidemic,” he said. “It shouldn’t be radical to stand up for this kind of injustice.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 24, Mayor Eric Adams remarked that the city has to be “extremely careful” as it deals with hate targeting both groups. Adams said that disinformation in the media and on social media about the war can feed into the “hysteria” locally.
Political Backlash for Supporting Palestine
The current climate evokes bad memories for Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who grew up post-9/11 in a New York City Muslim family shortly after moving from Uganda. He points to other elected Democratic officials advocating for “Israel’s right to self-defense” as a root cause to the growing Islamophobia, even if they actively denounce it.
“What is so concerning to me is that many politicians think that they can, on one side of their mouth, give a message endorsing unrestrained mass murder of Palestinian civilians,” said Mamdani. “And on the other side of their mouth, say that there’s no room for Islamophobia seeking in some sense to distinguish between what they believe Muslims over there deserve versus Muslims over here.
“What these politicians do not seem to understand is that if you are someone listening to their rhetoric and you hear in their words—that Palestinian life does not deserve the same anguish, the same protection, the same dignity as any other person’s life and that life can be taken in the name of self defense, or a right to defend oneself—it means that those same principles could be applied here at home.”
While Mamdani is a regular critic of Israeli policy, he’s noticed a considerable escalation in harassment and threats directed at him and his office on the issue since openly supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. The lawmaker is specifically disturbed by a voicemail telling him he “deserved to die and all Muslims should be killed” and wishing brain cancer upon his child.
“The intent of these threats is an attempt to silence any views that speak for the universal dignity of people if that universe includes Palestinians. For me and for many others, it does,” said Mamdani.
Nationally, the two Muslim women members of Congress— U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—both reportedly received escalated threats after supporting the ceasefire.
Calls for a Peaceful Solution
Several electeds, faith leaders, and hundreds of protesters have called for a long-term solution to the decades of war. For some, that means an “end of Israeli occupation” or Israeli sovereignty.
For others like U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, that means creating two independent states for Palestine and Israel to coexist.
“We need open discussion of the root causes of this conflict to end this violence and stop Hamas once and for all and bring us to a peaceful two-state solution,” said Bowman in a statement. “We need to acknowledge hard truths about the oppression millions of Palestinians face. The U.S. and the entire global community must stand up for all life and help work towards a peaceful two-state solution. Israeli and Palestinian civilians do not deserve to be killed due to this war.”
Across the board, people want the violence to stop.
“What’s unfolded in Israel and Gaza these last two weeks has been a tragic, devastating, and heartbreaking humanitarian crisis. I, like the rest of the world, was shaken by the terror attack in Israel that’s left scores of civilians dead, missing, or held hostage,” said Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church, chairman of the Conference of National Black Churches (CNBC), and chairman of the board of National Action Network (NAN).
Richardson said he is reminded of Dr. King’s legacy, which demands that no one turn a “blind eye or watch this conflict unfold from afar with resignation.” He prays for those killed, captured, or wounded in the conflict.
“Our duty is to advocate for a non-violence, for understanding, and for a forum in which every voice is heard,” added Richardson. “Pointing fingers or guns has only ever begotten more division and bloodshed. Revenge is a dead end of hope. Instead, the only pathway to peace is reconciliation.”
As of Tuesday, Oct. 24, there’s growing pressure locally in the city and abroad for Hamas to return all hostages, for governments to address the humanitarian crisis for the 2.2 million people in Gaza, and for both sides to submit to a ceasefire.
Reporter’s Note: We don’t pretend to be able to encompass the magnitude of decades of conflict in a single story, but we do strive to uphold our central principles of fairness and accuracy at Amsterdam News. The deepest sympathies for loved ones lost overseas and for those whose lives are still in jeopardy.
Ariama C. Long and Tandy Lau are Report for America corps members and write about politics and public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep them writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
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