The genocide in Gaza has sparked massive protests around the world by those who oppose Israel’s military action and blockade in one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated cities. 

The main objective of these protests is the demand for an immediate ceasefire and a lifting of the blockade that has essentially prevented food, water, and fuel from entering the city. More than 11,000 people have been killed, including 40 percent children, and 1.6 million have been internally displaced. 

Reuters reported on Monday that there have been a total of 3,761 protests in solidarity with Palestinians compared to 529 in support of Israel. The pro-Israel protests call on Hamas to release the hostages taken during its 7 October attack and insist that Israeli forces have to completely dismantle the group. The report also noted that there have been 95 demonstrations that have been neutral and just call for a peaceful resolution. 

These  anti-Israel War protests have not only occurred in Islamic countries, including the Middle East and North Africa, but significant protests have broken out in cities across the U.S., Berlin, Paris, Australia and London.

LONDON: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators materialized in Britain’s largest city on Saturday to call on the U.K. to stop supporting Israel’s relentless assaults on Palestinians in Gaza. 

NPR, citing the Metropolitan Police, reported that about 300,000 demonstrators took part in the protest that was overwhelmingly peaceful and organized at London’s Hyde Park. About 100 counter-protesters were arrested, the report said.

“My grandfather was a soldier through the whole of the First World War,” Amanda Cattle, 60, one of the protesters said, noting that it was Armistice Day. “I always wear a poppy and I always commemorate, but what I really think we should be commemorating is trying to find peace and trying to stop the genocide of the Palestinians which the Israeli government is perpetrating. It’s horrific.”

The protests in Britain have been a political third rail because, like the U.S., the U.K. has been one of Israel’s top enablers. Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, on Monday fired Home Secretary Suella Braverman after she claimed that police were too easy on the protests for Palestine. 

The Associated Press reported that Braverman said police officers were ignoring criminality by “pro-Palestinian mobs.” She called those marching for a ceasefire “hate marchers.”

PARIS: Thousands of protesters took to the streets in France’s largest city on Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and said there was “no justification” for bombing densely populated locations. 

Mathilde Panot, an MP for La France Insoumise (LFI), told reporters that President Emmanuel Macron was right when he called for a ceasefire, “but France must speak with a stronger voice, especially in the UN Security Council in which it is a permanent member,” according to Anadolu Ajansi. 

“France must apply as much pressure possible on Netanyahu’s far-right government in order to stop war crimes,” she said. “We want these massacres to stop immediately and that we finally reopen a peace process—the only one capable of guaranteeing both the peace and security of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”

BRUSSELS: Tens of thousands of people protested in Brussels on Saturday to lash out at Israel’s military actions in Gaza that has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. 

Police said 20,000 protesters called for Israel to end its bombing campaign, with some yelling: “EU, shame on you.”

“We are here today to ask the world for a ceasefire in Palestine,” Rima Fayad, a 31-year-old orthodontist, told the AFP.

SYDNEY: Thousands of protesters took to the streets Sunday in Australia to call for a ceasefire in Gaza for the fifth weekend in a row, according to The Guardian. 

Tensions have been high in the country since the 7 October attack. Hash Tayeh, the Palestinian-Australian restaurateur, said he received threats before his restaurant was burned down earlier in the week.  

WSWS noted that the media “blacked out the protests entirely, or downplayed them despite 100,000 people turning out across the country.”

Many of the protesters criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who they say turned a blind eye to the plight of the Palestinians. 

“He [Albanese] used to be head of the ‘friends of Palestine’ parliamentary group and he can’t even condemn Israel’s massive violence. It’s shameful,” a protester in Sydney told the outlet.

Wissam, the protester, told WSWS that Chris Minns, the  New South Wales Labor premier, with Albanese’s support, tried to “block and even ban pro-Palestinian protests.”

TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that the U.S. news media have extensively covered the pro-Israel protest in Washington, D.C., today, and presented the event as some kind of Israeli-pride tidal wave. Tens of thousands took part in the protest in the National Mall. 

The general theme at the protest in Washington was that Hamas must be eradicated at all costs, no matter how many Gazan civilians must be killed.

That narrative is the accepted one in the mainstream media that answers to political whores for Jewish donors in the U.S. Congress. Anything outside of this narrative is considered nothing less than Nazi sympathizing.   

Yet, they barely covered the Jewish Voice for Peace rallies that have also brought out tens of thousands over the past month. 

KINGSTON, N.Y.: Hundreds of protesters held a rally near the offices of The Trends Journal last week that was described by the local paper as “peaceful and passionate.”

The protesters rallied in front of U.S. Rep. Rat Ryan, D-N.Y., and called for him to back a ceasefire. The Albany Times-Union noted that Ryan, a West Point graduate, has been a “vocal supporter of Israel’s right to defend itself. He danced around the question when asked by the paper in a later interview. 

“There are understandable and I think well-intentioned calls for a cease-fire—but that requires two parties to agree,” he said. “What I’ve been calling for is that as soon as Hamas is willing to stop its attacks and commit to not continuing them, Israel must do the same, and then we will have an effective and lasting ceasefire.”

Reports said there were about 350 demonstrators and 50 counter-demonstrators. 

Ryan’s office did not immediately respond to an email from The Trends Journal seeking clarity on his stance. 

WILMINGTON, DEL: Hundreds of protesters held a rally in front of President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware which CNN said showed a “growing anger among a certain portion of the American population” about the atrocities in Gaza.

State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton was one of the protesters.

“We come to demand a ceasefire now,” she said. “We demand an end to all military aid to the state of Israel. We demand an end to the siege on Gaza. And an end to the occupation. President Biden, you are our president. We demand these things of you.”

Delaware Public reported that protesters laid white flowers on the ground in front of his house to represent the dead children in Gaza.

Dr. Afnan Albahri, a pediatrician practicing in Delaware told the outlet, “How can I explain the pain when I clutch my phone in desperation watching chest compressions on a 6 month old stop and a time of death unable to be announced because their 3 year old brother on the same stretcher was now unresponsive? How? How do I explain my translation that my counterparts in Gaza are screaming that they cannot secure an airway because there is so much rubble in it?”

The report said there was a “significant Jewish participation” at the protest on Saturday. One banner read: “JEWS SAY: STOP THE GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS!”

Hope Moser, the former President of Hillel at the University of Delaware told the crowd, “This was not the Judaism I know and love. Not the Judaism where we love our neighbors like ourselves and put justice and peace at the forefront of our existence.”

CHICAGO: Jewish Voice for Peace helped stage a protest on Monday in Chicago to block the entrance to the Israeli consulate and call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The group has been behind some major protests, including one a few weeks ago inside New York’s Grand Central Station.  Over 100 protesters took part in the event in Chicago.

The Guardian, citing the organization, reported that Jews from Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois took trains to join the rally.

Yinam Cohen, the Israeli Consul General to Chicago, said the demonstration was “not about peace.”

“Those who publicly support Hamas, a designated terrorist organization who murdered [roughly 1,200] Israelis on Oct. 7, rip down American flags, and chant ‘from the River to the Sea’—a call to annihilate the State of Israel—do not represent peace,” Cohen said. “We are overwhelmed by the endless support for Israel by millions of Americans, Jews and non-Jews alike.”

TRENDPOST: The protests that we’ve seen are reminiscent to the outrage felt in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Americans do not want to sit back and watch babies choking for air when their respirators stop because Netanyahu has the U.S.-approval to turn off the switch.

Netanyahu has refused to budge on growing calls for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, and said those protesting in favor of such a stoppage are nothing more than today’s Nazi supporters. (See “ASHKENAZI NETANYAHU: NO CEASEFIRE, THOSE WHO PROTEST AGAINST WAR ARE TODAY’S NAZI SUPPORTERS” 14 Nov 2023, “WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS THEY TAKE YOU TO WAR: NETANYAHU KNEW ABOUT LOOMING ATTACK” 7 Nov 2023,  “ISRAEL WILL MAKE HEZBOLLAH PAY IF PARAMILITARY GROUP ENTERS WAR, NETANYAHU SAYS” 24 Oct 2023 and “POLL: MAJORITY OF JEWISH ISRAELIS SAY NETANYAHU MUST RESIGN AT THE END OF THE WAR” 17 Oct 2023.)

JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE HAS ITS MOMENT

American Jews opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza have staged rallies across the U.S. organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, which included Chicago, New York’s Grand Central Station, the Statue of Liberty, and other locations in the U.S.

“As Jewish people, we say ‘Not in our name,’” Thea Riofrancos, one of the organizers of a rally in Providence, RI, said, according to WJAR. “We want to stand on the side of peace, on the side of solidarity, on the side of humanity.”

Columbia University announced last week that it suspended its chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, claiming that the group “repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events” and is a threat to the campus’s security. 

The group staged major protests in Grand Central Station on several occasions, including Friday, which forced its closure. These protesters also entered The New York Times’s building and vandalized the front glass with a red tint. Six people were arrested for disorderly conduct.  

The Intercept reported that in 2021, about 25 percent of Jews in the U.S. believed that Israel was an apartheid state and 34 percent agreed that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians was similar to racism in the U.S. The report said 22 percent said they believed Israel was committing genocide.