This article, originally published in Liberation News, describes the historic formation of the People’s Red Line surrounding the White House.
On June 8, pro-Palestine activists traveled from across the United States to Washington, D.C. to attend the latest massive demonstration of opposition to the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza. The national action was organized by Palestinian Youth Movement, The People’s Forum, National Students for Justice in Palestine, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, Pal-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and ANSWER Coalition, among others.
Wearing red, the over 100,000 attendees completely encircled the White House holding a two-mile long red banner inscribed with the names of the 40,000 Palestinians martyred by Israel in Gaza since October. This formed what organizers called the “People’s Red Line”—a powerful symbolic rejection of President Joe Biden’s lie that an Israeli attack on Rafah would be his “red line” for supplying the regime with further weapons.
Rafah is the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, and it is where over a million Palestinian refugees are sheltering in massive tent cities after Israel bombed their homes in the north and drove them out. Weeks of Israeli bombing of Rafah using U.S.-made bombs and aircraft have caused horrific massacres, but the Biden administration has continued to approve weapons sales to Israel.
“If Joe Biden’s red line was a lie designed to make us quiet, we are instead going to become louder, bigger, and more militant!” stated ANSWER Coalition National Director Brian Becker at the rally in front of the White House.
ANSWER member Eugene Puryear called the People’s Red Line “an unmistakable message that not in our name will we allow a genocide to be waged. From D.C. to Palestine, we are the red line!”
‘Our lives are intrinsically connected to those in the Global South’
Speakers at the rally also condemned the Biden administration for sending unlimited supplies of military aid for endless wars and genocide overseas, while cutting funding to public programs at home.
“Our lives are intrinsically connected to those in the Global South because we understand that we have more in common with every community in struggle than with the so-called leaders of this country,” said Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz at the rally.
“We understand that the reason we are suffering a housing crisis, that we cannot access healthcare or education, that our migrants are being attacked is for the same reasons the U.S. imperialists launch war against poor people everyday,” she continued.
The People’s Court of Justice
After encircling the White House, activists convened the People’s Court of Justice. During this tribunal, human rights attorneys and legal scholars heard testimonies coming out of Gaza about the genocidal acts committed by the Israeli military and put on trial those Israeli and U.S. officials responsible.
Members of the Palestinian community read harrowing testimonies which described widespread injuries, death, starvation, and disease caused by relentless Israeli bombing, shelling, as well as through the ground invasion, occupation, and total siege of the Gaza Strip.
“There are a lot of kids with amputations,” said one doctor’s testimony from Gaza. “We have only the primary medical supplies paracetamol and ibuprofen [two over-the-counter painkillers] and dressing, and unfortunately we don’t have access to our clinic—the Israeli army cut our access to the road.”
“We treated a six-year-old female child, she was badly injured with an external fixator, a tool to hold broken bones in place, and there is a big raw area in her flesh. She was crying and shouting, she was begging for painkillers, for sedation, because she’s tired of the pain, and she’s tired of the inability to move her arm,” the doctor’s testimony continued, adding that fleas and Hepatitis A were spreading rampantly through shelters and clinics in Gaza.
Another witness testimony described widespread starvation.
“We are forced to eat animal food just to survive,” said the testimony. “Sometimes we eat bird food, donkey food, and sometimes grass, which we pick from the corners of the streets. We are trying to survive hunger … One kilogram of rice costs $33, so I can’t afford to feed the children. We don’t have any clean water, there’s no drinkable water, you don’t have electricity, and cannot get medicine.”
With all the evidence laid out before them and the crowd, the People’s Court of Justice found Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, and Antony Blinken all guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
June 8 demonstrated the people’s determination to end the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza and bring those responsible to justice. We will continue to demand a complete end to all U.S. support for Israel and we will continue to fight until Palestine is free of occupation and colonization, from the river to the sea!
We call on people all around the world to urgently draw the red line against genocide by organizing actions at the offices of elected officials and all institutions complicit in the genocide of Palestinian people. To register an action go to shutitdown4palestine.org.
Featured image: Protestors form the People’s Red Line in front of the White House. Credit: Liberation News
