It usually takes 10 minutes, 15 at most, to get downtown from southeast D.C. On Saturday, it took over an hour. Traffic was at a standstill, and the metro was overflowing as protesters descended upon the nation’s capital to attend the People’s Forum “Free Palestine” march.
The largest “pro-Palestine” protest in American history was centralized at Freedom Plaza — just a block away from the White House — but spilled into the surrounding areas as thousands of protesters splintered off into dozens of miniature rallies in the side streets. Roads were closed until 7 p.m.
It’s unclear how many people attended the march. Some initial estimates suggested the crowd size would peak with around 20,000 attendees, while activists say it exceeded 100,000. One D.C. police officer said he wouldn’t be surprised if there were “around 200,000 people” in attendance but “had no clue” what the actual number was.
The intersectional and multicultural coalitions were out in full force with “Koreans for Palestine,” “Kurds for Palestine,” “Ecuadorians for Palestine,” and “Queers for Palestine” in attendance.
Image CreditFDRLST
As is the case with every “decolonization” protest, national monuments were defiled. Statues of national heroes such as Benjamin Franklin, Rochambeau, and Gen. John Pershing were covered in Arab keffiyehs (headscarves noting allegiance to Palestinian nationalist movements), graffitied with vulgarities, and had Palestinian flags placed upon them.
In Freedom Plaza, students from the College University of New York Internationalist Club gathered around and atop the statute of American Revolutionary
