Video by Chuck Modi: protesters chant “MPD, KKK, IDF, they’re all the same!”

New Video: Extended footage of the peaceful protest that induced Union Station to shut themselves down

On the 17th of November, protesters descended on DC’s Union Station intent on shutting it down over the gaza genocide. When they got there, Union Station had shut themselves down, closing their doors to all but Amtrak ticket holders who could not be excluded.

Protesters rallied outside in victory, their mission for the day accomplished. It is likely that security at Union Station believed police and Dem/GOP lies about how the brutal police attack on Wednesday’s protest at the DNC started. Not wanting a repeat the closed the station’s doors to the public exclusing AMTRAK ticket holders.

Looks like Palestine protests and DC in particular are seriously heating up! Official over-reactions to peaceful protests have sparked a major confrontation, evacuated the DNC, and shut down a major transportation hub in the space of just two days. Things are heating up elsewhere too. In Florida, rabidly pro-Israel Gov and Presidential candidate DeSantis is proposing to criminalize ALL pro-Palestine protest if a way around the 1st Amendment can be found. Already he has ordered universities to “deactivate” Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, though the universities and their cops have no legal power to prevent them from continuing to operate without university support and funds.

On the 16th of November, protesters in Tampa, FL marched on City Hall. This protest organized by Tampa Community Action Committee demanded that Mayor Jane Castor CUT ties with Israel, and meet these demands:

1: Ban cross-training between the Tampa police and IDF/IOF troops.

2: End the Florida-Israel Business Accelerator Program within Tampa.

3: Refrain from using the Tampa police to restrict or silence pro-Palestine protests.

4: Issue public, on the record statements condemning Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza, recognize the current genocide as such, and condemn Zionism.

5: Issue a public call to protect Students for Justice and Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. These groups have faced extreme harasment from university administrations etc in recent weeks.

6: Issue a public apology for ignoring Tampa’s Palestinian community, one of the largest in Florida. Also Jane Castor must apologize for silence in the ongoing genocide inGaza and for her public posts supporting Israel.

More in-depth video with incredible footage from the blockade at the DNC

Original shorter video w just the key clips

On the 15th of November, an IfNotNow/JVP blockade of the DNC’s doors was met with overwhelming police violence and pepper spray. At least one person was thrown down the stairs. Online trolls and pro-Israel members of Congress claimed that protesters were storming not blockading the building, video evidence says otherwise. Some even claimed this was an “insurrection,” as MTG did a month ago, With Dems believeing their own hype, the DNC was evacuated.

The IfNotNow Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace vigil outside and door blockade of the Democratic National Committee was to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

The response was an astounding display of official and unofficial fury and venom. Someone reportedly overheard one of the Dems telling the police to “use full force.” They did” cops muscled in on the sit-in, and at least one person was physically thrown down the stairs. There was a report of “bear mace” most likely the big fire extinguisher-based mace soakers used by riot cops in DC.

Report is that the DNC was at least partially evacuated as cops and CongressCritters believed their own hype.

After this scrum was over, matters got even nastier! First came a “false kettle” where cops surround protesters but do not follow through with a mass arrest. After that, the trolls on social media started up, no doubt with planted stories ready to roll. Congressman Brad Sherman(D-CA maybe D-Tel Aviv?) went so far as to claim on Birdchan(AKA Twitter/X) to claim that activists pepper sprayed the cops, instead of police mace blowing back on them with the wind as so often happens.

It seems Brad Sherman would be more at home on the MAGA side of the house. He is attempting to gaslight the whole country, being one of the sources of the claim that those clearly seen on video blocking the doors with locked arms were instead trying to storm the building. It’s hard to pepper spray a cop with both hands busy locking arms!

Claims by Rep Sherman and others that protesters tried to storm the building are contradicted by what is clearly shown on video to be a blockade. The author of this report was in plenty of building stormings with Occupy DC about a decade ago and in later pipeline protests. I’ve also seen hundreds of blockades, and this was a blockade. An attempt to storm the building would have run straight into the blockaders and ended in complete failure. Clearly Congressman Brad Sherman is nothing but a gaslighting liar.

Riffing on the spurious “storming” charge, we even have trolls calling this an insurrection, though no weapons are present other than those of the cops! There are no shields, no gas masks, none of the protective gear our fighters wore during the Uprising (our 2020 Intifada) or in later battles with the Proud Boys. This was clearly a protest and judging by the equipment and markings used was intended to be peaceful.

Well, I guess the though of standing up for Gaza is more than Genocide Joe’s Democrats (should we call them autocrats?) can stand. Already they are screaming about the sheer volume of calls they are getting demanding a ceasefire, while clearly they support a total wipeout of Gaza.

On the 13th of November the Block Cop City march faced off with cops near Weelaunee Forest. The cops lacked the courage or maybe the strength to fight the banner wall protected wedge formation at the lead of the march shield to shield. Instead, they opened up with tear gas and flashbangs. This failed to end the march-and 8 protesters got through and locked down to construction equipment.

Perhaps the cops learned to forget close quarters battle and use area effect weapons instead when they trained jointly in Israel with the IDF? There too, the IDF lacks the courage to fight in the tunnels, so instead they are trying to destroy all of Gaza under a storm of bombing.

Anyway, at Weelanuee Forest today, the wind caught the gas and blew some of it back on the cops, who had not masked up. This is an inherent risk of chemical weapons and cannot be avoided, going all the way back to World War I. Both sides retreated from the contaminated air and both regrouped.

Cops continued to fire tear gas in at least one location as marchers headed back. A menacing threat of mass arrest did not deter the march from holding together all the way back to their starting point.

All this chaos distracted the cops-and 8 protesters slipped past everything, penetrated all police defenses, and locked down to construction equipment at the Cop City construction site.

This is an automatic VICTORY for Block Cop City, as they achieved their stated goal of entering the site and holding a civil disobedience. The fact that even ONE person reached the site and locked down is an automatic defeat for the police, as they failed to prevent all protesters from reaching the site much less locking down to it. Anything the cops do after changes only the price not the fact of this heroic victory over what looked like insurmountable odds.

Suck it up, Atlanta Police Foundation, you LOST today. Tort will NEVER be forgotten, Cop City will NEVER be built!

Same video (by Our Rights DC) on Mastodon if this proves too intense for archive.org (which does not have a content warning system that works without requiring logins)

On the 11th of November, protesters horrified by Israel’s wholesale slaughter in Gaza held a die-in at the White House, complete with what appeared to be dead children in burial shrouds. This was on the day the death toll in Gaza(population is 1/2 children!) passed 11,000.

Note that Nov 11 (now Veteran’s Day) was originally called Armistice Day, marking the cease-fire that ended the brutality of World War I. This would be a good time for another ceasefire!

On the 11th of November, another big Gaza march took over Tampa’s riverwalk, this time adding boats with the Palestinian flag and a sound system.

On the 9th of November, Palestine solidarity protesters gathered at the Boca Raton, FL offices of Israeli arms maker Real Time Laboratories. Supporters of the IDF (some in IDF T-shirts) counterprotested. The entire rally was very tense, sparking several partial running charges down the block and four arrests. All arrestees are now out, one of them without charges.

Just getting people out of the protest site afterwards was difficult: for both sides to withdraw at once is known to kick off some of the most intense confrontations at similar showdowns between fascists and anarchists. In the end, cops had to order the pro-IDF side to leave first and clear the are, after some of the Gaza solidarity protesters sat down and refused to forfeit the field to them.

This as extreme-right figures in Israel are calling for the use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS against Gaza!

On the 5th of November, Palestinians and supporters in Tampa, Fl held a march for Gaza along Fowler Ave near USF.

Like the previous week’s march, hundreds turned out to show their support for Gaza in the face of an all-out attempt at genocide. Israel’s Interior Minister has called for the complete expulsion of every man, woman, and child in Gaza. Already over 9,000 people out of a population somewhere over two million in Gaza have been killed by Israel’s bombing. That is equivalent to the toll in the United States if 9-11 had used nuclear weapons in NYC and led to about 1,350,000 deaths in the US assuming a US population of roughly 300 million.

On the 5th of November, one of a great many Gaza solidarity protests was held in Rockville, MD. Extremist supporters of Israel showed up to counterprotest. They tried to shout down the rally, called for the extermination of all Gaza residents and called for turning Gaza into “a parking lot.” Not satisfied with hate speech and open calls for genocide, they got physically pushy with at least one of the pro-Palestine protesters. Cops separated them from the person they were shoving but took no other action against the attackers. Fascists normally don’t arrest Fascists so this is no surprise.

As assaults go, this was low level as the extremists didn’t wade in hitting everyone with flagpoles etc like the Proud Boys at J6, but it’s still an assault. Until now, Israel supporters had quite sensibly avoided Palestininan protests in the DC area. That might be changing-or this may just be an extremist outfit disconnected from their larger community. The latter is to be hoped for but the former is possible. There was more serious fighting on the first weekend of protests both in South Florida and in Washington State. The hate speech was as bad as anything one would expect to hear from the worst hard fascists in the whole US. Overt calls for exterminating the entire population of any community dredge up the very worst memories of 1940’s Europe.

10PM: Unicorn Riot video: Cops clear Penn Ave to push protesters further from White House 1 min 21 sec

7 PM: The big march has wound through the streets around the streets near the White House. As the march ended, a crowd lingered near the White House until cops pushed them back. Not far away, the McDonald’s closest to the White House got graffiti and a smashed window. McDonald’s is on the list of top US corporations targetted for boycotts by the BDS (Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions) movement for their involvement in Israel’s apartheid regime

3:30PM: Nuno Marques footage shows huge crowd at Freedom Plaza

3PM: Our Rights DC footage from Freedom Plaza

3PM: Pro-J6 fake media personality “Glorybeefreedom” spotted at growing crowd for main march. Seems to be in agitator not fake media role at the moment

1:35PM: report of police hassling incoming protesters with signs or wearing kheffiyah on the Metro. This stopped as protesters density on trains grew

1PM: Protesters create memorial to children murdered in Gaza by indiscriminate bombing, “between the lamp posts” on Penn Ave at the White House. Cops threaten arrest but protesters called their bluff. Video from Unicorn Riot’s footage 1 min 45 sec. From Mastodon as the footage was just too intense for archive.org. They don’t seem to have a content warning system that works without a login wall so I had to pull it down from there