On the 24th of July, protesters opposing Netanyahu’s genocide of Gaza showed up outside the Watergate where he was staying, for the 3ed night in a row. They banged drums, blew other nisemakers, and projected an “wanted poster” of Netanyahu on the Watergate.
At one point shortly after protesters set off a smoke flare, a poster showing Netanyahu was fed to the hungry flames. Shortly therafter an Israeli flag was burned (not on this video).
Video: street blockades starting with a hard lockdown (w lockboxes), then mobile tactics delay and disrupt Netanyahu’s motorcade. Includes motorcade vehicles (probably advance vehicles) failing to defeat a blockade and having to retreat West back towards the White House
Video: powerful blasts from police munitions near Union Station
Video: US flag comes down, Palestinian flag goes up, and Netanyahu burns in effigy at Union Station
We began with at least one hard blockade on Independence Ave, featuring two crews with lockboxes to hold their ground. Cops pushed back the overall crowd, exposing the locked down protesters who were more difficult to move. This led to several arrests.
After that, protesters switched tactics to multiple roving, mobile blockade crews. These would hold an intersection until things got untenable, then move on and strike again. Sting and move, sting and move.
Intercepted police comms showed chaos, with cops unable to figure out where to send their own forces-and unable to find ANY route for Netanyahu’s motorcade.
Eventually he found a way in, unknown if this was before or after the various blockades picked up and joined into a single large march attempting to surround the Capitol with marchers.
Union Station DID get surrounded, and there things got seriously spicy. One cop tried to charge and arrest someone, only to trip and go down. Cops made a failed attempt to stop the burning of the US flags from the flagpoles, making a couple arrests only to have the entire crowd turn and advance on them with fury and determination. The cops took their hostages and ran, with protesters in pursuit. They were lucky to escape without having to cough up those hostages to get away.
Protesters then returned tp their targets, pulling down and burning the US flags outside Union Station, then burning them. An effigy of Netanayahu was barebecued over one of the flags.
There were also a number of flashbangs, two of them very, very powerful. I directly asked a line of the cops “were those your munitions?” getting no answer. These can thus be assumed to be police flashbangs, with the stone architecture in the area boosting the sound of the blasts.
On the 23ed pf July, hundreds of Jewish antwar activists occupied the Cannon House Office building’s rotunda and refused to leave. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, they staged thig high-profile civil disobedience just one day before Netanyahu’s address before Congress.
A pro-Zionist group claimed these protesters “stormed the Capitol” but that claim is only valid if the entry checkpoints are breached or bypassed by force, like what Trump supporters did on Jan 6 2021. Also unlike this peaceful civil disobedience, that targetted the Capitol itself not a House Office Building.
On the 14th of July, pro-Palestine protesters returned to Orlando’s Lake Eola with one message: Fuck Trump, eyes on Gaza! Due to the events of the previous day, the protest was limited to fliering the farmer’s market rather than say, marching through it chanting.
That didn’t stop cops from menacing protesters, in one case almost running over someone’s heel with a bicycle wheel. An event staffer from the farmers market first went to the cops, then whined (on camera) about being filmed! She went on to make excuse after excuse before demanding that activists either NOT HAND OUT LEAFLETS or leave the portion of the park the farmer’s market was in. This can be considered active interference with the objective of stopping the genocide in Gaza.
Note that within hours of the previous day’s Trump incident, the IOF launched a blizzard of attacks to exploit the distraction in the US. This is the same thing they did during the Super Bowl.
On the 2nd of July, protesters showed up at the home of Supreme Court “justice” Roberts. This time around, the protest was against his vote to grant Trump and by extension all other presidents absolute immunity for any acts that could plausibly in the line of official business.
A key chant was “we want democracy, not a monarchy” and no head of state claiming jurisdiction over this part of Turtle Island has had this sort of immunity since King George III.