Washington, D.C. — Thousands of anti-Israel protesters burned American flags, clashed with police, and climbed parked vehicles near the Hill on Wednesday afternoon as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress about his country’s ongoing efforts to eliminate Hamas terrorists.
Eyewitnesses who spoke with National Review on the scene said police used pepper spray after some protesters attempted to jump over barricades erected down the hill from the Capitol building. U.S. Park Police said in a statement that protesters had failed to obey orders to move back from the police line.
Further back in the crowd, protesters climbed dump trucks parked to block off streets for the rally and set off smoke bombs as more demonstrators pushed up toward the police perimeter on Constitution Avenue.
After police pepper sprayed the crowd, demonstrators pushed northeast of the Capitol on Massachusetts Avenue, where streets had not been blocked off for foot traffic. Buses and cars were stopped for as long as 40 minutes, according to drivers who spoke with NR.
Once protesters reached the Capitol Hill neighborhood, they looped back around to Union Station, where some burned American flags and raised Palestinian ones on the flagpoles in Columbus Circle, three blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Others graffitied the monuments and statues in the park. D.C. Metropolitan Police blocked anyone from entering Union Station.
The march was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, a left-wing anti-war group that partnered with several other organizations, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Code Pink, and the People’s Forum. The groups plan to protest at the Democratic National Convention in mid-August, according to literature shared with NR.
On Tuesday, protesters released maggots and crickets into a room in the Watergate Hotel where Netanyahu is staying and pulled fire alarms to disturb him, the hotel confirmed to Politico in a statement. “We took the necessary steps to ensure the property has been sanitized and is now operating as normal,” the hotel said.
It’s unclear who put the bugs in the Watergate, but the Palestinian Youth Movement posted a video of the bugs on social media on Wednesday.
During the rally and march, protesters chanted “Globalize the Intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Netanyahu you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” One organizer of the event, Eugene Puryear of the ANSWER Coalition, said the demonstrators were there to “conduct a citizen’s arrest” on Netanyahu.
“This is not an Israeli genocide,” Puryear told the crowd. “This is a U.S. and Israeli genocide.”
The speaker lineup featured Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein and pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour. “The reason why Kamala Harris is not presiding on Benjamin Netanyahu, the war criminal’s speech in Congress today is because of you,” Sarsour told the crowd during her speech. “The reason why dozens of members of Congress are boycotting the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu is because of you.”
One speaker found the crowd less receptive to her message of nonviolence than to her criticism of Israel. Adriene Thorne, a senior minister from Riverside Church of the City of New York, referred to the Hamas attack from October 7 and said in her speech, “We cannot fight evil with evil.” The line drew little applause.
Some protesters told NR they do not condemn Hamas. A common chant of many marchers was “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” So read a sign sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition. Adina Cohen of Montgomery County, Md., who held the sign, said she “detests,” but “cannot condemn” Hamas’ terrorism because of Israel’s alleged occupation of the region.
“I don’t support what they did, but I don’t condemn it because resistance is justified,” Cohen said in an interview. “When you are unfairly treated, you respond with equal if not greater resistance to win greater freedom.”
Another protester, 22-year-old Oliver Nicholson of the Young Communist League of New York, said his support for Palestine is based on his communist beliefs.
“I’m here to protest the support the U.S. has been giving to Netanyahu and his genocidal regime, to destroy Palestinian life as we know it,” Nicholson said.
As the protesters were blocking traffic northeast of the Capitol, NR spoke with a rideshare driver in the backup who had his window rolled down. Both the driver and his passenger said they supported the protester’s cause and wanted to give an interview about it.
But, as much as they supported the marchers, the support had its limits — the passenger needed to make it to her next appointment and the driver needed to find other patrons.
“This is my job,” he said, as he turned the car around.