Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) shared video of a scene near the White House in Washington, D.C. showing what he characterized as “hundreds of young Jews calling for the end of violence on innocent lives in Gaza.” Bowman writes of his immense admiration for the protestors, saying there is “nothing I could say that captures my respect, admiration, and heartache for members of this community who have endured unspeakable atrocities.”
Those atrocities — the deadly, barbaric, inhumane attacks on Israel and kidnapping of Israeli citizens by Hamas, operating out of Gaza — have stunned the world, and drawn promises of Israeli retribution that will “remake the Middle East.”
Video of the protest features a female rabbi passionately addressing the crowd, saying the gathered people there are grieving, but that they are also “fighting for life, fighting to prevent, to stop genocide.” The rabbi reads the mourner’s kaddish on behalf of all the “thousands of Palestinians and Israelis altogether killed this week.”
Outside the White House right now there are hundreds of young Jews calling for the end of violence on innocent lives in Gaza.
— Rep. Jamaal Bowman Ed.D. (@JamaalBowmanNY) October 16, 2023
There’s nothing I could say that captures my respect, admiration, and heartache for members of this community who have endured unspeakable atrocities and… https://t.co/cITnBUW3e1
The prayers and advocacy of the protestors goes out to Innocent civilians in Gaza who do not support Hamas and are caught in the crossfire. Rep. Bowman draws attention to the moral courage of young Jewish actors who are putting this kind of mercy ahead of vengeance — and who are asking the powers that be to distinguish between the perpetrators of the violence and the innocents who are only collateral in the conflict and whose devastation will only heighten divisions and future brutality in the region.
It takes high character, Bowman says, to see beyond rage after the “atrocities.”
