It is simply outrageous to stage a rally to support a massacre–yet that is exactly what apologists for Israeli crimes did on July 22 in downtown Chicago. The location was just outside the Israeli consulate, because when you have no credible demands or anyone to address them to (other than the television cameras which dutifully appeared) you may as well remain on friendly territory.
There were a few hundred pro-Israeli protesters, many in professional business attire who seemed to have just emerged from the nearby corporate offices. Those counter-protesting in support of peace and Palestinian human rights were kept on a sidewalk across the street. They outnumbered the genocide supporters.
What was the aim of the pro-Israel supporters? Just last week the Senate approved a defense spending bill that would double the military aid given to Israel for its ‘missile defense.’ Every single congressperson voted to stand with Israel. Meanwhile the local and national media continues its narrative either in vociferous support of the Israeli invasion, or, at best, a vague equivalence between the largely non-lethal Palestinian resistance against their occupiers and the hundreds of Gazans dead by Israeli weapons.
Their aim is largely to try to scare the Palestinian and Muslim community, to get the U.S. government to be even more supportive of their attempt to destroy Gaza and to stop their very real losses in the arena of public opinion. The first and the third aims are not going to happen.
The size of the pro-Israel contingent was also dwarfed by the 10,000 who took to downtown Chicago just two days prior to demand an end to the massacre in Gaza.
As the chants for a free Palestine and an end to child murder and occupation showed, the true interests of the people in Chicago and around the world will win out in the end against any attempts to obfuscate and hide the truth of the situation.
