Senators join protests against Israeli prime minister in New York
Demonstrators demanded that U.S. stop giving Israel billions of dollars a year in almost unconditional aid
NEW YORK – New York State Senators Jabari Brisport and Zohran Mamdani joined a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly.
The protest took place outside the U.N. building in New York City and was attended by over 250 Jewish protesters and allies.
During his speech, Netanyahu displayed a map of the Middle East without Palestine and claimed that he has “long sought peace with the Palestinians.”
The demonstrators declared that there can be no peace under apartheid.
The demonstrators demanded that the U.S. stop giving Israel billions of dollars a year in almost unconditional aid.
They said this aid is complicit with the apartheid regime in Israel.
Adalah Justice Project Communications and Strategy Director Sumaya Awad told the protesters that the U.S. should refuse to host a man who has openly praised the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
“We should refuse to host a man who has openly lauded the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, who gave the green light for bombing campaigns that left large parts of Gaza uninhabitable, a man who approved killing sprees that riddled streets with Palestinians wounded and killed,” she said.
The senators previously drew attention to the more than 700,000 Israelis living in more than 250 illegal settlements built with the support of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Palestinian land in the illegally occupied West Bank.
Last year, the Israeli government forcibly evicted more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in what many critics called ethnic cleansing.
Hundreds more Palestinians have been evicted this year to make way for Jewish settlers.
This year also saw several deadly settler raids on Palestinian towns.
According to the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 200 Palestinians this year, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians since the final year of the second intifada, or general uprising, in 2005.
The advocacy group Defense for Children International Palestine says 45 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis so far this year. At least 30 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian militant attacks in 2023.
Through it all, the U.S. continues to give Israel—the 13th-wealthiest nation in the world per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund—billions of dollars in nearly unconditional annual aid.
“Earlier today, someone asked me, ‘Why should New Yorkers care about what’s happening halfway across the world in Israel?'” said Mamdani, a co-sponsor of Brisport’s bill.
“There are 3.8 billion reasons for us to care: Same as the number of dollars that go from the U.S. to Israel in military aid every year.”
“As Americans,” he added, “this is a fight that recognizes our complicity in this apartheid regime in Israel.”
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