Since last October, when Israel ramped up its offensive against Palestinians, D.C. resident Moataz Salim lost more than 20 family members living in Gaza, including a cousin killed in an airstrike in January along with her husband and children.
Salim, 26, counted among those who marched through the John A. Wilson Building on Tuesday afternoon to demand that the D.C. Council passes a resolution in support of a cease-fire in Gaza.
Once inside the Wilson Building, he and more than 50 people interrupted a Committee of the Whole hearing taking place in the council chambers and approached D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) on the dais.
The group, which also included the Rev. Graylan Hagler, Nee Nee Taylor of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, Jacqueline Luqman of Black Alliance for Peace, the Rev. Anthony Motley, and Busboys & Poets owner Andy Shallal, unsuccessfully attempted on two occasions to engage council members participating in an active shooter response training on the fourth floor.
After Mendelson summoned law enforcement to escort protesters outside the chambers, acts of civil disobedience continued on the fifth floor of the Wilson Building.
For more than an hour, protesters chanted in opposition to genocide as police officers formed groups on both sides of the hallway. In their remarks, some protesters went on to decry what they described as the D.C. Council’s complicity in Palestinian deaths.
Some, like Salim, did so while holding a sign that said “D.C. Council Legacy = Genocide.”
“It’s heartbreaking honestly and maddening as well, especially given that the council welcomed AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Council), collaborated with them and took their money,” Salim, a Northwest resident of nearly four years, told The Informer shortly after Monday’s protest.
“That means they’re aiding and abetting genocide,” he continued. “I plan to stay in D.C. for the foreseeable future because I love this city but to know that my representatives are siding with the genocide of my people in Gaza is an insane thing.”
By the time Palestinian Muslims started the holy month of Ramadan this week, more than 30,000 of their countrypeople lost their lives with a permanent cease-fire increasingly becoming unlikely.
With nothing beyond canned food within their reach, and food prices reaching exorbitant levels, many Palestinian families have been unable to break a fast that many argue started long before Muslims spotted the crescent moon in Saudi Arabia.
Though the Biden administration continues to support Israel, its rhetoric toward the situation in Gaza has incrementally shifted over the last few days.
Earlier in March, Vice President Kamala Harris implored the Israeli government to increase the flow of aid to the Palestinian people. She later called for a six-week cease-fire, not quite what proponents of a more permanent, human solution were seeking. This development comes just after the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolution and reaffirmed support for Israel after its forces killed more than 100 Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid.
Activists Make Their Voices Heard
Monday’s act of civil disobedience at the Wilson Building counted among at least three to take place in the weeks since Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old U.S. Air Force serviceman, died after setting himself on fire outside of the Israeli Embassy.
Earlier this month, Hagler and several others interrupted a Committee of the Whole performance oversight hearing. For several minutes, he commanded Mendelson’s attention and that of D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) as they explained the significance of a cease-fire resolution.
Last Friday, Shallal and other members of a cease-fire group confronted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) as she delivered remarks at the Artomatic 2024 kickoff. That day, another cease-fire organizing group, that included Green Party D.C. congressional candidate Kymone Freeman, waited outside of D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office to demand her support for this cause.
As reported in a previous Informer story, at least two council members — Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Robert White (D-At large) — have expressed support for a cease-fire. At a March 4 legislative media briefing, D.C. Council Chairman Mendelson (D) told The Informer that, while he plans to meet with Hagler, he doesn’t foresee the passage of a cease-fire resolution in the future.
Activists watching the exchange between Mendelson and the Informer in Room 412 of the Wilson Building the next day didn’t take well to Mendelson’s response. On social media, they cited his decision to place blue lights on the John A. Wilson Building blue in recognition of the Israeli lives lost last October, and more recently, his efforts to rename an alley near the Russian Embassy in honor of martyred dissident Alexei Navalny.
On Tuesday, Hagler pledged to keep protesting.
“We’ve got to make them understand that there are repercussions to their perspective,”Hagler told fellow protesters on the fifth floor of the Wilson Building. “We will never accept that the killing in Gaza is inconsequential. That’s what the chairperson said,” Hagler continued. “They know that killing is consequential to us in D.C. as well as in Gaza. We are here to make a statement [for] the human family: our children and sisters and brothers in Gaza and the rest back in D.C.”
