While Congress Celebrated Netanyahu, We Marched

Back in 2015, I was in Washington, D.C., marching to protest the US Congress’ warm welcome of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, I was demanding that the killing machine massacring children in Gaza — my birthplace — be stopped. That the US would end its support for the Israeli occupation and military machine.

Look at today, in 2024. He’s back. We’re back. And Zionism’s crimes continue unabated.

My wife and three children are joining me in D.C. today not only as a family, but as voices of families from Gaza who have been denied basic human rights, who live in the most live-streamed genocide in recorded human history.

Despite all the videos and news getting out, we struggle to reach our friends and loved ones still in Gaza. Every day we hear of a new massacre and we fear we’ve lost someone dear to us. Some days we do.

Gaza is a mortuary. It is a graveyard for children. This total obliteration of Gaza has rendered it a ghost town of the dead, the dying, and the ones struggling to survive.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is receiving royal treatment by the United States government. The US government not only celebrates this war criminal, but denies any attempt to acknowledge the numbers his regime has killed.

I am part of an unequivocally Indigenous Palestinian people. Palestinian-Americans like me are adamantly determined to continue on the path of seeking justice for all of us and our families in Palestine — no matter who the president is.

We will continue to hold Biden accountable. He will forever be remembered as “Genocide Joe.” That is his true legacy, not his supposedly “selfless” step down from the presidential race that some Democrats claim.

We will do everything in our power to ensure that our government is held accountable and stops supporting the killing machine of our families.

We are immensely proud of our friends and supporters here in the US and around the world who refused to stand idly by and be passive bystanders. We promise to continue in every possible way we can to seek justice for our families, our people and for humanity.

The people united will never be defeated.