Oct 18

Oct 18 A Page Turner

Chicago, Demonstrations, Protest, Public Declarations

The flags, the signs, the speakers, the demonstrators, the chants, the emotions: Outwardly, all the same. So why go back for the fourth Palestinian demonstration in just 11 days? I asked myself that question, and others have asked me that too.

The answer is quite simple: The plot line is a page-turner. The characters and the settings remain constant, but there is a flow heading toward a dramatic denouement. What’s going to be different today or tonight? How do those differences advance the story?

For the first time since the Israeli-Palestinian War began, the demonstrators convened in Federal Plaza, where Alexander Calder’s Flamingo has stood watch over countless demonstrations. When I arrived, there were 200 to 300 people already in place, chanting the now familiar slogans. No matter who is demonstrating, I always wonder whether the repetition of the same slogans hypnotically enchants the assembly.

The news cameras were in place in front of the stone bench where the speakers would offer more of the same inflammatory remarks. I took my usual position on the ground in front of the cameras.

But there were notable differences. First, the police were out in force. Groups of well-equipped officers stood between the demonstrators and the entrance to the John C. Kluczynski Federal Office Building, where Senators Durbin and Duckworth have their local offices.

Second, the speeches took a far more strident tone than at the three prior demonstrations. I was not surprised. After all, a day ago, reports flashed across the world that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza had been struck by a missile, leaving over 500 people dead. Each side immediately pointed the finger at the other, and subsequent reports suggest a more nuanced and likely smaller catastrophe.

A tragic local twist added impetus to this demonstration. On Saturday in Plainfield, Illinois, Joseph M. Czuba was arrested for allegedly stabbing six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume 26 times and seriously wounding his mother, Hanaan Shahin. The boy died. Wadea and his mother’s ‘crime’: they were Muslim and in the wrong place at the wrong time, which just so happened to be the house they called home. Before the speeches started, the gathered took a moment of silence in memory of Wadea.

Somewhat surprisingly, Congressional Representative Jan Schakowsky was spared the vitriolic attacks that have echoed above the crowd during earlier rallies, but President Joe Biden and Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin came in for particularly harsh rhetoric. The media also took heavy verbal fire when several speakers called out what they characterized as a pro-Israeli bent; we even heard a chant castigating the fourth estate.

The speakers who addressed the tragedy at the hospital largely assumed that Israel was lying. I take the position we still don’t have enough evidence to definitively find fault, but many of the speeches were anything but evidence based. That is not to say the Palestinians don’t have legitimate grievances that must be addressed, or that Israel has acted in good faith over the last several decades. They do, and it hasn’t.

Following the speeches, the group marched up Dearborn to Madison, and then turned west to the office of the Consulate General of Israel, which is in Accenture Tower (also known as the Ogilvie Transportation Center). Before we left Federal Plaza, I took a look around. The crowd had grown considerably, now numbering in the thousands, as became abundantly clear when I stood on an ‘L’ platform above Madison.

I arrived at Accenture Tower to a packed street, with the sidewalk closed behind police barricades. I immediately headed toward a back entranceway to the building, figuring I could capture images from one of the balconies overlooking the street. But building security would not allow anyone to stand near the windows, purportedly out of concern for their safety. (At the time, two or three other people stood in what is a massive mezzanine; nobody was posing a threat to anyone.)

I then took the escalator one floor up, hoping to find an unrestricted view. No luck, so I set my camera for what I assumed was the proper exposure, and rode the escalator back down, snapping images along the way. A guard then started screaming at me, but it was too late. While those images are overexposed, the crowd is visible.

Back outside, when I passed one of dozens of police officers, I said to him, “it’s really crazy out here.” He responded with a telling quip, “and the ground invasion has not even started.” The police clearly are nervous about where all this might lead, and for good reason. A few minutes later I saw a pro-Israeli counter-demonstrator ride a Divvy bike just west of where the demonstrators were gathered. He was shouting and flipping them the bird. Several police officers converged—not to arrest him, but to get him out of the area for his own safety. He made several passes, but nothing came of it.

I don’t know how long the crowd remained outside Accenture Tower. Given the total darkness that had descended following sunset, I knew that photographically I had little reason to stay. On my way out, I passed one police officer whom I have gotten to know during many prior demonstrations. He said, “See you Saturday.” “What?,” I asked. Yep, the Palestinian Community’s leaders had already scheduled the next demonstration.

I am cautious about turning this into a football game between Team Palestine and Team Israel, but the fact that the Palestinians’ presence on downtown streets has yet to be matched by Chicago’s Jewish Community carries consequences. For decades, U.S. support for Israel has been sacrosanct, but that has changed in recent years.

Many people may have been reluctant to express their opposition to Israel’s policies and U.S. aid to Israel for fear of being called anti-Semites; but in addition to keeping Chicago’s Palestinian community engaged, these highly visible demonstrations are giving people permission to question U.S. support for and aid to Israel. The numbers in the streets now offer cover. From a purely strategic standpoint, the Chicago Jewish Community’s leaders therefore need to up the community’s visibility.

And so the page turns, and the story advances. The next chapter will be written this Saturday.

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