The University of Wisconsin chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, CODEPINK, Jewish Voice for Peace-Madison and Madison for a World Beyond War gathered Wednesday evening outside the Wisconsin Capitol Building for an emergency protest expressing solidarity with the Lebanese people.
The protesters listened to speakers, chanted, read poems, sang and held moments of silence for victims of violence in the Middle East and the U.S.
Dahlia Saba, an SJP member, started the protest by discussing the recent attacks on Lebanon and their importance to the ongoing violence in Gaza.
“The Israeli government is bombing Lebanon in part so that they can obscure the violence they’re committing in Gaza, so that they can continue the violence in Gaza, without retribution,” Saba said. “They are starting yet another war to maintain their own internal popularity. And this is not new.”
Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have been trading fire for almost a year now, and are now in a confrontation that threatens an all-out war, according to AP News.
Shahayra Majumder, an organizer with CODEPINK Madison, emphasized the importance of gathering and showing up, even when it’s hard to hold onto hope.
“I’m pretty burnt out myself,” Majumder said. “We put this together, very last minute. You don’t get a press release before they bomb 500 people in Lebanon. I think it’s really important to show up even when it is last minute, because it means we’re showing up for humanity.”
Speakers at the protest expressed contempt for the way the Biden-Harris administration has handled the Israel-Hamas war, calling President Biden a “so-called Democrat,” and leading chants like, “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.”
“Today we see that our current president, the so-called Democrat, so-called liberal, is only sending more and more funding to continue their [Israel’s] violence against Gaza,” Saba said.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the U.S. has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The total humanitarian aid the U.S. has announced for Palestinians since the beginning of the conflict is more than $674 million, according to the U.S. State Department.
Esty Dinur is a journalist, Madison resident, and a member of several anti-Zionist organizations, who is originally from Israel. She is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and defines herself as an “anti-Zionist Israeli Jew.”
Dinur shared that while growing up in Israel, she was taught to hate Palestinians, but began challenging that narrative and became an activist for Palestinian rights at the age of 14. Dinur said her understanding of the conflict has developed significantly through her work and relationships with Palestinian people, but said nothing has affected her perspective more than the October 7 attack.
Dinur discussed concerns regarding the upcoming election, saying that the Biden-Harris administration’s financial support for Israel is unacceptable and should be stopped. She hopes Harris will say “no more,” to Israel.
“On the other hand, Trump scares the hell out of me, in every way possible, including what he might do to Palestine and Palestinians in America,” Dinur said.
Dinur also challenged the narrative that Israel is a homeland for Jewish people alone. She said she advocates for a vision of a multinational, multi-ethnic and multi-religious state where all people have equal rights, even though she says it is hard to imagine that now.
Multiple times throughout the night, both Dinur and Majumder highlighted the significance of a similar verse in the Quran and the Torah.
“I think, in the Torah, it’s phrased, to save one life is to save all of mankind,” Majumder said in a speech. “In the Quran, it’s phrased, to kill one person is to kill all of mankind. And that’s how I feel. It’s like we’ve killed mankind over and over.”
Madison artist Esperanza Tyson and her father, Tim Tyson, performed two songs at the protest. They hoped to give people a space through music to acknowledge their feelings and hopefully spark joy in a difficult time, Esperanza said.
“Music has such a power to not only educate people and speak to people, but to heal people and bring people together,” Esperanza said. “To me, the reason for playing these songs tonight wasn’t just like, ‘here’s a message to communicate.’ It was to give a space for people to just have feelings.”
The protesters also held a moment of silence for Marcellus Williams, a Missouri man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and repeatedly stabbing her, who was executed Tuesday over the objections of the victim’s family and the prosecutor, according to AP news.
After the protest, Saba spoke about UW’s new policies and student conduct investigations of SJP members, saying UW’s actions have only strengthened SJP’s resolve.
“We find it outrageous that the university would rather punish its students and prohibit free speech within 25 feet of all of its building entrances than divest from weapons manufacturing companies and surveillance technology companies,” Saba said.
