Hundreds of protesters marched to the offices of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in New York on Thursday to demonstrate against Israel’s continued airstrikes in Gaza.
The demonstrations against the pro-Israel lobbying organization, led by the group Jewish Voice for Peace, came after the U.S. vetoed another cease-fire resolution Tuesday at the U.N., just blocks away in Midtown Manhattan.
“It is our moral imperative to act like the neighbors we wish our grandparents had had when they were being killed for who they are,” said Elena Stein, the Jewish Voice for Peace director of organizing strategy, who told USA TODAY she’s the descendant of a Holocaust survivor.
Maia Ettinger, 62, of Connecticut, said her mother lived in Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust and years later was traumatized during a visit to Israel by the sight of a Palestinian grandfather being beaten by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Ettinger said she couldn’t live with herself seeing innocent Palestinians killed.
“That to me is the essence of my Jewish values,” she said, “to stand with all people who are under the threat of violence.”
The protest blocked rush-hour traffic on the way to the AIPAC offices. About four blocks from them, police arrested members of Jewish Voice for Peace for a sit-in at the Manhattan offices of Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrats of New York.
− Eduardo Cuevas
