Several hundred people turned out on Saturday to voice opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel, Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, and to the Israeli military campaign the United Nations has called “unspeakably cruel.” Despite the heavy rain, the hundreds of peaceful protestors met at the Rhode Island state capitol and marched downtown on blocked off streets to the Textron headquarters. 
The protest followed two weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas, the political and military organization that governs the Gaza Strip portion of the Palestinian territories. This latest round of fighting in a decades-long struggle between the two nations began on Oct. 7 when Hamas targeted civilians all over Israel, including at a music festival and residential areas, in which the United Nations says they killed 1,400 people and seized around 200 hostages. Israel has responded by withholding water, electricity, and food from civilians in the Gaza Strip, who were already living in what Human Rights Watch calls “the largest open air prison in the world,” because Israel controls travel and trade into the region. Israel has also responded with airstrikes. As of Friday, 4,100 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, including over 1,600 children.
Protest organizers reminded attendees that the conflict between Palestinians and Jewish people in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories dates back to much more than just two weeks ago.
“American news media and politicians would have us believe that violence began on October 7, when it is a century old for the Palestinian people,” said Sherena Razek, who is Palestinian-Canadian and president of the Brown Graduate Labor Organization, one of the co-organizers of the event.
Many Muslim protestors with ties to the Palestinian territories attended the event, like Cranston resident Mohammad Nadal, who is Palestinian by heritage and grew up in Jordan until he was 22.
“I grew up around the war, around the conflict. All my life we’ve been seeing all the war crimes that Israel has been committing since I was born and before that. The world’s stance is unfair against what’s going on in Gaza right now,” he said. “It’s unfair. They’re killing children even in the West Bank. So this has to stop.”
Although he said he does not agree with politicians in the U.S. who support Israel, he said since moving to the states he has found American people to be very supportive.
Sixty-six percent of Americans support a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, according to a poll by the progressive data firm Data for Progress. However, President Biden is proposing an aid package to the tune of more than one billion dollars for military support to both Israel and Ukraine, with additional funding for the U.S. southern border, and has not called for a ceasefire.
The protest was in part organized by the local chapter Jewish Voices for Peace, which a spokesperson said has regained strength in membership and activity since the most recent round of fighting. Providence resident Jackie Goldman was among the Jewish protesters there.
“As a member of the Jewish community, I am seeing more and more people within the Jewish community, calling out Zionism, calling out the need to have solidarity with Palestine and ending the violence,” she said.
Goldman also has personal ties to the Palestinian territories, including having played for their women’s national ultimate frisbee team in the Middle Eastern championships in May. They came in fourth.
Also among the protestors were Brown students calling for an end to Brown’s investment in companies that in some way aid Israel. Companies Brown has invested in that students identified as falling under this criteria in 2020 include: AB Volvo, Airbus, Boeing, DXC, General Dynamics, General Electric, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, Oaktree Capital, Raytheon, United Technologies.
The protest was organized by a number of leftist progressive organizations including: Party for Socialism and Liberation Rhode Island; ANSWER Coalition; Direct Action for Rights and Equality; Jewish Voice For Peace Rhode Island; Rhode Island Club – Communist Party USA; Providence Democratic Socialists of America; Brown Students for Justice in Palestine; RISD Students for Justice in Palestine; RI Antiwar Coalition; No Endless War or Excessive Militarism; Providence Youth Student Movement; Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance; SISTA Fire; and the Reform Solitary Coalition. 
When asked the significance of ending the march at the Textron Headquarters, a company that supplies aerospace and other defense systems to the United States military, protest co-organizer Maya Dovid of the Party for Socialism and Liberation Rhode Island said people should remember who stands to profit from aid to Israel.
“That funding is also going directly into the pockets of these huge corporations that are profiting from the ongoing occupation of Israel,” she said.
