A Palestinian flag was raised on Friday at City Hall, but the flag-raising ceremony turned tense as a crowd of several dozen pro-Israel protestors attempted to drown out the speeches by making loud noises, chanting into a megaphone, and playing loud music.
The flag was raised to commemorate the Nakba, when Israel officially declared itself to be a state and Zionist militias drove out more than 750,000 Palestinian Muslims and Christians from their homes in the territory.
One of the speakers at the flag-raising, Farah, said she was inspired to speak, in part, because the Nakba has affected her own family, especially her grandfather, who was born in Haifa in 1941 before Israel was a state. She declined to use her last name out of fear of personal safety.
“We’re here today supporting not only, you know, the Palestinians that have been being slaughtered in Gaza for the past two years, but also the Palestinians that have been fighting for 76 years for their land,” she said.
Farah said she was moved to see the City Council put up the Palestinian flag.
“It’s beautiful, because it symbolizes how beautiful this movement has become, and how we’ve been standing for justice for a long time,” she said.
Besides Farah and other Palestinian speakers, there were also speakers with Jewish heritage who spoke in favor of the Palestinian flag being raised, including Providence City Council president Rachel Miller, whose speech was drowned out with chants of “Bring Them Home” as she tried to speak about her extended family members that died in the Holocaust.
“My ancestors were taken from this earth in the genocide we call the Holocaust, and I am here in their unknown names to say: ‘Never again,”” Miller said.
After her speech, Miller stood on the City Hall steps appearing visibly distraught. Miller and Councillor Miguel Sanchez were the two city councillors who asked to raise the flag outside of City Hall – a request that Mayor Brett Smiley’s office said the mayor approved.
“While I would not have flown this flag myself and do not support the rhetoric associated with the protests that have accompanied it, Providence is and will remain an inclusive and welcoming city that supports diverse opinions and voices,” the mayor said in an emailed statement.
The raising of the Palestinian flag comes also shortly after the mayor, who converted to Judaism last year, returns from a weeklong trip to Israel.
City Councillor Miguel Sanchez said he estimates that city councillors received thousands of emails, all roughly reading the same message, opposing the flag-raising since the plan to raise the flag was announced. Many of them also include the group Christians United for Israel as recipients.
City Hall has flown multiple countries’ flags this year, including the flags of Israel, Ireland, Italy, and Armenia.
The Palestinian flag is raised at City Hall as Israel’s war with Gaza intensifies. According to reporting by Al Jazeera, since Israel’s retribution against Gazans for Hamas’ attacks that killed about 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, Israel has killed over 60,000 Palestinians and has seized half of the territory in the Gaza strip. According to a report by the United Nations, an additional 500,000 people in Gaza currently face starvation due to a blockade of food into the region.
Ken Schneider, president of the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel, a group of Jewish and Christian Zionist Rhode Islanders, said his group were the primary pro-Israel faction at the event today. Schneider defended Israel’s war and the deaths in Gaza, asking “What country wouldn’t respond?”
Schneider also said that Council President Miller should be “led out of this building in handcuffs.”
At one point, Schneider chanted “the women are rape supporters” into a megaphone.
Farah, the Palestinian-American woman who said her grandfather experienced the Nakba in Haifa, said some of the protestors with Rhode Island Coalition for Israel were aggressive towards her family and made lewd gestures towards her.
“If you want to support the killing of children and 50,000-plus Palestinians, go ahead, okay, but do not get physical,” she said. “If they would just talk to us and not be violent, we would probably have a really nice conversation. But nobody’s willing to do that.”
