Activists disrupt Israeli ambassador in Chicago

Dozens of activists protested Israel’s recent massacres of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip outside Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer’s event in Chicago on 5 June. 

 Tamara Nassar

Tamara Nassar- 6 June 2018

Activists disrupted a speech by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer in Chicago on Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile outside the synagogue where he was speaking, dozens more, among them many Palestinian and Jewish activists, protested Israel’s recent massacres of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

 Several people were barred entry to the venue apparently because they were of Arab ancestry.

Yesterday members of @ChicagoJVP @jvplive protested Israeli @AmbDermer. 

After the second interruption, you could tell the audience and the ambassador were 

getting frazzled and angry. Little did they know, there were several more disruptions to 

come... pic.twitter.com/z9sy3zhfyo

— Eli Massey (@EliJMassey) 6 June 2018

Eli Massey@EliJMassey

Yesterday members of @ChicagoJVP @jvplive protested Israeli @AmbDermer. After the second interruption, you could tell the audience and the ambassador were getting frazzled and angry. Little did they know, there were several more disruptions to come...

2:49 PM - Jun 6, 2018

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Dermer’s visit to Chicago was part of what organizers called “a damage control PR tour” to several Midwestern cities in the wake of growing outrage over Israel’s killing of more than 120 Palestinians and the injuring of thousands more since the beginning of the Great March of Return rallies on 30 March.

“We stand here today to challenge the Israeli ambassador’s attempts to rally Americans to give blind support to the Israeli army,” Jennifer Bing, of the American Friends Service Committee, said at the protest. “The same army that shoots and kills Palestinians in Gaza and continues an immoral and unjust blockade.”

Bing’s group, along with the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace called for the protest.

There was a heavy police presence in and around the Anshe Emet Synagogue on Chicago’s North Side as activists chanted and listened to speeches demanding an end to Israel’s siege of Gaza and killings of Palestinians.

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