Washington, November 4 (RHC)-- Tens of thousands of protesters marched through downtown Washington DC on Saturday in what organizers said was the largest U.S. demonstration of its kind since Israel began its barbaric bombardment of Gaza four weeks ago.    One unofficial estimate of the protest put the crowd at 100,000 in the streets of the U.S. capital.

The crowd waved Palestinian flags, carried posters and chanted slogans during the National March on Washington: Free Palestine, which took place alongside similar events across the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

Organizers representing or endorsed by dozens of pro-Palestinian groups directed marchers to Freedom Plaza in the nation’s capital before looping past the White House.  “Now is the time to stand with the besieged people of Palestine!  Gaza is being bombed by the hour.  Its people are denied food, water and electricity by Israel.  Tens of thousands more people are likely to die.  We must ACT!” the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) coalition said on its website.

Brian Becker, the director of ANSWER, told the crowd in Washington that U.S. public support for the Palestinian people had “entered a new era unlike any that had come before it.”  He drew a parallel with the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa four decades ago, saying that when it began the U.S. Congress still considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist.  But seven years later, Mandela was the president of South Africa.

Change, Becker said, happens “in leaps and bounds” but not as a result of what happens in Congress or who is the White House, but what happens in communities and on the streets.  “The change comes from us,” he emphasized.  “We’re sending a strong message, a very strong message to Joe Biden: if you stand with genocide, we hold you guilty of genocide.”

“When you kill 10,000 Palestinians not because of what they’ve done but because of who they are, when you commit genocide against a people, and destroy a people in whole or in part, you are guilty of genocide and that’s why we’re going to the White House,” Becker added.

The march in Washington, alongside protests in New York, Seattle and other U.S. cities, was part of an intensifying push to demand both a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. and Western military aid to Israel.  Demonstrations in support of Palestine were also staged in London, Berlin, Paris, Ankara and Istanbul with a similar message for both Tel Aviv and Washington.

In London, television footage showed large crowds holding sit-down protests blocking parts of the city centre.  Protesters, Reuters reported, held “Freedom for Palestine” placards and chanted “ceasefire now” and “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.”