Washington, DC – As President Donald Trump called for ethnically cleansing Gaza and for the United States to “own” the territory, hundreds of protesters outside the White House warned him that “Palestine is not for sale”.Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Washington, DC, on Tuesday evening to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House and call on the Trump administration to stop supplying weapons to Israel.
The protesters chanted, “Free Palestine” and denounced Israeli atrocities amid a heavy security presence.
Michael Schirtzer, an activist at the protest, said Americans do not want their tax money used to kill Palestinians.
Schirtzer dismissed Trump’s call for ethnically cleansing Gaza as an “insane” position.
“The people of Palestine will be going nowhere. They are the Indigenous people of that land,” he told Al Jazeera. “It is a coloniser mentality to say that you’re going to displace people.”
Trump had said earlier that Palestinians “would love” to leave Gaza if given a chance, reiterating his call for displacing the entire population of the territory “permanently”. Advertisement
The US president has faced backlash from Arab states and rights groups for his proposed plan, which critics say would amount to ethnic cleansing.
But Trump doubled down on his remarks during a news conference with Netanyahu later on Tuesday, saying that the US would “take over Gaza” after it is depopulated and “own it”.
Protesters denounced Israeli atrocities in Gaza [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera]
‘Architect of a literal genocide’
At the White House protest, Sofia Ahmad, a 24-year-old Iranian American demonstrator, struggled to find the words to describe Trump’s call for mass displacement in Gaza.
“The fact that …
