Thousands Rally in Los Angeles Against US Palestine Policy

On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters gathered and marched in downtown Los Angeles, denouncing U.S. Palestine policy, especially the Biden administration's consistent pro-Israel stance.

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Many of the protesters wore Palestinian keffiyeh, a distinctly patterned black-and-white headdress regarded as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism since the beginning of the conflict between Palestinians and Jewish settlers which dates back to the 1936 to 1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.

They marched through the main streets of downtown Los Angeles with Palestinian flags, chanting slogans against U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like "stop genocide" and "free Palestine."

A middle-aged man was seen handing a placard with a portrait of Aaron Bushnell and shouting his words: "I will no longer be complicit in genocide."

Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the U.S. Air Force, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 25, to protest against U.S. support for Israel's attacks on Gaza since last October.

"Gaza is facing famine, its hospitals are besieged, threats of ground invasion in Rafah loom near, and Israel continues its onslaught on the over 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," Code Pink, one of the organizers for Saturday's rally.

"We must show our full strength now to ensure a lasting ceasefire and an end to the siege on Gaza," added the internationally active left-wing anti-war group based in Los Angeles.

On Saturday morning, dozens of cultural workers also gathered outside Santa Monica Airport, where the Frieze Los Angeles show was held, to protest continued U.S. funding for Israel's attacks on Gaza.

Frieze Los Angeles is a leading international art fair focusing on contemporary art. Many fairgoers drove by honking and cheering with their fists out while protestors held signs that read "Let Gaza Live" and "What good is art that ignores genocide?"

"We're out here today because the silence from the art world has been incredibly loud," a protester who preferred to remain anonymous told Hyperallergic, an online arts magazine based in Brooklyn, New York.