{"id":32628,"date":"2024-09-24T18:59:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=32628"},"modified":"2024-09-24T23:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T04:00:30","slug":"activists-protest-us-support-for-israel-as-risks-rise-of-wider-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=32628","title":{"rendered":"Activists protest US support for Israel as risks rise of wider Middle East war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) &#8211; Protesters in some U.S. cities demonstrated on Tuesday against&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-hezbollah-exchange-fire-after-lebanon-suffers-huge-casualties-2024-09-24\/\"><u>American military support<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;for Israel as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/israel-hama-at-war\/\"><u>risks have risen<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;of a full-fledged conflict in the Middle East, with anti-war activists demanding an arms embargo against the U.S. ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Dozens of protesters gathered in Herald Square in New York City on Tuesday evening and carried banners that read &#8220;Hands off Lebanon now&#8221; and &#8220;no U.S.-Israeli war on Lebanon,&#8221; according to the ANSWER coalition group, which stands for &#8220;Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Protesters chanted &#8220;Hands off the Middle East,&#8221; &#8220;Free Palestine&#8221; and &#8220;Biden, Harris, Trump and Bibi; none are welcome in our city,&#8221; referring to U.S. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A smaller protest with similar slogans and banners was also seen near the White House in Washington on a rainy Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;Israel&#8217;s attacks in Lebanon and the ongoing siege and genocide in Gaza are made possible by the huge amount of bombs, missiles and warplanes provided by the U.S. government,&#8221; the ANSWER coalition group said in a statement. It said protests were also being organized on Tuesday in other cities like San Francisco, Seattle, San Antonio and Phoenix, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Israel says its actions are an act of self-defense against militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that it considers hostile. The United States has maintained support for its ally during this war despite domestic and international criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In May, Biden said U.S. support for Israel was &#8220;ironclad&#8221;, while also calling for an immediate ceasefire. &#8220;What&#8217;s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that,&#8221; Biden said at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The United States has seen&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/who-are-some-people-groups-involved-us-college-protests-2024-04-28\/\"><u>months of protests<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;over Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza that has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/gaza-death-toll-how-many-palestinians-has-israels-campaign-killed-2024-07-25\/\"><u>killed over 41,000<\/u><\/a>, according to the local health ministry, caused a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/hungry-gazans-face-crippling-price-rises-war-rages-2024-08-28\/\"><u>hunger crisis<\/u><\/a>, displaced the entire 2.3 million population of the enclave and led to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/what-is-south-africas-genocide-case-against-israel-icj-2024-05-16\/\"><u>genocide allegations<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;at the World Court that Israeli denies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Israel&#8217;s military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza followed a deadly attack by the Palestinian Islamist group on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/israeli-military-presents-first-probe-into-its-oct-7-security-failings-2024-07-11\/\"><u>Oct. 7<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;that killed around 1,200 people and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Israel&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/israel-lebanon-conflict-live-israeli-strikes-iran-backed-hezbollah-continue-2024-09-24\/\"><u>offensive in Lebanon<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;since Monday morning has killed over 560 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,800. Israel says it has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/what-we-know-so-far-about-deadly-pager-blasts-lebanon-2024-09-17\/\"><u>struck targets<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;of Lebanese Hezbollah militants who are supported by Iran while Hezbollah has also said it fired rockets at Israeli military posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The situation has raised concerns of a widened regional war that could destabilize the Middle East. Leaders of different United Nations member states&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/turkeys-erdogan-says-un-western-values-dying-gaza-2024-09-24\/\"><u>met this week<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;in the United States with the situation in the Middle East being top of the agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/activists-protest-us-support-israel-risks-rise-wider-middle-east-war-2024-09-25\/\">reuters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) &#8211; Protesters in some U.S. cities demonstrated on Tuesday against&nbsp;American military support&nbsp;for Israel as&nbsp;risks have risen&nbsp;of a full-fledged conflict in the Middle East, with anti-war activists demanding an arms embargo against the U.S. ally. Dozens of protesters gathered in Herald Square in New York City on Tuesday evening and carried banners [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1239,3792,2109,10442,1385],"class_list":["post-32628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-protest","tag-us","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32630,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32628\/revisions\/32630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}