Hundreds of Jewish protesters take on Wall Street for Gaza: "Stop Arming Israel"
New York, New York - Hundreds of Jewish and Palestinian protesters and allies rallied in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday to demand an end to US support for Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Demonstrators, including many Jewish Americans with Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, took to the streets at the center of global capital in order to send an urgent message.
"At this very moment, the Israeli military is massacring family after family in North Gaza in a war of extermination. So hundreds of Jews and friends are shutting down the New York Stock Exchange to demand the US stop arming Israel and profiting from genocide," Jewish Voice for Peace wrote on X.
Wearing red t-shirts reading "Stop Arming Israel" and "Not in Our Name," the protesters raised banners stating "Gaza Bombed, Wall Street Booms" and "Fund FEMA, Not Genocide," in reference to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's hurricane relief efforts.
There were reports that some participants in Monday's action had chained themselves to the gates in front of the New York Stock Exchange building.
"Let’s be clear once and for all: the US is not arming Israel to protect Jews. The US is arming Israel for its own profit and control of the region," Jewish Voice for Peace stated alongside videos of NYPD officers arresting and carrying Jewish protesters away by their arms and legs.
Palestine solidarity protesters demand end to war profiteering
The Wall Street protest came as growing numbers of Americans are urging the US government to enact a weapons embargo on Israel.
Israel has killed at least 42,344 Palestinians in Gaza since last October, according to the territory's health ministry. The British medical journal Lancet and other experts believe the true number to be far greater, potentially upwards of 186,000 as of July.
Israel has also ramped up its violent attacks in the illegally occupied West Bank and Lebanon, killing thousands of people in recent weeks, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to cut off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an escalation of Israel's starvation campaign.
Even as the daily horrors continue, the Biden-Harris administration has doubled down on providing Israel with diplomatic cover and billions of dollars' worth of deadly weapons and military equipment. The Pentagon announced on Sunday that it would deploy US troops and a new anti-missile system to Israel.
Weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have seen their stock prices soar in the last year. Meanwhile, members of Congress who vote to send arms to Israel are permitted to own and trade stock in those companies and profit off Palestinian suffering.
"Despite US laws prohibiting providing weapons during a genocide, and the UN Human Rights Council’s call to halt weapons transfers to Israel, the Biden administration continues to arm Israel, ignoring the demands of a majority of Americans," Jewish Voice for Peace posted in response to graphic images of Palestinians burning alive after Israel set fire this weekend to a hospital and tent camp in northern Gaza.
"The US government is complicit and must impose a weapons embargo now. Every bomb it sends to Israel fuels the genocide against Palestinians."
Cover photo: IMAGO / Pacific Press Agency