By Joseph Mogul<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by Truthout<\/a><\/p>\n The Senate is poised to vote on resolutions that would block over $650 million in weapons sales to Israel.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n On Monday, April 13, the scene in front of Senators Chuck Schumer\u2019s and Kirsten Gillibrand\u2019s offices in Midtown, Manhattan was too quiet, the couple hundred New Yorkers inconspicuously gathered in hoodies and jackets dressed too warm for the mild spring weather. Even the uninitiated had an inkling that something was afoot \u2014 a staffer returning from a coffee run cried out: \u201cWhat the fuck, is this a protest?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That it was.<\/p>\n On cue, the uncanny hush erupted into an emphatic chant: \u201cStop the bombs, end the killing \/ fight like hell for the living.\u201d The people in the crowd unveiled their matching undershirts, which read: \u201cFund people, not bombs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In a few days, the Senate will likely vote on Sen. Bernie Sanders\u2019s joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs) that would block more than $650 million<\/a> in U.S. weapons sales to Israel amid ongoing genocide of Palestinians and the U.S.-Israeli wars on Iran and Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n The JRDs come after reporting<\/a> that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s persistent lobbying was a major motivator in dragging the United States into war with the intention of destabilizing Iran and bolstering Israel\u2019s regional hegemony<\/a>. Forty-five days after the war started, Iran appears to have thwarted these imperialist objectives, but the U.S. and Israel continue their devastating bombardment, which has already killed<\/a> more than 3,000 people in Iran and more than 2,000 in Lebanon.<\/p>\n In the face of President Donald Trump\u2019s erratic foreign policy and apparent insulation from the demands of the general public, a feeling of helplessness pervades the U.S. left. The horrors rage on, the imperialist mask is off, yet the robust antiwar movement that the moment requires is nowhere to be seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, if a prevailing sense of impotence defines the current state of the movement, it was absent from Monday\u2019s action in New York City. A diverse coalition of 18 organizations \u2014 perhaps an indication of a growing antiwar tent \u2014 including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) are loud and clear about where the antiwar movement must be found: in the streets.<\/p>\n A few minutes after commencing, roughly 200 protesters sat in front of the building entrance, blocking the doors. Office workers were denied entry and stormed off with exasperated expressions. Thirty New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers watched from the side of the road. Over shouts of \u201cFund groceries \/ not war,\u201d JVP Political Director Beth Miller told Truthout, \u201cSo many of us feel helpless but the truth is that the majority are with us; anyone who feels helpless isn\u2019t alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Taher Dahleh, a PYM organizer, believes that this helplessness is a deliberate strategy by the Trump administration. \u201cThey are indicating to American citizens that there is nothing you can do about this; that your opinions don\u2019t matter \u2026 A requirement of executing a genocide is the destruction of democracy,\u201d he said. \u201cThe antidote is to bring people into avenues of engagement and organizing that are responsive to our political context.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The exuberance of the crowd piqued the interest of passersby, including a mother and her young daughter who joined the chanting. Later, on the periphery, I overheard the mother explaining to her daughter why people are making so much noise. Before the pair departed, an organizer approached them to exchange contact information.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the situation is that most of our officials are not listening to what their constituents are demanding,\u201d said Miller. \u201cOur job is to organize those constituents. Because that is when our politicians will start to pay attention, when they realize that constituents don\u2019t just feel a certain way, but will act based on how they feel.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the war\u2019s stark unpopularity and the growing disapproval of Israel, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand have proven themselves obdurate. \u201cNew York City and the world need to be reminded that Schumer and Gillibrand are willing to trade an AIPAC check<\/a> for the blood of the people of Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran,\u201d said Dahleh, who pointed out that 80 percent of Democrats and left-leaning independent voters have an unfavorable view of Israel<\/a>. \u201cThey face a new generation of people who won\u2019t play this game anymore. These people need to be put on record.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The JRDs would block more than 20,000 bombs, ranging from 250 to 1,000 pounds, after Trump indicated his intention to declare an \u201cemergency\u201d to bypass congressional approval for weapons shipments. According to a press release by Senator Sanders, \u201cThese bombs are directly implicated in tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n On July 30, 2025, the Senate voted on two similar JRDs to block $675 million in weapons sales to Israel. Twenty-seven senators, all Democrats, voted in favor<\/a> of at least one resolution \u2014 the first time that the majority of Democratic senators voted to restrict arms shipments to Israel \u2014 but Schumer and Gillibrand sided with their pro-war colleagues in the Republican Party.<\/p>\n Organizers are leveraging the upcoming JRDs vote as a strategic wedge \u2014 protesters in New York repeatedly chanted: \u201cSchumer, Gillibrand pick a side \/ The people or genocide.\u201d Are Schumer and Gillibrand willing to set aside their unyielding loyalty to Israel at the behest of their constituents? Again and again, they have answered \u201cno\u201d; perhaps this time will be different.<\/p>\n One hour into the civil disobedience, the crowd \u2014 which included well-known movement figures and celebrities such as Hannah Einbinder, Molly Crabapple, and Linda Sarsour \u2014 converged onto Third Avenue, overlooking Schumer\u2019s and Gillibrand\u2019s offices. Minutes later, around 150 protesters sat down in the middle of the street; dozens more continued blocking the office doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the group sang \u201cLet Gaza live \/ let Iran live \/ let Lebanon live,\u201d Thomas Keppen, a U.S. Army veteran and member of About Face: Veterans Against the War, told Truthout that he \u201cloves civil disobedience,\u201d and that he wishes Senators Schumer and Gillibrand would have shown their faces. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy that such intense security measures are imposed by elected officials to block their constituents from speaking with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Immediately after Keppen finished his sentence, the NYPD made a perfunctory dispersal order and threatened protesters with disorderly conduct charges, before rushing forward to arrest 90 people. The crowd continued chanting, cheering on their comrades in zip-ties.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference between dispersed outrage and organized, mass people power is what will shift policy,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n It remains to be seen if the April 13 escalation will factor into the JRDs vote. But regardless of whether Gillibrand and Schumer reverse course, hundreds of New Yorkers demonstrated that people do have agency, and that meaningful action is possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShowing outrage in this moment is a moral and political obligation,\u201d said Dahleh.\u00a0<\/p>\n This article<\/a> was originally published by Truthout<\/a> and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/a>. Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Joseph Mogul This article was originally published by Truthout The Senate is poised to vote on resolutions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-197289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}