At least 72 people were arrested Tuesday night after an unsanctioned demonstration outside the Israeli Consulate, legal observers say.
Two journalists were among those taken into custody, according to the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild.
The arrests came after roughly 100 protesters commanded the attention of an even greater number of police and journalists outside the consulate. The resulting two-hour standoff — which included an impromptu march through a few downtown streets after authorities moved demonstrators away from the building — appeared to end without any significant use of force by authorities, but drew harsh criticism from legal observers who accused the Chicago Police Department of violating the participants’ right to free speech.
“The repressive police response to a Palestine solidarity protest at the Israeli Consulate seemed preplanned and designed to stifle free expression during the Democratic National Convention,” said Ben Meyer of the National Lawyers Guild. “Assurances that the City would respect people’s First Amendment rights during the convention rings hollow next to this brazenly aggressive approach to free expression.”
Police leaders were scheduled to give a briefing late this morning on ongoing DNC operations.
The protest began around 7 p.m. with demonstrators chanting “long live the intifada” as they headed toward the consulate, which is located in the Accenture Building on Madison Street. In the context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the term intifada has historically referred to an uprising against Israel using both violent and nonviolent means.
“There is only one solution,” protesters chanted. “Intifada revolution.”
Before the skirmish with police, protester Josh Taylor of Memphis, Tenn. told the Tribune that he didn’t want to see anyone hurt, but he believes the U.S. needs to stop supporting Israel. He said this issue was critical enough to merit civil disobedience.
“Different voices get their voices heard in different ways,” said Taylor, 36.
The consulate was heavily protected, with Chicago police officers outside the entrance and across the street, with several more visible inside. Police Supt. Larry Snelling and other members of the CPD command staff stood outside the building monitoring as demonstrators stopped marching to hold a rally.
Authorities were able to move the demonstrators away from the building. Around 8:30 protestors squeezed past the police line and onto the sidewalk of Clinton Street, sparking an impromptu march through the surrounding blocks.
As the demonstrators chanted anti-police rhetoric, a masked protester set fire to a half-American, half-Israeli flag.
“(Expletive) this country,” a protester yelled. “Burn it down.”
A group of counterprotestors holding American and Israeli flags also demonstrated in the area, prompting police to stand 8 rows deep to separate the two groups.
The counterprotesters sang “Hatikvah” — the Israeli national anthem — and “God Bless America” from behind several lines of police in helmets, while the protesters took aim at police and Democratic leaders, chanting slogans about President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his vice president who accepted the nomination from Democrats to succeed him Tuesday.
By 9 p.m. the crowd had mostly disbanded.
The consulate demonstration took place after a mostly peaceful pro-Palestine march Monday, in which a small group of protesters broke through a security fence near the United Center and had brief standoff with police. About 13 people were arrested during the protest, law enforcement officials said.
The group behind the consulate demonstration, Behind Enemy Lines, derided Monday’s event in a series of social media posts, blaming its lower-than-expected turnout on organizers’ cooperation with police and city officials.
“When we do a real (expletive) protest, this is what happens. Brandon Johnson, you pretend to be some kind of (expletive) progressive,” one protester said. “But when we come here, what do we get? We get pigs, we get batons, we get arrests. Shame!”
The back-to-back high-profile protests – which have included chants and signs the Anti-Defamation League has labeled antisemitic – have put many in Chicago’s Jewish community on edge this week, said Dan Goldwin, executive director of public affairs at the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago. The calls for an intifada have been particularly disturbing, he said.
“It wouldn’t take much for the organized Palestinian leadership community to come out and say, ‘no, no, no, that’s not what we’re here for.’ But there has been none of that, absolutely none of that,” Goldwin said. “And yet the rhetoric (Monday), when they are proudly carrying signs that I saw in the protests, ‘globalize the Intifada,’ that means bringing violence to our front doorstep.
The tensions have made it difficult to fully embrace the city’s role in the national spotlight, Goldwin said. Organizers of Jewish events at the DNC have made efforts not to announce locations ahead of time for safety reasons and to avoid disruptions like the one at the The Agudath Israel of America event Tuesday, in which a few masked protesters interrupted the event and chanted “shame on you!” at the attendees.
“It’s this emotion of ‘let’s show great pride in our city’, but we’re really scared and nervous about who’s coming and why they’re coming and what they’re gonna do,” Goldwin said. “So it’s tough for people like me who love everything about this city, that we want brag about it and show it off, but we’re also spending so much time looking over our shoulder.”
Behind Enemy Lines made headlines in March when Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, spoke at their City Hall demonstration in front of a scorched American flag set ablaze by a veteran.
And the organization – more radical than other pro-Palestinian protest groups – plans to continue to demonstrate aggressively throughout the convention. Organizer Michael Boyte previously referred to the planned, but unsanctioned protest as a “DIY” version of other permitted marches.
“No permits, no cooperation with the city, people are going to come ready to rock,” he told the Tribune.
The group’s website promises to “shut down the DNC” and “make it great like ’68.” It also shirks the idea of working with police to keep protesters safe at its nighttime demonstration. The group does not plan to engage in violence or vandalism, but also does not believe it should need a thumbs up from the city to protest, Boyte said.
My Pillow CEO and conservative political activist Michael James Lindell also made a brief appearance at the protest, voicing his support for Israel.
“How do you sleep at night?” one protestor asked.
“What do you sleep on?” Lindell responded. “Do you sleep on a My Pillow?”
Lindell and former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani also showed up at Park 578 Tuesday afternoon and began speaking to a small crowd about alleged election fraud, arguing for a switch to paper ballots.
