On Saturday, Nov. 4, tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the country descended on the nation’s capital for the Free Palestine! National March on Washington. “We are here to demand an end to the genocide against the Palestinian people,” Yara Shoufani, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement, told TRNN. “We are calling for an immediate ceasefire, we are calling for an end to US military aid to Israel, and we are calling to lift the siege on Gaza.” TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and veteran journalist Jaisal Noor were on the ground in DC to speak with organizers and attendees.

Studio Production: Jaisal Noor
Post-Production: Jaisal Noor, Alina Nehlich

Transcript

Maximillian Alvarez:  This is Maximillian Alvarez for The Real News Network. Behind me, you see the thousands upon thousands of people who have come to Washington DC for the March on Washington for Palestine. People around the country are here to demand an end to Israel’s genocidal bombing of Gaza, here to demand an end to the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.

For the past few hours, we’ve been hearing speakers on the stage just over to my left. And right now, the march is about to begin heading towards the White House. We are here on the ground for The Real News Network talking to folks about why they’re here, why this is important, and what feels different about this moment.

Yara Shoufani:  We are here to demand an end to the genocide against the Palestinian people with three central demands: We’re calling for an immediate ceasefire; we are calling for an end to US military aid to Israel; and we are calling to lift the siege on Gaza which, for 17 years, has suffocated the people of Gaza and turned Gaza into an open-air prison.

Jihad Alniser:  I’ve seen all the graphic pictures, I’ve seen everything in Palestine. At this point, there’s no limit for what I can’t see. I’ve seen everything now. And for a ninth grader, at first it was scary and then it became less scary as you saw more and more of it. If this is how I feel outside of Gaza, imagine how the people in Gaza feel.

Michaela Yamine:  We’re out here today because there’s a genocide happening in Palestine, and that’s fucked up.

Griffin Mahon:  An injury to one is an injury to all, and American-made bombs are being used to kill the families of Americans in Palestine in addition to thousands and thousands of other people, and our government should not support that.

Merveen Adwan:  Oslo agreement and all this political work didn’t help Palestinian people to live in peace. 75 years of suffering, losing people close to you, finding them hurt all the time. Even after we get our citizenship, I’m not able to visit my family there. My dad died in Gaza and I was not able to visit and see him because the border is always closed.

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Maximillian Alvarez is an Izzy-Award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director of The Real News Network. He is the founder and host of Working People, "a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today," which he started after his family lost their home and life savings during the Financial Crash of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. Alvarez is the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke, a collection of interviews with US workers recorded during Year One of of the Covid-19 pandemic. His forthcoming book—tentatively titled “American Sacrifice: Working People Fight for The Lives (and Our Future) in America’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’”—is under contract with Haymarket Books. From April 2022 to March 2024, Alvarez hosted and produced The Art of Class War series on Breaking Points. From September 2016 to January 2019, he was a regular contributor and then a columnist for The Baffler magazine. Prior to joining TRNN, Alvarez was an Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to that, he was a graduate student-worker and rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (AFT Local 3550) at the University of Michigan, where he earned a dual-PhD in History and Comparative Literature, taught undergraduates, and published academic articles in Media Theory and La Deleuziana: An Online Journal of Philosophy. Prior to that, he worked a litany of low-wage jobs in different restaurants, warehouses, factories, retail stores, etc. Alvarez’s writing has been featured in outlets like The Nation, Poynter, In These Times, Boston Review, The Baffler, Current Affairs, Dissent, Protean Magazine, The New Republic, Truthout, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an analyst and commentator, he has appeared on programs like PBS NewsHour, Breaking Points, Democracy Now!, The Laura Flanders Show, NPR’s 1A, The Hill’s Rising, This Is Hell!, Krystal Kyle & Friends, The Michael Brooks Show, The Jacobin Show, CounterPunch Radio, Citations Needed, Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray, Know Your Enemy, Srsly Wrong, Left Anchor, Revolutionary Left Radio, The End of Sport Podcast, Pod Damn America, The David Pakman Show, The Megyn Kelly Show, The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, The David Feldman Show, and The Marianne Williamson Podcast.

Jaisal is currently the Democracy Initiative Manager at the Solutions Journalism Network and is a former TRNN host, producer, and reporter. He mainly grew up in the Baltimore area and studied modern history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining TRNN, he contributed print, radio, and TV reports to Free Speech Radio News, Democracy Now! and The Indypendent. Jaisal's mother has taught in the Baltimore City Public School system for the past 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @jaisalnoor.