Activists in the United States calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza have gathered outside a hotel hosting the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, calling out President Joe Biden for his support of the military campaign and the “underreporting” of it Conflict condemned by Western news agencies.
However, Biden, who attended Saturday’s event in Washington, DC and gave a 10-minute speech, made no mention of the war in Gaza or the severe humanitarian crisis there.
The protests at the gala event, usually dedicated to presidents, journalists and comedians outrageously denouncing political scandals and each other, came as anti-war demonstrations also spread to U.S. college campuses, with students setting up camps and raids withstood the police to prevent this, forcing their universities to divest from companies that enable Israel’s military operation against Gaza.
The protests in the US capital forced Biden’s motorcade to take an alternative route from the White House to the Washington Hilton, where more than 100 demonstrators, some of them waving Palestinian flags, shouted “Shame on you!” at rushing guests.
At one point, the crowd chanted, “In the Western media we see you and all the horrors you hide,” while some protesters lay motionless on the sidewalk next to replicas of bloody flak vests with “press” insignia.
The crowd also cheered when someone unfurled a Palestinian flag from a top-floor hotel window at the Washington Hilton – where the dinner has been held for decades.
According to the state media office in Gaza, the Israeli military has killed 142 media workers and arrested at least 40 Palestinian journalists since Israel’s war on Gaza began last October.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said 2023 was the deadliest year for journalists in a decade, with about 75 percent of those killed worldwide being Palestinians covering the war in Gaza.
In his speech, Biden toasted “freedom of the press and democracy around the world” but failed to talk about the suffering in Gaza. He spent most of his speech mocking his main rival in this year’s presidential race, Donald Trump, and the two men’s advanced ages.
His speech continued to focus on what he believes is at stake in this election, talking about how another Trump administration would do more harm to the country than his first term.
“We have to take this seriously. “Eight years ago we could have dismissed it as ‘Trump talk,’ but not after January 6,” he told the audience, referring to Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol after Biden defeated Trump at the election in 2020.
One of the few mentions of Gaza came from Kelly O’Donnell, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), who briefly noted that about 100 journalists had been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza.
Ahead of the event, more than two dozen Palestinian journalists published a letter calling on their colleagues to boycott the gala and accusing the Biden administration of complicity in Israel’s systematic murder of media workers in Gaza.
“The price being asked of us simply for fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering,” the letter said. “We are being arrested, interrogated and tortured by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”
One organizer complained that the WHCA – which represents hundreds of journalists covering the president – had been largely silent on the killings of Palestinian journalists since the early weeks of the war. The WHCA did not respond to a request for comment.
American-Palestinian journalist Ahmed Shihab Eldin, one of the letter’s signatories, told Al Jazeera it was “unacceptable” for media workers to remain silent for fear of jeopardizing job security.
“We continue to see journalists in Gaza not only killed, but detained, tortured and even their families killed,” he said.
Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project, a U.S.-based Palestinian advocacy group that helped organize the letter from journalists in Gaza, said: “It is shameful for the media to dine and laugh with President Biden while He enables Israeli devastation. “Famine of the Palestinians in Gaza.”
In addition, the Adalah Justice Project launched an email campaign targeting twelve media managers from various news outlets who were expected to attend the dinner and who had previously signed a letter calling for the protection of journalists in Gaza.
“How can you still leave when your colleagues in Gaza have asked you not to,” one protester asked guests entering. “You are complicit.”
