People rallied outside of an AEI event where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was being honored while on his visit to the nation’s capital, where he’s asking the president for an increase in aid to Israel
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Story Transcript
TITLE CARD: On Monday and Tuesday, protesters gathered at different locations in the nation’s capital to denounce Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit.
On Monday night, they rallied outside of the National Building Museum, where the American Enterprise Institute honored the prime minister.
DAVID BORROWS, ACTIVIST, CODE PINK: First of all, he was at the White House to ask for two more billion dollars. They already have a hundred, at least, nuclear missiles. What do they need in Israel?
THOMAS HEDGES, TRNN: So how much do they get right now per year?
BORROWS: $3 billion a year. Keeps torturing the Palestinian people, killing their children, humiliating their parents, bulldozing their houses. But of course this is all about a military-industrial complex who bribe our congressmen and senators, and probably even presidents. So it’s a bribery system, but it’s a dangerous system. And of course all these bombs are destroying our atmosphere just as much as cars and coal.
MAX BLUMENTHAL, AUTHOR, ACTIVIST: Hey, neocons. Did you find the WMD yet?
You know, a year ago I was in Berlin, and I was out speaking in the rain and in the cold in Berlin because I was banned from speaking in the main public theater about Gaza because it was the anniversary of the anti-semitic pogrom known as Kristallnacht. And now we find ourselves here again, a year later, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and across the street hundreds of soft-handed, tuxedo-clad, neocon chickenhawks are lined up to hear from a Holocaust revisionist who blamed the final solution on a Palestinian.
HEDGES: I’m wondering, I’m just curious, because there’s a lot of people standing out here, and they’re shouting. And they’re saying a lot, and we’re not necessarily hearing what’s happening over here. What’s that?
SPEAKER: What are you doing?
HEDGES: What’s that?
SPEAKER: Are you a journalist?
HEDGES: Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to get some reactions from, from people just across the street here. They said there’s–no, they said it was okay. I’m press. It’s public–it’s public. Who are you with?
SPEAKER: Don’t worry about it. If they want to talk to you they’ll come across the street.
HEDGES: But how am I supposed to signal to them? I’m just supposed to wave?
SPEAKER: Listen, if they want to talk to you they’ll go across the street. The press is over there.
HEDGES: I know–.
SPEAKER: If they want to talk to you they’ll go across the street.
HEDGES: But that’s like, tautology. You’re just saying that they’re over there just because they’re over there.
JONATHAN KUTTAB, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER: What do we do when there’s a whole people who are so wounded, so hurt, so frightened, and yet so powerful and having so much power at their disposal? I can tell you some things that you cannot do. You cannot give them more weapons. It doesn’t help. You cannot insulate them from the rest of the world. Unfortunately there are those like Prime Minister Netanyahu who thrive on fear, who also stoke the hatred that exists, instead of trying to find the resolution. This is the task ahead of us, and unfortunately there are too many people who pretend to care about Israeli Jews, but who are only helping them along a path that is suicidal, that is dangerous to themselves.
End
DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
