Jersey City, New Jersey

Ceasefire-Now of Northern New Jersey initiated “Jersey City is the Red Line,” a demonstration held June 20 at the Grove Street Pedestrian Plaza. The action was inspired by the “Surround the White House: We  are the Red Line” action in Washington, D.C., which drew some 100,000 protesters on June 8. 

These demonstrators surrounded the White House with two miles of red cloth symbolizing the “Red Line” — Israel invading Rafah — that President Joe Biden had declared and then ignored to keep sending weapons to Israel.

Jersey City protesters stretched a red banner across the width of the pedestrian plaza for their Red Line. They made posters with enlarged photographs of victims and the rubble of homes and hospitals left by Israel’s bombs in Gaza. These same bombs were paid for by U.S. tax dollars. 

The demonstrators called for an end to sending U.S. weapons and money for Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. They vowed continued support for Gaza, for Palestinian liberation and an end to Israeli occupation. The protest also accused Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), of supporting genocide; denounced the members of the Jersey City City Council who abstained on a ceasefire resolution as complicit in genocide; and demanded an end to Jersey City’s sister relationship with Beit Shemesh, a right-wing settlement near Jerusalem.