'Lot of heartache, pain': Palestinian protesters call for solidarity at DNC march

As the Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago on Monday, a coalition of nearly 300 organizations came together for the March on the DNC.

“We are here gathered from all of our different communities to call for an end to US aid to Israel,” said Kobi Guillory, coalition co-chair and a middle school science teacher.

Starting at noon, he and dozens of speakers spoke to thousands of protesters at Union Park on Chicago’s Near West Side before marching less than one mile to Park 578, just two blocks from the United Center.

Later that evening, inside the stadium, Democrats kicked off the convention with US President Joe Biden as the featured speaker. “Those protesters out on the street, they have a point; a lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” he said.

While the group primarily called for a ceasefire in Gaza, they also stood up for a long list of issues, including abortion, immigration, and worker’s rights.

“At the end of the day, we have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, that is the United States government that takes our tax money and uses it on police who kill people, on prisons which unjustly incarcerate people and on bombs overseas instead of using them to adequately fund education, health care, housing, and things like that,” said Guillory.

An African-American who grew up in South Africa, he said he’s motivated to support the Palestinian people who stood by him during protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.“There were Palestinians on the front lines with us, putting their bodies on the line for us for Black people.”

“I’m here today because my dad immigrated from Palestine; my family had to move in 1948,” said Jousef Shkoukani, a Chicago lawyer who joined the crowd.

“It’s incredibly unfortunate that both DNC and RNC candidates in this 2024 election continuously support Israel’s leadership and their decision for this ongoing genocide, notwithstanding the world calling for a permanent ceasefire,” he said.

Margaret Lau, an Asian-American woman, traveled from west suburban Naperville carrying a poster covered with pictures of wounded children in Gaza.

“I’m a human being. When I hear about what’s happening to children, to everybody, it’s hard not to stand up to say something when children are maimed, killed, deprived of water,” said the mother of two.

“If you open the list of deceased people and put in your last name, you’ll find 14 people who have passed. Everyone knows someone,” said one Palestinian woman in the crowd. She declined to share her name, explaining she’d faced harassment after appearing on the cover of the Chicago Tribune while showing support for the Chicago City Council’s ceasefire resolution earlier this year.

“People were calling me a terrorist on Facebook and Linkedin,” she said, “I was anxious because I started thinking about my family and job opportunities.”

Still, she chose to attend Monday’s events. “I needed to be a part of it.”

Acknowledgement of pain on both sides  

“If all of these groups had come together to condemn October 7, we wouldn’t have this war. If one of them called for the release of hostages, we’d be in a very different place,” said Dan Goldwin, Executive Director, Public Affairs, Jewish United Fund, Chicago.

“Between October 7 and now, obviously, there’s been a lot of destruction, a lot of heartache, a lot of pain, I would say disproportionately on the Palestinian side, but it would be unjust to say that there isn’t pain on the Israeli side as well,“ said Shkoukani.

“It’s going to take all of us to come together and try our best to truly try to understand each other more, really hone in on empathy, and really try to figure out how to make things work over there. We’ve got to find a way to have everlasting peace,” Shkoukani added.