Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the site of the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday, accusing US journalists of undercovering the war and misrepresenting it. Chants of ‘shame on you’ greeted guests arriving for the annual event. The "shameful episode" was documented just before US President Joe Biden was set to deliver an election-year roast Saturday night before a large crowd of journalists, celebrities and politicians.
"Shame on you!" protesters draped in the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh cloth shouted, running after men in tuxedos and suits and women in long dresses holding clutch purses as guests hurried inside for the dinner. “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point.
VIDEO: Chants of ‘shame on you’ greet guests arriving for White House correspondents’ dinner
Other protesters lay sprawled motionless on the pavement, next to mock-ups of flak vests with “press” insignia. Ralliers cried “Free, free Palestine.” They cheered when at one point someone inside the Washington Hilton — where the dinner has been held for decades — unfurled a Palestinian flag from a top-floor hotel window.
Criticism of the Biden administration's support for Israel's 6-month-old military offensive in Gaza has spread through American college campuses, with students pitching encampments in an effort to force their universities to divest from Israel.
Biden’s motorcade forced to take an alternate route
Biden’s motorcade Saturday took an alternate route from the White House to the Washington Hilton than in previous years, largely avoiding the crowds of demonstrators.
Protest organizers said they aimed to bring attention to the high numbers of Palestinian and other Arab journalists killed by Israel’s military since the war began in October. More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether. “The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering,” the letter stated. “We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the ‘crime’ of journalistic integrity.”
One organizer complained that the White House Correspondents’ Association — which represents the hundreds of journalists who cover the president — largely has been silent since the first weeks of the war about the killings of Palestinian journalists. WHCA did not respond to a request for comment.
According to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists, nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants. “Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price — their lives — to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.
(With inputs from agency)
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