Protesters call for Gaza cease-fire during President Joe Biden’s Madison visit

Madison-Rafah Sister City encouraged people ahead of President Joe Biden’s visit to protest his appearance at Madison Area Technical College on Monday. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

As President Joe Biden delivered remarks at Madison Area Technical College about a new student loan forgiveness plan, over 50 people gathered across the road at the intersection of Anderson St. and Wright St. to protest in support of Palestine.

Biden has been facing increasing pressure from young, progressive and Arab and Muslim American voters , who are outraged by the United States’ support for Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 30,000 people to date, and who are pressuring the Biden administration to change course. People of all ages, including students who attend the technical college where Biden was speaking, came to the Monday afternoon protest, which took place during  the partial eclipse in Madison.

The organization Madison-Rafah Sister City encouraged people ahead of Biden’s visit to protest his appearance in the city. One post from the group stated that “Genocide Joe is not welcome here!”

At the protest, a line of protesters held a large string of cut out letters that said “Joe, stop the Gaza-cide.” Other signs stated “War is not the answer,” “Free Palestine,” and “Stop Murdering Palestinians.”

At a demonstration outside Madison College on Monday, a line of protesters held a large string of cut out letters that said “Joe, stop the Gaza-cide.” (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

A 23-year-old Palestinian-American Madison College student who declined to give her full name said most of the students in one of her classes were excited about Biden’s visit and wanted to take pictures with the president, which she said she found “disgusting.”

She hadn’t planned on attending the protest, but joined as a way of standing with her community, she said.

More than 45,000 Democrats voted “uninstructed” last week in Wisconsin’s primary instead of for Biden — a total more than double his margin of victory in the state in the 2020 general election. Organizers of the “uninstructed” vote — and for the “uncommitted” votes in other states — have said they want to send Biden a message that he risks losing reelection if he doesn’t act to end  Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

In their remarks and protest chants other students, who also declined to give their full names, denounced “genocide” in Gaza. Unless Biden listens to their demands, they said, they would reject get-out-the-vote messages from Democrats that they should go to the polls for the president.

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Don Ulezelski, a 90-year-old who drove to Madison from Green Lake County for the protest, said he attended because he is “sick of war.” He noted that he was in the Army from 1952 to 1955.

“I’m sick of people killing civilians, like all these women are dying, all these kids are dying. That’s gotta stop,” Ulezelski said.

Ulezelski, who said he has been paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1945, said that the U.S. should have interfered from the start of the current conflict and that he doesn’t approve of Biden’s handling of the issue.

“You can’t give them bombs like 2,000 bombs and bomb buildings. [Biden] should have controlled that war more. He let it get out of hand,” Ulezelski said.

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