BALTIMORE — Marylanders who support and oppose Israel rallied at separate demonstrations Friday, reacting to the ongoing war in that part of the world.
Car horns and cardboard signs signaled support for Israel around rush hour on Friday evening just outside Severna Park High School.
"It's very hard for me to watch what's going on television, being so far away, from a place that's so important for so many different reasons, to so many different people," said Julie Jeffers, a Severna Park resident. "And just to see the human suffering - it's heartbreaking."
With signs displaying the Israeli and American flags, neighbors told WMAR felt like they had to say something.
"It's the most horrific thing a human can experience," Lauren Garber, a Severna Park resident, said of the violence. "I can't imagine being a family member, wondering if your loved one is alive, safe, being held hostage, its unthinkable what's happened."
25 miles away in Baltimore City, a separate demonstration urged the US government not to support Israel. Pointing to, what they describe to WMAR, as historical aggression and violence by the Israeli government.
"Tonight we're standing up to the Israeli threats, and the terrorizing and bombing of Palestine," said Andre Powell, a Baltimore County native.
"I want to emphasize that this is not a Palestinian-Jewish conflict," Zahi Khamis, a Baltimore resident, told WMAR. "In this demonstration, there are many Jewish voices here who have dissociated from being connected to Israel, and actually are in support of Palestinan human rights."
Demonstrators said money should be put to better use toward healthcare and education, telling WMAR the Israeli government amounts to an apartheid regime.
"It’s really more of a colonial situation, where the Palestinians are actually fighting the residuals of the whole colonial experience," Khamis continued. "And so Israel is basically a colonial, settler, apartheid state."
