Hollywood stars, journalists and distinguished politicians have been met with a crowd of protesters of the Israel–Hamas battle exterior Saturday’s White Home Correspondents Dinner.
There was rising public discord over the battle and President Joe Biden’s dealing with of the battle, in addition to mainstream media’s protection of it.
This yr’s occasion on the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. — the place the dinner has been held for many years — is headlined by Saturday Evening Dwell star Colin Jost, with a number of stars additionally in attendance, together with Chris Pine, Molly Ringwald, Questlove and Rachel Brosnahan. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are additionally on the dinner.
Nevertheless, attendees have been greeted by demonstrators holding banners and chanting “Free, free Palestine” and requires a “ceasefire” as they arrived, in line with movies posted on social media. At one level, protesters additionally dropped a Palestinian flag out of one of many Washington Hilton’s home windows.
Biden reportedly averted the big protest on the entrance of the lodge by arriving by means of a again entrance. However different attendees have been seen in social movies strolling by means of the demonstrations.
The Related Press reported that native regulation enforcement and the Secret Service organized further road closures and different measures to make sure the “highest ranges of security and safety for attendees,” in line with Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Guglielmi added that the company was working with native police to guard demonstrators’ proper to assemble, nevertheless, “we’ll stay illiberal to any violent or harmful conduct.”
The most recent demonstrations got here after pupil protesters took to varsity campuses throughout the nation this week to specific their discontent of the Israel-Hamas battle. The protests led to a number of arrests at Emerson School in Boston and the College of Southern California after college officers known as police to finish the demonstrations and make arrests.