As Chicago prepares for the Democratic National Convention coming up from August 19th through 22nd, concerns are growing about how protest groups permit requests are being handled.
Although permission has been granted for a coalition of pro-Palestinian activists to demonstrate, organizers for The Israeli American Council (IAC) say the City has been sitting on a request from the pro-Israel group to hold a solidarity march.
According to Aya Schechter, IAC’s chief programming officer, the organization filed two applications with Chicago’s Department of Transportation at the beginning of July.
However, with the convention only ten days away, the IAC says they have yet to receive an answer from the city.
A request by IAC for a permit for a stationary demonstration within “sight and sound” of the convention filed in mid-June was denied.
For Schechter, the so far unsuccessful effort to secure a desirable permit ahead of the convention, which is expected to draw thousands of anti-Israel protesters, has underscored what she characterized as unbalanced treatment as her group seeks to show support for Israel and the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
“It seems like we don’t have equitable access to whatever the other group was approved for,” she said in an interview with Jewish Insider earlier this week, voicing frustration with the city’s delay. “We didn’t get any offer to do a march, not even in an alternative location.”
CNN’s Van Jones recently admitted to Jim Acosta on Newsroom that ‘anti-Semitism has gotten marbled into’ the Democrat party.
“Here’s the challenge you got in this party, and people don’t want to talk about it, we got to talk about it.”
“On the one hand, you have a lot of young people who are concerned about Gaza. You have a lot of Muslims and Arabs and others. They had not felt seen by the Biden administration. You start hearing that genocide joke, that was building, that was building.”
“But you also have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot, but there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there, and there’s some disquiet now, and there has to be how much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party. That’s going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through.”
