As protests continue, cities juggle speech and safety concerns
It was a frosty night in midtown Manhattan, and Rue, a nursing student from Brooklyn, had joined hundreds of mostly young pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some clad in black-and-white keffiyeh scarves, waving flags and homemade signs. The occasion was the annual lighting of an 80-foot Christmas tree at nearby Rockefeller Center, a televised event featuring Kelly Clarkson and Cher that had drawn thousands of tourists to watch live.
To Rue, who declined to give his surname, it’s a bittersweet season. “I love Christmas too, and the Rockefeller tree, but this is about people’s lives,” he says. “People [here] seem so oblivious. They’re just going on with their daily lives as if people aren’t dying every day in Palestine.”
He breaks
