Thousands Rally in North America in Solidarity with Palestinians

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest against the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestinian territories during a rally at the Washington Monument in Washington, US, May 15, 2021. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest against the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestinian territories during a rally at the Washington Monument in Washington, US, May 15, 2021. (Reuters)
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Thousands Rally in North America in Solidarity with Palestinians

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest against the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestinian territories during a rally at the Washington Monument in Washington, US, May 15, 2021. (Reuters)
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest against the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestinian territories during a rally at the Washington Monument in Washington, US, May 15, 2021. (Reuters)

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied in cities across North America on Saturday, calling for an end to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Gatherings to show solidarity with Palestinians took place in cities including New York, Boston, Washington, Montreal and Dearborn, Michigan.

About two thousand people turned out in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, chanting "Free, free Palestine" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."

They waved Palestinian flags and held placards that read "End Israeli Apartheid" and "Freedom for Gaza."

Many protesters wore black and white, and red and white, keffiyeh scarves, while drivers sounded car horns and motorcyclists revved their engines as the sun beat down.

Several Jewish people attended, carrying placards that said "Not in my name" and "Solidarity with Palestine" as the protesters took over a street in the area which has a large Arab population.

A few dozen police officers looked on at the peaceful protest, dubbed "Defend Palestine.

"I'm here because I want a Palestinian life to equal an Israeli life and today it doesn't," said 35-year-old Emraan Khan, a corporate strategist from Manhattan, as he waved a Palestinian flag.

"When you have a nuclear-armed state and another state of villagers with rocks it is clear who is to blame," he added.

Throngs of people gathered in Copley Square in Boston, while a few hundred rallied on the Washington Monument grounds in the US capital.

Several thousand demonstrated in Montreal, calling for "the liberation of Palestine."

Protesters also denounced "war crimes" committed by Israel in Gaza and carried placards accusing Israel of violating international law during the protest in the center of the Canadian city.

Earlier, a caravan of cars sounded their horns and drove with Palestinian flags blowing in the wind as they protested outside the Israeli consulate in the western part of Montreal.

A protester was arrested for breaking a window, a police spokesperson said, but otherwise the demonstration was peaceful.



Mexico’s President Amused by Trump’s Order to Rename the Gulf of Mexico

 Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
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Mexico’s President Amused by Trump’s Order to Rename the Gulf of Mexico

 Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum delivers a speech at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico January 21, 2025. (Reuters)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has an answer for US President Donald Trump about his idea of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”: he can call it whatever he wants on the American part of it.

Sheinbaum on Tuesday had been working through the raft of executive orders from Trump that relate to Mexico, emphasizing Mexico’s sovereignty and the need for dialogue, but when she got to the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“He says that he will call it the Gulf of America on its continental shelf,” Sheinbaum said. “For us it is still the Gulf of Mexico, and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico.”

Trump said in his inaugural address Monday that he will change the name, an idea he first brought up earlier this month during a news conference.

“A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” he said. Hours later he signed an Executive Order to do it.

Sheinbaum projected on a large screen at her daily press briefing Trump’s order called “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.”

The order says that within 30 days, the US secretary of the interior will rename “the US Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba.”

Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.

The first time Trump mentioned the idea of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, Sheinbaum responded sarcastically suggesting instead renaming North America as “América Mexicana” or “Mexican America.”

This time, she just briefly insisted: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”