Story and Photos by Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

“Whatever tactics you thought we threw at you before, you just wait for what the student movement has to offer. You just wait for the vengeance that we have,” said Laila Shaikh from University of Cincinnati’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter in her 10-minute speech to about 300 cheering protesters at Deeds Point MetroPark, Sunday, May 25. “We will take everything in our power to end this genocide and stop these imperialist powers from oppressing our people.”

Shaikh, who told the protestors she comes from a family of Palestinian refugees, opened her speech with a chant: “Intifada! Intifada! We are the Intifada!” She ended with “Long live all forms of our resistance and long live the student Intifada!”

In the middle, she gave a shout-out to the SJP chapters that came to the protest march — billed as The People’s Assembly for Peace and Justice: Stop NATO, No to Endless War — from Chicago, Indiana, across Ohio, Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania.

She called out the University of Cincinnati and Case Western: “They have tooken every inch of freedom that we were given on campus. And they have tooken it as a tool — to utilize their power over this movement. And the students are refusing.”

Shaikh also denounced Cincinnati-based U.S. Rep. Greg Landsman, who is Jewish, as “one of the most egregious Zionist congressmen that we have seen.”

With awareness of busloads of protesters from dozens of cities converging on Dayton May 25 to demonstrate against NATO’s May 22-26 spring session here, Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton Security Director John Davis had advised the Jewish community to stay away from Downtown Dayton and all protests.

His assessment was based on the protests that got out of control at NATO’s assembly in Montreal, Nov. 22-25, 2024. Pro-Palestinian protesters shattered windows, lit cars on fire, and threw explosives at law enforcement. And NATO’s Dayton assembly would open only days after an anti-Israel protester murdered two Israeli embassy employees at gunpoint in front of the Jewish Capital Museum in Washington, D.C.

Temple Israel, across the Miami River from Downtown Dayton and the fenced-off NATO village, decided months ago not to hold Shabbat services or programs during the NATO sessions. Beth Abraham Synagogue, just south of Dayton city limits in Oakwood, also cancelled its Shabbat services and programs.

In the end, protest attendance May 25 was fairly low and police presence for the protesters’ march across the river to its assembly at St. John’s United Church on Third Street downtown was high.

At every intersection along the march downtown, protesters were met with a phalanx of Dayton Police on foot, on bicycles, and on horseback, augmented with law enforcement from across the region. Some protesters wore yellow security jackets and guided the march on its path.

Along with anti-NATO chants, marchers shouted “Free, free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The day before, on May 24, two groups of local anti-NATO/anti-Israel protestors converged across the river from RiverScape, according to The Dayton Daily News. One group began at Deeds Point and draped a Palestine flag on the Wright brothers sculpture there, crossed the Webster Street Bridge, went to the Riverside Drive Bridge, and “started yelling toward the NATO compound” with a bullhorn. The other group marched from Cooper Park downtown around the NATO village. Among their chants was “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

The Daily News also reported that Ohio provided more than $5 million for the NATO assembly, including funding for Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers and 150 law enforcement officers.