Raising of Palestinian flag at Providence City Hall also raises tensions among city leaders
PROVIDENCE – A Palestinian flag waved outside Providence City Hall in hopes of invoking solidarity and honoring 'the important role' that Palestinian-Americans play in a city as diverse as Providence, speakers at a May 16 flag-raising ceremony said.
But the proposal to raise the flag has opened conflict within the ranks of local and state leaders.
According to members of the City Council, the flag was raised at the request of constituents.
'Every one of us is safer when we can celebrate every part of our community,' City Council President Rachel Miller said at the flag-raising ceremony.
The downtown Providence rally drew a large crowd to the steps of City Hall, where people of all ages brought their own Palestinian flags and banners, sticking around to play music and dance after an hour of speeches from community leaders.
Despite support from some community members, there had been staunch opposition to placing a Palestinian flag on government property from other members of the public, who referred to it as an endorsement of terror and criticized the local government for taking a stance on international issues.
A cohort of counterprotesters attended the Palestinian flag ceremony, too, carrying Israeli flags and, at times, attempting to drown out the official lineup of speakers, but the event carried on peacefully.
'City Hall displays many different flags throughout the year to mark different occasions and honor the many ethnic and cultural backgrounds and traditions that make our city strong. Just in the past couple of months, the city has flown the Dominican flag, the Irish flag, the Italian flag, the Armenian flag, and the Israeli flag,' the City Council's communication director, Marc Boyd, said in a statement.
For Reema Said-Awad – a Palestinian Rhode Islander who just completed a master's degree in justice studies at Rhode Island College while focusing on academic freedom for Palestine – getting to see a flag from her homeland hanging outside City Hall has remarkable symbolic value.
'It means a lot. It means we're finally being recognized as human beings,' she told The Providence Journal after delivering remarks to the audience. 'We don't hold hate. We want unity. We want people to understand that we are human beings who deserve existence.'
According to Said-Awad, hundreds of Palestinian-Americans across Rhode Island have joined campaigns to demand that state representatives use their power to end the U.S.-backed Israel-Hamas war.
The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 53,000 people, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, since Israel began its armed assault in October 2023, following the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack into Israel that killed about 1,200 Israelis and led to the taking of about 250 hostages. Since March, Israeli forces have blocked deliveries of food, water, medication and other necessities from entering Gaza, and aid groups stress the mounting toll that the humanitarian crisis is taking on civilians, as reported by Al Jazeera.
Said-Awad said she and fellow community members have made thousands of phone calls, but they consistently receive generic responses.
'Obviously, we are very aware of what has been happening to the Palestinian people for quite some time now, so we want to uplift that message and show the Palestinian-Americans we have here that we see them and we're here to support them,' said City Councilor Miguel Sanchez.
Sanchez said that a few council members were looped in about the request for a flag, and they alerted the mayor's administration before taking the idea public.
Mayor Brett Smiley said that he would not have chosen to raise the flag himself out of fear that it would isolate Jewish residents.
'My office does not have the authority to prevent a separate, independent branch of government from expressing their differing political and cultural views,' Smiley said in a statement. 'It is my hope that both the City Council and the community who participates in the flag raising ceremony will use this as an opportunity to find unity instead of further division.'
In an interview with NBC 10, Smiley said that Providence doesn't have a foreign affairs department and that taking such measures isn't part of a city leader's job.
'I would push back on the mayor's comments,' said Sanchez. 'The mayor was literally in Israel for a week.'
The City Council's May 15 meeting was also a tense affair, where Councilwoman Helen Anthony and Councilman James Taylor opened the meeting with opposition to hanging a Palestinian flag. Taylor accused the City Council president and her staff of roping the council into her personal agenda, adding that at no point had he been consulted about the flag.
'You are welcome to speak, but you cannot make personal attacks on the floor,' replied Miller.
A week after the state House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution recognizing Israeli independence and reaffirming the "bonds of friendship and cooperation" with the country, the state Senate on May 15 canceled a vote in a similar resolution.
The Senate resolution, S1065, introduced by Providence Democratic Sen. Sam Zurier, was "placed on the desk," a move that means it could resurface for a vote – or not – at any time.
"A couple of members raised concerns with the language of the resolution," Senate spokesman Greg Pare wrote in an email. "Because it was a new bill, they had not had the opportunity to speak with the sponsor."
The proposed Senate resolution is identical to the House version that passed without objection, with the exception of one paragraph in the House version that says Israel "has sought to achieve a secure peace with the Palestinians and Israel's other Arab neighbors," which is absent in the Senate version.
Both resolutions celebrate "a special relationship based on mutually shared democratic and moral values, common strategic interests, and bonds of friendship and mutual respect" between Rhode Island and Israel while lamenting "unjustified diplomatic and economic boycotts against the people of Israel."
One of the senators who objected to the resolution was Sen. Sam Bell of Providence, who posted on the social network Bluesky that he was "deeply disappointed that the RI House of Representatives passed an inflammatory resolution praising Israel in deeply inaccurate and offensive terms."
Smiley recently spent a week in Israel visiting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, among other locations. The trip was organized and partially paid for by the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, while the mayor personally funded the remaining costs. The visit's primary purpose was to 'strengthen the relationship between Israel and Rhode Island.'
Smiley told the Boston Globe that he converted to Judaism in 2024 after a year of study.
On his first morning back in town from Israel on May 15, about 20 demonstrators with the group Jewish Voice for Peace gathered outside the mayor's house and chanted, 'Wake up Smiley,' while banging drums and noisemakers at 7 a.m.
'We're hoping to make it clear to Smiley and other local leaders and politicians that going on these kinds of propaganda trips has consequences,' said Zack Kligler, an organizer for Jewish Voice for Peace. 'We're not going to let you comfortably pander to the Israel lobby for your higher political ambitions and leave behind the people of Providence who are struggling with rising rents and putting food on the table.'
The protest coincided with Nakba Day, Kliger said, which commemorates 77 years since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the creation of the state of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians.
In Arabic, Nakba means, 'catastrophe.'
'It is a deep, deep irony that Smiley's first day back at his home is on the anniversary of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,' said Kliger. 'We're both here to honor Nakba Day and the legacy of those Palestinians and to show Smiley that he can't sleep comfortably in his home while Palestinians are bombed in theirs.'
'People are progressive until it has to do with Palestine,' Said-Awad said. 'Look at our college campuses and what's happening there. They've been trying to shut us down for speaking out about Palestine.'
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Palestinian flag raising at Providence City Hall sparks tensions
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