A graphic anti-Israel demonstration at Union Station on Thursday is drawing nationwide condemnation after activists staged a blood-covered “banquet,” portraying U.S. and Israeli leaders drinking the blood of Palestinians. Jewish groups say the episode mirrors one of history’s most dangerous antisemitic conspiracy myths.

The display featured performers in business suits wearing masks of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio, former President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Each figure sat at a long table soaked in fake blood, surrounded by Israeli flags used as napkins, blood-stained doll limbs, glasses of red liquid, and plates resembling organ meat. The table’s printed “menu” listed items such as “Starter: Gaza children’s limbs,” “Main: Stolen organs,” “Dessert: Illegally harvested skin” and “Drink: Gaza’s spilled blood.”

At Netanyahu’s seat, the name card read “Mileikowsky,” his family’s European surname prior to the creation of the State of Israel.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington condemned the demonstration as “a sickening display of full-throated antisemitism.” The American Jewish Committee warned that the stunt revived the infamous “blood libel,” the medieval accusation that Jews murder non-Jewish children to use their blood in ritual practices — a lie used for centuries to justify pogroms, expulsions, and massacres.

“Dressed up as ‘activism’ and ‘performance art,’ this was nothing less than the revival of one of the oldest and most dangerous antisemitic tropes in history,” the AJC said, calling the display “horrifying and unacceptable.”
The group urged authorities and elected officials to ensure that “public spaces are not used to spread dangerous hate.”

Videos widely shared online show both praise and criticism from onlookers near Union Station, one of the nation’s busiest transit hubs and directly across from the U.S. Capitol. Supporters described the act as a “popup protest” and “art as resistance.”

Multiple pro-Palestinian activists took credit for the display, including Hazami Barada and Atefeh Rokhvand, the latter identified online as a founder of the group Teachers Against Genocide. The Instagram account “Dear White Staffers,” which has shifted from Capitol Hill workplace advocacy to exclusively anti-Israel messaging during the Gaza war, was also credited.

Participants posted behind-the-scenes details, with one activist saying he had to “learn new technical skills” to build the set, while another wrote he disliked having to play Netanyahu. Organizers hinted at further actions. When a social-media user asked why no American flag appeared in the scene, a planner replied: “Bibi wanted to be front and center today. Stay tuned to see what these 5 were doing before their Friendsgiving dinner!”

Historians note that blood libel accusations have fueled violent persecution since the Middle Ages and were central to Nazi propaganda. In the United States, the trope ignited riots in upstate New York as recently as 1928.

“This is not political critique,” said the AJC. “It is the recycling of a lethal myth that has put Jewish lives at risk for centuries.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)