Protests against the assault on Gaza continue in the United States. In New York City, a group of demonstrators blocked traffic by laying down in the streets outside Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Twenty-six people were arrested after refusing police orders to disperse. The action was organized by the author and scholar Norman Finkelstein.

Norman Finkelstein: “Well, I’ve been sitting in front of my computer for the past 21 days, morning and night, watching the horror unfold, and I felt I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t rising to the occasion, I wasn’t acting commensurate to the horror. So I decide it’s time to do something more, time to go past the computer, remove myself from the computer and get arrested.”

Tuesday’s act of civil disobedience comes one day after nine Jewish peace activists were arrested protesting the Israeli assault outside the office of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. The group of mostly young activists are calling themselves “If Not Now, When?” In Seattle, peace activists held a “die-in” outside the headquarters of Boeing, which manufactures weapons supplied to the Israeli military.