Audience members at a 2024 East Lansing City Council meeting where council voted against passing a resolution supporting a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Today, faith communities will lead a demonstration downtown that protests the conditions created in Gaza by the war. (Dylan Lees for ELi)

East Lansing Faith Groups to Hold Protest for Gaza Today

Several East Lansing faith communities will gather at the median near the Grand River Avenue and Abbot Road intersection at 5 p.m. today, Thursday, Sept. 18, to protest conditions in Gaza. Organizers are encouraging participants to bring pots to bang on, symbolizing empty food vessels.

The demonstration is organized by the Palestine Interfaith Network (PIN), which includes members of the Islamic Center of Greater Lansing, Edgewood United Church of Christ, University Lutheran Church and other local congregations. The Peace Education Center of East Lansing is cosponsoring the event.

Jack Smith, a retired Michigan State University College of Education faculty member and a coordinator of the protest, told ELi the event follows a local tradition of peaceful protest, including actions against the Iraq War in 2003. Smith, a member of the Red Cedar Friends Meeting (Quakers), said his faith motivates him to speak out.

A poster being used to promote the protest. (Courtesy image)

“When you’re in a faith community, you’re called by faith to look at human rights and issues of human dignity, maybe more so than if you’re not,” Smith said.

Smith emphasized that protesters will not block traffic during rush hour. He said organizers have been in communication with the East Lansing Police Department and “have no desire to endanger anybody, even if we would like to get our message across to those who are walking and driving by.”

The protest follows Tuesday’s on-campus screening of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, hosted by the group.

“I’m proud to live in a community that I have come to see over time as one with a progressive and strong orientation toward peace,” Smith said.