The parking lot outside the Best Western on Washington Avenue in Kingston is jam-packed at 8:30 Wednesday morning, January 24. The snow is melting off the asphalt, and a gentle sleet is falling over a crowd of protesters carrying large, wide banners. A drum, trombone, saxophone and sousaphone provide them festive encouragement.
Inside, a large convention room is overflowing with Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce attendees who have come to hear congressmember Pat Ryan speak.
Protestors in Ulster County have been dogging Ryan’s steps over the last couple of months, trying to get him to address why he hasn’t so far supported a Gaza ceasefire. When his speech is done and the Q&A begins, Ryan first chooses a protestor waiting quietly to be called upon.
Ryan listens, then restates the question for the room to hear
“How do we as a country reconcile our stated founding values and what’s happening in Israel? Specifically, our funding of the current war in Gaza? “The honest answer is I don’t know,” replies Ryan.
Ryan, who served two combat tours in Iraq, now looks back on a war in which he lost friends as unjust and unneeded. He talks about soldiers who had returned to the United States and then committed suicide. He lays fault for their deaths partly at the feet of a subject the questioner alluded to, which Ryan described as “moral injury.”
American dictionaries define moral injury as “the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress one’s own moral beliefs, values, or ethical codes of conduct.”
What Ryan says he is sure about is the importance of supporting allies with similar goals in a time of growing danger around the world. He recites a list of conflicts and bad actors.
“Our strength as a democracy and as people that believe in these values is in our alliances and our partnerships,” says Ryan. “Sometimes you have to work with allies and partners, and shape that partnership constructively. I don’t get everything I want from my partners. I try. We all try.
“Now they’ve crossed the bright red line. I recognize that Netyanyahu and his coalition aren’t incentivized for peace. So how do we respect the democracy of Israel? How do we allow them to reconcile with this and elect someone, I hope, who actually is dedicated to peace there? Right now there are calls by more and more leaders in Israel to call elections to that effect. We’re certainly not going fast enough, [but] I do think we need to continue to support our military ally in Israel that is standing against Iran.”
The protestors in the parking lot are cycling through rhyming chants about a ceasefire, the durability of Palestine, the sea, the river. In particular they had one for Ryan which went: “Ryan, Ryan, you can’t hide, We charge you with genocide.”
From the viewpoint of protestor Anna Jacobs, who describes herself as “a Jew for peace,” it was accurate to accuse Ryan of genocide, not because of what he actually did but because of what he hasn’t done, which is call for a ceasefire.
“That’s the least he could do,” says Jacobs.
There’s a heavy police presence in the parking lot, Kingston police chief Egidio Tinti says he’s fine with the demonstration.
“They have the right to protest as long as it remains peaceful,” says Tinti. “They certainly have a right to demonstrate, and the police are there to make sure that everyone stays safe. They haven’t stopped any traffic, and any time they’ve been asked to move along they have.”
Congressmember Ryan is of similar mind.
“I spent 27 months in combat to protect the right to peacefully protest,” says Ryan. “I have tremendous respect for that right, and I will always fight to protect that.”
What’s going on in the Mideast, Ryan says, is “a 75-year problem that’s incredibly complicated and hard and heart-wrenching and tragic.” Representatives from the Jewish federations of Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties say they presented Ryan with a thank-you letter on Monday signed by 400 constituents for supporting Israel and fighting anti-Semitism.
On Monday night, the city council in Newburgh passed a memorializing resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Newburgh joins a list of municipalities that includes San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, Atlanta, Portland, Detroit, Providence, Akron and Albany.
The City of Kingston has chosen not to take up a similar memorializing resolution.
Join the family! 
