‘Kibbutz Blinken’ and the Limits of Protest
‘Kibbutz Blinken’ and the Futility of Protest
A consideration of protests’ power to persuade.
Like a lot of commuters who cross the Potomac, I drive by Antony Blinken’s house frequently. The secretary of state lives on Chain Bridge Road, a long downhill slope which runs from the CIA to Chain Bridge itself, and which connects residential Arlington to Northwest Washington, DC. It is one of the most-hated roads in the area: narrow, winding, and at rush hour impassably clogged with cars. It is also pocked with perilous blind spots, a fact I have only fully appreciated in the eleven months following the October 7 attacks on Israel, as pro-Palestine protesters and the Arlington County Police Department have engaged in a protracted struggle over the roadway directly in front of Blinken’s house.
The trouble began just a few days after Israel began war on against Hamas. Blinken visited the country, met with Benjamin Netanyahu, and provisionally assured the prime minister of American support for Israeli action in the Gaza strip. His words were not so forceful as Israel’s more fervent supporters wished, yet they were far from the tone its most outspoken critics demanded. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, he maintained more or less the same attitude, which became the Biden administration’s official stance on the conflict. This was upsetting for everyone involved, but mostly for the pro-Palestine side. It did not take long before the DC protest circuit discovered Blinken’s address, showed up across from his driveway, and set up an encampment dubbed “Kibbutz Blinken.”
For passing motorists, Kibbutz Blinken was yet another hazard on Chain Bridge. Much of the property across the street from the secretary’s house is owned by the Saudi Arabian royal family, and perhaps for that reason little effort was made to contain the disgruntled activists to the road’s shoulder. In no time, they set up folding tables, posters, and tents all along the roadway and often occupied the street itself, causing a permanent traffic jam. The Arlington police were called in to control the situation, and for several months, the two sides antagonized each other—not to mention all of us passersby—until one morning in late July, the police tore down the encampment and erected “no loitering” signs in its place. The police claimed they acted in the interests of public safety; the protesters said their decision was politically motivated. Both sides were in the right. And they are still bickering to this day: Now it is the police who have a round-the-clock encampment and the protesters who demand they clear out.
It’s hard to say what effect, if any, Kibbutz Blinken had on the secretary’s Middle East policy. But somehow I suspect the ruckus did not make him more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. One day a few months into the Israel war I was driving behind his motorcade, a fleet of black Suburbans coming down from McLean, and together we encountered the protesters. As Blinken’s car pulled up to the gate in front of his house, people waving Palestinian flags and chanting “war criminal” surrounded it. They blew horns, beat drums, and poured fake blood on the ground. I began to film the clash, but a cop who was already struggling to keep the crowd away screamed at me to put the phone down. Fair enough. I complied.
As I drove away, I considered the likely atmosphere in Blinken’s car during those few minutes. I have a little insight into what it is like to be the subject of protest: In my time as a Supreme Court reporter, I spoke on occasion with those who faced chanting mobs at their homes or their offices. And I have been on the other side of the fence myself. A few years ago, I attended the annual gala of an organization whose events regularly draw protests. As my party strolled into the National Building Museum, all dressed up in our evening wear, people hurled insults and yelled obscenities at us from the parking lot. It was not intimidating. Quite the opposite: Those walking with me puffed their chests out, held their heads a little higher. They were proud of themselves; protest only made them more confident in their beliefs. I imagine the same is true of the secretary of state.
The hard fact about protest in the United States is that, on the whole, it is not a tool of persuasion. For the protester, speaking out in public is most often about raising awareness or achieving catharsis or simply feeling useful—all goals more beneficial to himself than to those who don’t share his beliefs. And for the protested, the advantage of the thing, which, though unsought, is almost always gladly received, is a feeling of importance or the knowledge of notoriety or that pure endorphin rush that comes from standing in front of a crowd. But, I’ve found, many on that side of the fence quickly tire of the charade and become disdainful of all those poor people yelling in their faces. The result is a version of that old joke about the tired king whose advisor informs him that the peasants are revolting, and, looking down at the rabble assembled beneath his balcony, the king agrees: “Yes, disgusting.”
Others, however, come to pity their protesters, a virtue that always risks veering into the vice of condescension. Most often they feel a mixture of the two. It is hard not to when faced with an action so earnest and so doomed. Only the most lifeless are left cold by a dedicated, long-running demonstration against their person; the rest ride that queasy pendulum swinging from pity to condescension, condescension to pity.
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