Around 75 Capitol Hill staffers, federal workers and activists gathered in a bar last week in the hopes that actions — even symbolic ones — might speak louder than words. Or, perhaps more accurately, silence.
Congressional Staff for a Ceasefire Now, an underground group of Hill aides advocating for a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, organized a fundraiser to support aid agencies operating in Gaza.
But raising a few thousand dollars wasn’t the real reason why they filled the back room of the Busboys and Poets in Mount Vernon Triangle. The staffers came as a rebuke to their bosses, who they cast as accepting an ongoing genocide by failing to speak out in opposition.
