Onlookers and protesters: a split scene outside Biden fundraiser in Westchester County

IRVINGTON ‒ Nobody was getting anywhere near the movie-star mansion where President Joe Biden was set to hobnob with campaign donors.

So there at the police barricade, a good distance from where Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were throwing the fundraiser, a curious crowd had gathered on both sides of Broadway, people with kids and dogs and phones at the ready in hopes of a glimpse of the Biden motorcade approaching.

Then came the protesters.

They had marched up Main Street and onto Broadway in Irvington, holding a banner, signs and Palestinian flags, and chanting slogans to denounce the civilian toll of Israel's war in Gaza and accusing Biden of complicity. They stopped at the barricade and continued their protest, occupying one side of the street with the onlookers on the other side and a line of cops in the middle.

"Hey hey, ho ho," they chanted, led by someone with a bullhorn. "Genocide Joe has got to go."

The scene unfolded Thursday evening in the Westchester County village where Biden stopped to gather campaign cash. Earlier that day, he visited New York further upstate with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer to celebrate Micron's plans for a complex of computer-chip plants near Syracuse, a project spurred by a 2022 law Biden signed.

Afterward, Biden flew to New York City and back north to Westchester to join the 5 p.m. fundraiser at the actor-couple's home, tucked on a side road off Broadway and near the Hudson River. The minimum price to get in was $3,300 per person or $5,000 for a couple. Top donors were asked to shell out $100,000.

Biden in Syracuse: Bright future for Micron, chip industry in New York. What he said

‘A practical problem-solver’? Or losing ground over Gaza?

Among those hoping to see the president pass was Constance Kehoe, a Democratic district leader and former Irvington village trustee. Gathered with her husband and friends near the police barricade at Heritage Hill Road, she held a handmade sign that welcomed "Scranton Joe" and "Irvington Joe" and urged people to vote.

She said she was thrilled about any president visiting her home village, particularly one with accomplishments on infrastructure and reproductive rights. She understood the antiwar protests to a degree, having seen similar ones against the Vietnam War on the Columbia campus in 1968. But she felt the current Middle East situation was more complex, and she enthusiastically supported Biden.

"I think he's the experienced, practical problem-solver, and what could be more needed at a time like this?" she said.

From the protesters' perspective, what's needed is strong pressure from Biden for Israel to end its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

Nada Khader, one of the activists who helped organize Wednesday's protest, argued beforehand that the Biden campaign must see the political importance of heeding the young war protesters on college campuses now. Without their support, he could lose the key swing states he needs to beat Trump again, costing him the election.

"I cannot see them voting for Biden," said Khader, executive director of the WESPAC Foundation in Westchester. "He's not energizing them to come out and vote."

The protesters started their march at Irvington's Metro-North Station, where more than a dozen Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officers had gathered before their arrival, accompanied by a SWAT vehicle. The police presence was massive. All along Broadway and its side roads, from its intersection with Interstate 287 at the Cuomo Bridge to Main Street in Irvington, police from many agencies ‒Yonkers, Port Chester, New Rochelle, Dobbs Ferry, many others ‒ stood watch or waited in parked vehicles.

At the barricade, the protesters kept a steady stream of chants going, accompanied by a drum. "Israel, stop the slaughter!" they called. "Cease-fire now!"

Watching them with anger was Anne Sommerfeld, an Irvington resident who fumed at their use of the word "genocide" because she lost a set of grandparents and other relatives to the Holocaust. What is happening in Gaza today is not comparable to the Nazis' mass extermination of the Jews, in her view.

"I don't even like Netanyahu," she said of the Israeli prime minister. "But Israel has got to exist."

Like Kehoe, she said she had opposed the Vietnam War but saw the current situation in Gaza as different.

Nearby, Dr. Susan Rubin, a dentist from Chappaqua, stood with the protesters, holding a handmade side on cardboard that read, "I want to live." She vehemently opposed the war in Gaza and, like Khader, warned that Biden risks losing the youth vote by supporting Israel.

Rubin pointed out that she's Jewish and recently attended a Passover seder in Brooklyn with fellow Jews who oppose the war.

"'Never again' means 'never again,'" Rubin said, invoking a vow about the Holocaust. "That's why I'm here as a Jewish person."

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Biden in Westchester: Locals, protesters gather for presidential visit