RALLIES IN LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISO: "FREE, FREE PALESTINE!"
As repression against Palestinians is escalating in the West Bank and Gaza, hundreds turned out March 2, 2002, in Los Angeles and San Francisco for two significant events in solidarity with the people of the Middle East. The large rallies, entitled "Peace with Justice for the Palestinian and Iraqi People," were sequels to an earlier rally Feb. 23 in the Great Hall at New York's Cooper Union.
LOS ANGELES
By Adrian Garcia
The standing-room-only crowd of hundreds at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles thundered in unison, "Free, free Palestine! Long live Palestine!"
The afternoon of solidarity with the Palestinians provided invaluable information regarding the repressive conditions the people there have been forced to endure since 1948. And these conditions of life have profoundly worsened within the last 16 months.
Michel Shehadeh proudly donned a scup, the trademark shawl worn by Palestinian men, as he addressed the audience. Shehadeh, of the Committee for Justice to Defend Palestinian Rights, reported that within recent days the repressive, apart heid-like military government of Israel had inflicted serious casualties on numerous women and children residing in refugee camps. Shehadeh read off a list of names of the most recent Palestinian victims of a brutal and despotic government funded by U.S. tax dollars.
Shehadeh addressed the distortion of facts in the U.S. media concerning the Palestinian Intifada--uprising--and its ruthless repression. "Israel feels it is on top of the world," Shehadeh exclaimed.
While Israel wages a grotesque war against the people of Palestine, the United Nations fails to condemn it. Bush's modern-day witch-hunt of "terrorists" through out the globe has bolstered Israel's perverted war against the people of Palestine. Shehadeh noted that this permanent state of war against Palestine benefits the ruling classes of both Israel and the United States.
"This issue is not a debate about whether we want one state or two states," Shehadeh declared. The struggle "is about what kind of world we want to have," he explained. Shehadeh concluded by reminding the crowd that the right of return of Palestinian refugees is guaranteed under international law and is an issue that cannot be negotiated. "No return? No peace!" vowed Shehadeh.
Mohammed Kanana, general secretary of Abna al Balad, spoke to the audience via satellite phone from Haifa. His organization has been functioning defiantly inside Israel since 1948.
Kanana was denied a visa to come to the United States to be a part of the forum. He pointed out that the catastrophe of 1948--the year the Zionist Israeli state was founded at the expense of the Palestinian people--is being recreated.
Kanana promulgated the demands of his people: "Right of return, freedom and independence." He asserted that he hoped for "a better place for all people, Jews and Palestinians."
"I've come to honor, defend, and support the two greatest victims of terror--the Palestinians and the Iraqis," declared Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general, after a rousing standing ovation. Clark outlined the history of terror that has been leveled upon the Palestinians with the tacit approval of the U.S. government.
"There has not been a moment that they [the Palestinians] were not under the threat of attack," stated Clark. Palestinians have been forced to endure economic dependency and humiliating military checkpoint inspections, curfews and a refusal to recognize their existence as a people, among other repressive practices.
Clark noted that the U.S. has a record of supporting repressive regimes throughout the world, from Mobutu in Zaire to Pinochet in Chile.
"The greatest crime has been against the Iraqi people," stated Clark in reference to the military attack on Iraq and the subsequent sanctions imposed against it over a decade ago. "The sanctions would be classified as genocide under the International Covenant," he stressed.
The destruction of essential support facilities by U.S. bombs "is well documented," Clark said. That plus the sanctions that followed have exposed Iraqi children to bad water. That alone has caused the deaths of children on an alarming scale.
Clark warned that the U.S. war on terrorism is simply a "license to kill."
"We have to change the policies of this government. We have to do it quickly," Clark urged the audience.
SAN FRANCISCO
By Bill Hackwell
At the end of his talk the former attorney general flew to San Francisco to speak at an evening event held at Mission High School. Like the previous two rallies, hundreds came out to show their solidarity with the Palestinian and Iraqi people.
The rally was co-chaired by Jumana Mowafi of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and Richard Becker of the ANSWER coalition: Act Now to Stop War & End Racism.
A direct phone feed again allowed those attending the rally to hear the words, in Arabic, of Mohammed Kanana. Elias Rashmawi translated his talk.
The showing of the powerful short video, "Images of the Intifada"--produced by Al-Wattan television--particularly moved the audience. It depicted the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people. Scores of people bought copies of the video to take back to show others in their communities and organizations.
Monadel Herzallah talked about the importance of linking struggles. He is a community activist with Al Beit Al Arabi-- an organization for Arab immigrants who are poor and living in the Tenderloin District of this city.
He began with a moment of silence for all the martyrs of the Palestinian struggle and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died as a result of 12 years of genocidal sanctions, courtesy of the United States government and the United Nations.
"Those of us here who are Palestinian want to join with you in your struggles in the U.S. And we want to remind those that have such a short memory, that the fight of the Palestinian people did not start with the second Intifada, but has been unfolding for a hundred years."
Nathalie Alsop, a youth organizer with International ANSWER, urged all those who support the struggle of the Iraqi and Palestinian people to come out to the April 20 anti-war mobilizations in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Other speakers included the Rev. Dorsey Blake, Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples; Gloria La Riva, International Action Center; and a taped interview featuring Omar Nazzal, founder of Al-Wattan television, from Ramallah, Palestine. He, like Mohammed Kanana, had been denied entry into the U.S. for the events in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The San Francisco event was sponsored by the ADC-SF, International ANSWER, American Muslims for Global Peace & Justice, Friends of Free Speech Radio, International Action Center, Middle East Children's Alliance, Progress Unity Fund and Vanguard Foundation.
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