100,000 march in Rome in solidarity with Palestine Intifada
The International Action Center wants to make these two exciting reports on the Italian demonstration available to those who follow its web page
March 9, 2002
Rome, Italy
In the greatest mass rally in support of Palestine and the Intifada in Europe since the start of the Intifada in September 2000, some 100.000 people came to Rome from all over Italy. They marched across the center of Rome and ended with a rally in the central Navona Square.
The event had been organized by the Palestine Forum, a coordinating committee established in January by some individual supporters of the Palestinian struggle. The support immediately offered by the Palestinian and Muslim communities in Italy, as well as by dozens of anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist organizations, together with the enthusiastic participation provided by people at large, overcame all difficulties from those hostile to the demonstration, including the official media. The demonstration was an unprecedented success.
The Palestine Forum's platform listed exactly the demands expressed by the Intifada leadership: a Palestinian sovereign State within the borders of 1967, the dismantling of all settlements, the end to occupation and the right to return for the 4 million Palestinian refugees.
A large contingent of Italian Jews marched under the banner "For peace and Justice." And one of the main speakers at the rally was Neta Golan, a prominent Israeli pacifist of the "Gush Shalom" organization. This helped to counter efforts at defamation carried out by pro-Israeli Jews in Italy. Golan, to the enthusiastic applause of the crowd, called for a boycott to all products "made in Israel" and for full support to the Intifada.
The other main speakers were a member of the Palestinian Community, a representative of the immigrant Community and a member of Palestine Forum. Among the speakers from numerous anti-imperialist organizations was a spokesperson from the Ramsey Clark Tribunal-Italy. He also read out a message by Ramsey Clark, in solidarity with the demonstration and in support of the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli state and its U.S. supporters. Clark's message received great applause from the 100.000 marchers, confirming the popularity and prestige the former U.S. attorney general enjoys among progressive Italians.
The "Palestine Forum", having registered this enormous success against all odds, intends now to establish a permanent structure proposing and coordinating initiatives of political and material solidarity with the Intifada. This group will also oppose all maneuvers placing "peace" above the recognition of all Palestinian demands.
As this year began, the Action for Peace program brought some 500 European volunteers to Israel and Palestine in order do stage rallies together with Palestinians and Israeli pacifists at various venues. Many were at the check points that hamper and now totally impede the right of the Palestinian people to move on their land.
Another Palestine Forum; priority is the launching and intensifying of the boycott campaign against Israeli products, along the lines already tested against the South African Apartheid regime. The Palestine Forum will concentrate special efforts at countering official media's lies on the Palestine issue.
The group will also combat the effort--seen before the tremendously successful demonstration March 9--by some in the peace movement to impose symmetry existing between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian anti-colonial liberation struggle.
It will also dismiss as a pretext for aggression, the "war on terrorism" that U.S. imperialism and the Israeli regime are trying to use to justify their crimes against humanity, and will support whatever choice the Palestinian leadership takes regarding the forms of struggle against occupation and genocide.
Fulvio Grimaldi, "Palestine Forum", Rome
Videographer Fulvio Grimaldi has recently produced a new video, "Till the Last Keffiah!" The video, which was shown in a nearby hall following the rally, illustrates the struggle of the Palestinian people up to the recent days, the terrible repression inflicted upon the occupied territories, the positive repercussions of the Intifada in the Arab world, the coordination of the Intifada with the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon, the growing flow of European volunteers to Palestine for activities of solidarity and protest against the Israeli occupation and the endless escalation of Sharon's crimes against humanity.
Rome: 100,000 demonstrate for Palestine's self-determination and against Zionist occupation
Excerpts from a report from the Anti-imperialist Camp March 10, 2002
Despite heavy rain and the boycott by the big mass media as well as by a big part of the pacifist left, 100,000 people demonstrated yesterday, March 9, in Rome in solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada. This was, in fact, the biggest demonstration in support of the Palestinian cause ever in Italy. Moreover, there is no doubt that this was also the biggest mass manifestation in support of Intifada that has ever taken place in a western country.
The idea to hold this demonstration was launched in October last year by the Forum for Palestine. Thanks to the efforts of a united basis committee (part of which was the Italian section of the Anti-imperialist Camp) this idea could become reality. The call for this demonstration included five points:
- Withdrawal of the Israeli army from the occupied territories;
- Dismantling of all Zionist colonial settlements;
- Right to return for the Palestinian refugees;
- Foundation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital;
- International observation against Israeli violence.
Finally, the call included the request to the Palestinian National Authority to release A. Saadat, secretary of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as all other militants of Intifada who have been arrested due to Israeli, U.S. and West European pressure.
Today, March 10, many newspapers have tried to distort this marvelous demonstration describing it as one of the usual pacifist marches, which call for equal distance from both the Zionist butchers and Palestinian victims, which condemn any form of violence "from any side." This is a lie. Yesterday's demonstration had a clear anti-imperialist character. It called for the legitimate right of Palestinians to use whatever means they consider appropriate in order to free Palestine. It confirmed that whoever struggles for liberation from occupation and oppression can not be considered a terrorist. To the contrary, the US and NATO are terrorists since they carry out a strategy of permanent war in order to maintain their imperial supremacy by heinous means like bombing of Yugoslavia and Afghanistan as well as imposing criminal embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.
The extraordinary success of yesterday's demonstration represents a big step forward for the whole international anti-imperialist movement. It gives us momentum to continue our common struggle, to intensify the campaigns in solidarity with Intifada as well as with all peoples who demand an end to the wars of oppression and capitalist globalization.
The Anti-Imperialist Camp announces an international solidarity delegation to Iraq at the end of March and its own the Anti-imperialist Camp 2002 will take place in Assisi, Italy from August 3-10.
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