SF Meeting Supports Palestinian Uprising

By Brenda Sandburg
San Francisco

October 10, 2000--The current Palestinian uprising is more powerful than the battles against Israeli occupation and repression that have occurred over the last 52 years, Elias Rashmawi told a public forum in San Francisco Oct. 8.

"It is qualitatively different because after so many years of Palestinian insistence on nationhood, on statehood, after decades of a peace process that was suppose to give us crumbs," the entire Arab population is protesting, Rashmawi, of the Palestinian Right to Return Task Force of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Committee for a Democratic Palestine, said. The meeting, which was sponsored by the International Action Center, drew a crowd of 75 people.

"Today one million Moroccans, half a million Iraqis, half million Yemenis are protesting" Israeli repression, he said. "From the Jordanian River to the Mediterranean Sea, from 1948 borders to 1967 borders, Arabs are saying 'enough of all the schemes, all the agreements, the Oslos, the Madrids. We want a fully unconditional Palestinian state where we as a people rule ourselves as we see fit.'" He noted that “Israeli Arabs” [Palestinians living within the 1948 borders of the Israeli state] also have joined in protesting against the occupier of their land.

The meeting was held in support of the Palestinian resistance which began on Sept. 29, the day after Israeli fascist Ariel Sharon, escorted by 1,000 Israeli troops, visited the main Muslim holy site in Palestinian East Jerusalem. The Al-Aksa and Dome of the Rock mosques are both located on the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) plaza, which for many years has been under the administration and security of Islamic authorities.  

For the last two weeks, Palestinian protesters have been fired upon with both rubber-jacketed steel bullets and live ammunition. And on Oct. 7, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak threatened all-out military action if the protests did not end within 48 hours. As of Oct. 8, at least 85 Palestinians had been killed and 2,500 wounded.  One Israeli soldier, one border police and two Israeli settlers have been killed in the fighting.

On Oct. 3 and Oct. 6, two major demonstrations were held in San Francisco against Israeli repression. Thousands of Palestinians, along with others from the Middle East and the progressive movement, protested in front of the Israeli embassy.

"We salute the resistance and determination of the Palestinian people in their 52-year struggle to regain their homeland," said IAC member Saul Kanowitz, who chaired the meeting. "The Clinton administration and its big-business media mouthpieces are calling for a cessation of violence on both sides. This call reflects their fear of an explosion in the Middle East that will become a general insurrection against U.S. domination of the region."

Rashmawi decried the U.S. government's reaction to the Israeli repression. "[U.S. Secretary of State] Madeline Albright says she feels bad because Israel is under siege," Rashmawi said. "They tell us we are inflicting psychological torment on Israeli soldiers because they are killing us."

He also noted the division between Arab leaders and the Arab people. "The Palestinian Authority is in a precarious position," he said. " It does not know how to please Israel and the U.S. while standing with its people on the front line." He said the whole region of the Middle East must be de-colonized. "When that happens the U.S. won't be attacking countries like Iraq and sending them back into the Middle Ages," he said.  

Rashmawi called on the progressive movement in the U.S. to take a stand in defense of the Palestinian people as it did in supporting the South African movement against apartheid.

Nadine Naber, of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, echoed this call for building a movement in the United States. "We're talking about military occupation, colonialism and imperialism" in the fight for Palestinian statehood, she said. Getting people to understand this is "an ideological battle."

Richard Becker of the International Action Center said that everyone involved in the movement against globalization should come out on the side of the Palestinian people.  

"When a Palestinian youth throws a stone, he or she is throwing it on behalf of everyone who resists the empire," Becker said. "There is another way to say the ‘struggle against globalization.’ You could also call it the global class struggle. It is the struggle of those resisting imperialism all over the world, from Cuba to Iraq, from Mumia to the FARC and ELN in Columbia, from Palestine to the people who live on this street fighting for decent wages and a decent life."

Becker also addressed the role the U.S. government has played in bolstering Israel and using the country as a tool for its own ends. The U.S. cannot be an honest broker in peace negotiations, he said. He noted that the U.S. has given Israel $10 million a day for the last 30 years, and turned it into the fifth leading military power in the world. "The U.S. and Israel together say no to Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, no to the return of refugees, no to an independent state," Becker said. "The real reason is that Israel plays a key role in the imperialist system" serving as a giant military base for the U.S. in a strategically and economically key region, the Middle East.”

Workers World Party Vice-Presidential candidate Gloria La Riva noted the similarity between the U.S. government's support of Israel and its role in helping to dismantle Yugoslavia.

"Clinton said, a few days ago: 'I want to salute the masses that came into the streets to take back their country. Was he talking about the Palestinians? Of course not." She said the elections in Yugoslavia "are a new phase of NATO war, another phase in the U.S. led campaign to take over all of Yugoslavia," adding that the U.S. government spent more than $70 million to fund Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's opponent, Vojislav Kostunica

"There are only two sides of the struggle in this world and Clinton and Madeline Albright are on one side," La Riva said.

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