On the evening of Dec. 4, the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly led a banner drop and disruption at a Baltimore City Council meeting. The demonstration was held to place pressure on the city to pass a resolution that calls for a ceasefire, pledges complete divestment from the Israeli government, and ends all training exchange programs between Baltimore law enforcement and Israeli security forces. 

Approximately 45 pro-Palestine protesters entered the city council meeting at approximately 5 p.m. This was after Baltimore Police initially stopped the group from entering for about half an hour after they attempted to enter at 4:30. This is usually when the public is allowed into the meetings. Other individuals waiting to enter the building commented that the delay was strange. 

After the group entered, they proceeded to the sixth-floor balcony overlook. The sixth-floor balcony contains far more seating than the main council chamber, which is located on the fourth floor. The balcony was open at first. However, the police informed the group that the balcony was suddenly closed. 

The activists complied and split into two groups: those in a cramped “overflow” room and about six to eight who made it into the main chamber. After the opening benediction, four protesters unfurled a banner that read “Free Palestine! Divest from Genocide!” All protesters in the main council chamber chanted “Free, free Palestine!” until they were escorted out of the building by a large number of Baltimore cops. 

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Even the Baltimore Sun, a notoriously pro-police publication, commented that the police presence at the meeting was far larger than normal. Everywhere those in solidarity with Palestine go in Baltimore, they are met with a disproportionate police presence that only serves to repress the struggle. 

Simultaneous with the banner drop, 30 to 40 protesters in the overflow room began chanting pro-Palestine slogans and demands. This continued for several minutes until they too were escorted out of the City Hall building that is paid for with their tax dollars – much like the tax money going to the militarized Baltimore Police and the Israeli military. 

In the wake of the disruption, Zionist hack Yitzy Shleifer proposed a resolution to condemn Hamas and express support for Israel. The resolution was cosponsored by four other council members. Nonetheless, it failed to reach the 12-vote threshold required to pass. Nine voted for the resolution and four abstained. 

Schleifer’s resolution is tantamount to genocide denial, as it made no mention of the over 15,000 innocent Palestinians who Israel has slaughtered. Shame on him. 

The protesters remained outside City Hall for over an hour after the disruption, where they continued to chant and hold picket signs. Baltimore will not let the political establishment rest until they do the right thing on Palestine. 

Ceasefire now! Divest now! Free Palestine now!

Even as the Egyptian government’s obstruction of the Global Conscience Convoy continued,  we continued meeting with local pro-Palestine groups. On Nov. 24, we visited the headquarters of the Popular Socialist Alliance Party (SPAP) in Cairo. 

SPAP is one of many organizations working in conjunction with the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate to organize the Global Conscience Convoy to the Rafah crossing. It was founded in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, after the merger of several socialist organizations that faced repression under U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak.

SPAP leaders were kind enough to welcome us for an afternoon of Turkish coffee and discussion. We spoke about a variety of topics, including the genocide in Palestine and the class struggle in Egypt. Over the last decade, the El-Sisi military junta has escalated anti-worker policies in the form of crackdowns on labor unions. 

Since Egypt’s independence struggle in the mid-1950s, trade unions have played an important role in Egyptian society. Many trade unions were actually integrated into the state structure during President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab socialist administration. 

In 2011, trade unions played a massive role in the political revolution that deposed President Hosni Mubarak. This is precisely why the current U.S.-backed military regime has declared open season on Egyptian unions. Ever since Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and the military launched their coup in 2013, the status of trade unions in Egypt has significantly worsened. 

Workers under attack

Egyptian trade unions face repression from both the capitalist bosses, many of whom are contractors for Western conglomerates, and a government that is entirely chained to big business and U.S. imperialism. In 2018, the government decertified over 1,000 independent unions. Only 122 of those unions were able to regain state recognition. 

El-Sisi’s administration has also made it nearly impossible for Egyptian workers to strike. For workers to go on strike, their union must provide management and the government with a full list of workers who intend to strike, how long they will be on strike, and where they intend to picket. This notice must be provided three months prior to any planned strike. 

El-Sisi keeps the working class weak and the Western capitalists well-fed with investment opportunities, development deals, and military aid requests – requests that the U.S. government happily obliges.

This is the reality that the SPAP and other parties must contend with every day in Egypt. And all the while, they must also continue the struggle for Palestinian solidarity, a struggle that has been met with growing hostility from the El-Sisi military regime.

Solidarity with Palestine

We witnessed people flowing in and out of the SPAP office to donate money and supplies to the Palestinian aid effort. This included a family with two small children, both under the age of 10. 

One child’s name was Nadim. He goes to one of the best elementary schools in Cairo. He speaks fluent Arabic, English, and Italian. 

While we finished our meeting, we asked Nadim how the death of children in Gaza made him feel. He told us it made him angry, and it made him want to fight Israel. 

He told us that if he could, he would hack Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile system and turn it back on Israeli neighborhoods so they could feel the terror that Palestinians feel every second of the day. 

This child is angry, and justifiably so. He is tired of watching fellow Arab children be butchered for the profits of a few. 

Aren’t we all? 

San Diego: They Fought for the People –
Solidarity with Mumia and all Political Prisoners

Updates and postcard writing

Saturday, December 9 – 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

Malcolm X Library, 5348 Market Street, San Diego, CA 92114

Hosted by the San Diego Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the San Diego Black Panther Party

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Emergency Committee to Defend the Tampa 5.

The Tampa 5 are proud to announce a great victory: their misdemeanor and felony charges will be dropped! This victory was made possible by months of mobilizations of people across the state of Florida and even across the entire country in defense of the Tampa 5. It is because of the bravery of students and youth protesters coming out for diversity and for student protest that these five members of Students for a Democratic Society protesters will not see a single day in prison.

They have just agreed to a misdemeanor intervention program that will lead to the dismissal of their charges upon the fulfillment of various conditions, such as 24 hours of community service.

Since March 6th, students, unions, and community organizations have put on protests, panels, petitions, call-in dates, and speaking tour events in an effort to drop the charges on the Tampa 5. The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression embraced this as a campaign, along with the national Students for a Democratic Society. Recently, the Tampa 5 finished a national speaking tour that took them from the West Coast to the East Coast. They visited around 30 cities and broadcasted their case to thousands of people, and collected resolutions to drop the charges that have been mailed to the state attorney. They whipped up a nationwide condemnation of Ron DeSantis and similar copycat bills in states like Texas and Ohio. Students and youth are among those leading the charge to take down the Republican copycat efforts of Governor Ron DeSantis, the Tampa 5 prominent among them.

It is clear that the protests, call-ins, petitions, panels, and actions put on by students, faculty, union leaders, community members, civil liberties advocates, and elected officials all struck fear into the heart of governor-appointed, unelected state attorney Susan Lopez.

The Tampa 5 were initially arrested because they stood up for the rights of students in Florida to keep diversity programs, ethnic studies, and more in their schools. This time, the student movement and countless others stood up for the Tampa 5. In defending the Tampa 5, they defended their right to protest in the state of Florida. Because of the power of the people, the Tampa 5 can walk free.

Source: FightBack! News

Parker launches campaign after Egypt detainment over Gaza aid

Dec. 3 — After 37 hours of detainment by Egyptian authorities, John Parker and the rest of the #Cairo4 were deported and traveled safely home.

The #Cairo4 were an international delegation of activists who traveled to Egypt for the Global Conscience Convoy initiated by the Egyptian Syndicate of Journalists, a grassroots effort to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The mass movement made it happen. Forces from around the world, already united for Palestine, united against repression and for our right to stand with Palestine.

As of today, John is home safe in Los Angeles. This very same day, he launched his candidacy for California’s 37th congressional district. His campaign will stand in unwavering solidarity with Palestine.

Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice – LA
Struggle-La Lucha
Peoples Power Assembly

As the biggest U.S. aircraft carrier — which is what the former Secretary of State Alexander Haig called Israel — resumed its bombing of Gaza Ghetto, protests erupted across New York City.

The new bombing has killed hundreds of Palestinians. Meanwhile, soldiers and armed settlers continue to terrorize Palestinians on the West Bank.

Even before the Zionist regime broke the truce, hundreds of people held a vigil on Nov. 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. They gathered at Manhattan’s Columbus Circle. 

Columbus was a genocidal murderer of Indigenous people who started his maritime career as an enslaver of Africans. When Columbus set sail for the Americas in 1492, the Spanish monarchy began the expulsion of both its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. 

Hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were given refuge in the Arab world and Türkiye. In contrast, the Zionist regime in 1948 expelled 800,000 Palestinians from their native land.

People gathered at the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue on Dec. 1 to demand peace and freedom for Palestine. Despite the rain, a thousand people marched through Times Square and then past the New York Times headquarters on Eighth Avenue.

Three hundred people came out on Dec. 2 to protest at the office of Congressperson Daniel Goldman in the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn. Goldman makes some liberal noises, but he’s really a pro-Israel war hawk.

Also, on Dec. 2, hundreds of people protested at the American Museum of Natural History to support Palestine. Its board is full of trustees that support genocide in Palestine.

That’s not surprising considering one of its former trustees was Madison Grant, author of the super-racist “Passing of the Great Race.” Adolf Hitler loved the book and wrote Grant that “this book is my bible.”

Marching through Bay Ridge

Nearly a thousand people rallied on Dec. 2 in the Palestinian community of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. People listened to speakers and then took to the street chanting “Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry, Palestine will never die!”

They marched to the Muslim American Society Youth Center. Families came out of their homes to greet the marchers.

Many protests have been organized by Shut It Down for Palestine, which includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, National Students for Justice in Palestine, The Peoples Forum, ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Other large protests have been led by Within Our Lifetime. Muslim American Society, Jewish Voice for Peace, Black Alliance for Peace, Anakbayan (Filipino anti-imperialist youth organization), DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), Neturei Karta (Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism), Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, and Struggle-La Lucha are among many other organizations that have organized or taken part in protests in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Palestine will be free from the river to the sea!

Sunday, Dec. 10 at 1 p.m.
Campaign Kickoff – John Parker for U.S. Congress 37th District
Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice – L.A.

John Parker and three other activists were detained in Egypt for actions in solidarity with Palestine. Parker was there as a candidate for US Congress to support the Global Conscience Convoy. His congressional Peace & Freedom Party campaign demands center on solidarity with Palestine, the demand for a ceasefire, and No US weapons and $$ to Israel.

On Oct. 26, hundreds of students — as many as half of them Jewish — held a strong rally against Israeli genocide in Gaza, where now over 15,000 Palestinians have died, half of them children. Some faculty, alums, and community supporters also attended. Across the street, a couple dozen Zionists shouted racist chants like “Death to Palestinians.” 

A truck passed the rally with passengers waving the Palestinian flag. Zionist thugs provocatively hurled an Israeli flag into the truck only so they could charge the truck with the pretext of retrieving it. When the truck came back around, the Zionists attacked. 

A member of Jewish Voice for Peace was arrested on the spot when he attempted to defend the Palestinians. In the next few days, four more arrests were made, including two Palestinians and two students.

Among the Tulane 5, at least one faces a felony hate crime charge. No Zionists were arrested. The arrests created headlines, intimidation, and a green light to assault and harass Arab and Muslim students.

These arrests were premeditated, designed to smear peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrators as violent and anti-Jewish. The day before the rally, the president of Tulane, Michael Fitts, violence-baited the anti-Zionists in a letter sent to all Tulane students, faculty, and staff. The letter stated that Tulane “will not tolerate any threats to the safety and security of our Tulane community.” 

His effort to stop attendance backfired, with many Palestine solidarity demonstrators saying they came because of the letter.

https://nolaworkers.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/TU-Israel-Gas.mp4

Tulane colludes with Israel to steal natural gas from Gaza

With funds from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Israel Ministry of Energy, and the Israel Innovation Authority, Tulane University heads a $14.2 million project to exploit offshore gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. Twenty miles off the coast of Gaza, the Gaza Marine Field is estimated to hold over 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at an estimated value of $4.592 billion. Israel cleared the reserve for development in June 2023.

So-called “natural gas” is a significant contributor to global warming. Just one of Louisiana’s LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) terminals under construction, the Calcasieu Pass 2, is projected to produce the equivalent of more than 51 coal plants worth of greenhouse gases each year.

A leaked document from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence dated Oct. 13 outlines a plan by the Israeli government to forcibly remove 2.3 million residents of Gaza to tent cities in the northern Sinai desert. Israel has already forced thousands of displaced Palestinians into the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, which has endured at least five major Israeli military assaults since 2008. This is a genocide based on the theft of Palestinian land and resources.

Tulane’s $2.1 billion endowment invested in war profiteers

Tulane derives endowment income from returns on its investments in companies like Lockheed Martin, Chevron, and other war-profiteering corporations. At least $45 million of these endowment dollars come directly from the State of Louisiana as matching funds.

Through corporate “donations,” many of these companies politically control and determine school policy. For example, the Freeport-McMoran Chair in Environmental Policy is named for one of the world’s largest mining corporations, which is responsible for massive environmental destruction and killings around the world—perhaps most infamously in West Papua.

Tulane takes land, skips out on taxes, pushes our residents

Tulane pays no property taxes and, on top of an original property tax exemption, received an additional $5 million exemption on new land grabs. They have taken over rental properties, contributing to New Orleans’ housing crisis.

Tulane has directly profited from the takeover of Charity Hospital by 1532 Tulane Partners, a partnership of two developers, CCNO and El-Ad Holdings, an Israeli-based company that has been destroying Palestinian homes for illegal Israeli settlements. 

1532 Tulane Partners will get $80 million in tax credits, $25 million in tax-exempt bonds, a $95 million loan, and $30 million in equity to finance its plan. Charity Hospital could have been made into affordable housing.

While the workers of New Orleans shoulder some of the highest sales tax rates in the country, Tulane pays no sales taxes. The president of Tulane makes $2 million a year, and dozens of other university executives live in luxury.

Oil, gas, weapons profits behind suppression of free speech

Across the country, universities, at the behest of their capitalist boards, have expelled, fired, and charged student activists and workers for pro-Palestinian activity. Among the supporters of apartheid Israel are open Nazis and others on the far right. Thirty-two states have passed laws forbidding boycotts of Israel. 

Both Israel and the U.S. supported apartheid in South Africa. Tactics of repression were also used against the unstoppable anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and against the worldwide anti-apartheid solidarity movement. Anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, were labeled terrorists. University administrations enthusiastically promoted these ideas.  

Danger ahead for all movements if we allow repression to continue

Congress is a millionaire’s club where the majority of elected officials of both parties receive millions in campaign money from war profiteers and oil and gas companies. Most politicians also have investments in their stocks. The rise of the right, repression, and suppression of free speech can be traced to this enormous control. 

The capitalists in this sector of the economy dictate policy at both the federal and state level. Every vote to increase the military budget and supplemental war expenditures increases their control over every aspect of our lives. Climate change, racism, poverty, sexual oppression, and U.S. military and economic intervention all stem from the dictatorship of the war profiteers; we must bring all these struggles together.

In 1959, when President — and former General — Dwight Eisenhower left office, he made a famous speech about creating the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower described the fusion of all spheres of government, industry, science, and universities with the military. Together with the involvement of the big monopoly banks, this complex has grown to monstrous proportions. 

Eisenhower — the commander in chief of the U.S. imperialist war machine — ended with these words: “Beware of the undue influence of the military-industrial complex in civilian affairs.” What Eisenhower described then is a thousand times bigger and more dangerous today.

Like most large universities, Tulane has dozens of links to fossil fuels and the military establishment. These are the interests behind Zionism and the motive behind the false charges brought against the Tulane 5.

Workers Voice calls for the charges against the Tulane 5 to be dropped; for Arab, Muslim, and anti-Zionist Jewish students at Tulane to be protected; for an end to the repression of dissent; and for full academic freedom for pro-Palestine events on campus. 

We condemn the wealthy Tulane administration, which grabs housing and land from New Orleanians while provoking Zionist violence and repression.

Drop the charges! Stand with Palestine!

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

En Puerto Rico se podría decir que sobrevivimos a pesar de un gobierno local que en nada le interesa el bienestar del pueblo. Un gobierno que no solo es un fiel alumno y defensor de Estados Unidos, el país que nos mantiene colonizados, sino que ha abrazado las más perjudiciales políticas neoliberales que priorizan el bienestar del lucro de compañías foráneas, en detrimento del pueblo boricua, incluyendo a los pequeños negocios locales.

Sobrevivimos solo gracias al trabajo constante y dedicado de las diversas organizaciones defensoras de los derechos del pueblo como son las de defensa de la mujer, de la comunidad LGBTQ, del ambiente, en contra del terrible desplazamiento de comunidades de bajos ingresos, en fin, los grupos adversarios del gobierno de turno a quienes les acompañan los pocos senadores y representantes progresistas en la Legislatura. Solo gracias a la labor consistente de sus miembros es que logramos victorias en diferentes escenarios. 

Y cada semana, somos testigos de barbaridades que en cualquier otro país estarían prohibidas, pero que aquí están protegidas por agencias gubernamentales. Un reciente ejemplo esta semana, fueron unas vistas supuestamente públicas, anunciadas con muy poco tiempo, donde se presentaban unas propuestas de enmendar un contrato leonino de la compañía AES, compañía de generación de electricidad a base de carbón, para incluir entre otras cosas, un aumento en la factura de la luz. Esta AES que por años ha depositado cenizas tóxicas resultado de la quema del carbón que ha perjudicado la salud de las comunidades circundantes mientras el gobierno se hace de la vista larga. 

Pero a pesar del poco tiempo de anuncio, miembros de organizaciones ambientalistas lograron asistir y confrontar a la AES que había sometido como prueba, decenas de documentos inservibles porque habían tachado las partes que les inculpaba.

Gracias a estas compañeras y compañeros, el país pudo presenciar por los medios informativos, otro ejemplo de la gran mentira que es el gobierno local. 

Desde Puerto Rico, para Radio Clarín de Colombia, les habló Berta Joubert-Ceci.

Dec. 1 — The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) holds the American administration and the war criminal, U.S. President Joe Biden, fully responsible for the renewed Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip this morning due to the ongoing green light given to the occupation to continue the genocide and commit dozens of massacres against our people.

The Front confirmed that our people have no choice but resistance and steadfastness and that the treacherous enemy will fail again in achieving any of its goals, no matter how much it bombs, destroys, and commits massacres, and will return defeated, dragging the tails of disappointment and defeat, thanks to the solid resistance and the strong will of our people. Certainly, the resistance will write the end of the political future of the war criminal Netanyahu and his gang.

The Front concluded its statement by calling on the masses of our people, the sons, and daughters of our Arab nation, and the free people of the world to gather in the squares and besiege the embassies of the aggressors in the world to pressure for the cessation of aggression and the ongoing zionist genocide against civilians, especially children and women.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department

Source: Resistance News Network