Following is an open letter to Facebook:

Just yesterday, emails from an employee in the Facebook content policy regarding the company’s position on the term “Zionist” were leaked widely online. The emails revealed that Facebook is “looking at the question of how we should interpret attacks on ‘Zionists’ to determine whether the term is used as a proxy for attacking Jewish or Israeli people.” The email also stated that this evaluation was taking place in the context of Facebook’s policy of prohibiting hate speech. 

To draw a parallel between critiques of racist Israeli apartheid and racist hate speech is insulting and inaccurate. Every day, the Palestinian peoples’ rights to self-determination are trampled. The racist Zionist state of Israel constantly wages war upon Palestinian communities in a land where the Israeli government is the real trespasser. A week ago, Israeli tanks carpet bombed multiple neighborhoods in Gaza City in the middle of the night. Brutally awoken from sleep, families were forced to flee from their burning homes. This is normal in occupied Palestine. Human rights violations of this level require strong public condemnation. When Palestinian organizations and freedom fighters attack Zionism online, they aren’t attacking Judaism. They’re attacking a brutal, racist system of oppression bent on the exploitation and murder of the Palestinian people. 

On that note, it is crucial that Zionism is distinguished from Judaism. They are not the same thing. There is a common misconception that Zionism came about as a popular movement in the Jewish community. Quite the opposite is true. Zionism is an ideology of the few and the wealthy. After the horrors of the holocaust, opportunist Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists and fascists took advantage of a people reeling from Nazi persecution to establish an imperialist satellite in Palestine. Since that time, Israel has diligently served the United States and its imperialist allies.The distinction between Zionism and Judaism is further shown by the growing anti-Zionist consciousness among the younger Jewish community. For many young people, it is impossible to rationalize the values taught in synagogue and the horrific war crimes perpetrated in the name of a “Jewish homeland.” 

In reality, Zionism is bad for all Palestinians and all working-class Jewish people. This toxic ideology divides the global working-class community and creates a false mythology of inherent hatred between Jews and Arabs. The anti-Zionist Jewish authors of this letter and the entire Socialist Unity Party stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their battle against Zionist apartheid. We wholeheartedly condemn Facebook’s attempt to thwart the discourse of that struggle. 

Signed,
Lev Koufax, Miranda Etel and Ian Shlakman

Support the “Facebook, We Need to Talk” campaign’s petition.

On Saturday, 16 January, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network organized a webinar as part of the Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners. The webinar, “Steadfastness and Resistance: The Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the case of Ahmad Sa’adat,” focused on the imprisonment of Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat and the revolutionary legacy and ongoing struggle of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. The video is also available on YouTube and Facebook.

Samidoun international coordinator Charlotte Kates introduced the program, which included simultaneous French translation for online attendees, provided by Collectif Palestine Vaincra, with a brief introduction to Sa’adat’s case.

The General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Sa’adat is currently serving a 30-year sentence in Israeli prisons; he was kidnapped in a violent attack by occupation forces on the Palestinian Authority prison where he was held under “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation, with the involvement of U.S., British, Canadian and Turkish guards. Therefore, his case reflects the devastating role of the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo process for the Palestinian cause, as well as the direct involvement of imperialism in the subjugation and repression of the Palestinian people.

Hadeel Shatara, the coordinator of Samidoun Network in Occupied Palestine, spoke first on the program, addressing the ongoing reality of PA security coordination with Israel and how this is reflected in political repression and imprisonment directed at Palestinian resisters and activists, including student organizers, women’s movement organizers and community leaders. She addressed the types of charges  levied by the PA in political cases, including false allegations of “sectarian practices” and fomenting social division, or defamation of political officials and those in high positions. She emphasized that these repressive practices were directly tied to the PA’s role as an intercessor for Israeli colonialism and Zionist domination, tied to the Israeli security forces and directly sharing information about Palestinian organizers and resistance movements.

She was followed by Lena Meari, noted Palestinian scholar of decolonization, resistance and political captivity, and the author of “Sumud: A Palestinian Philosophy of Confrontation in Israeli Prisons.” An assistant professor of Anthropology at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University, she was born in Haifa to a refugee family from Al-Birweh village.

In her incisive presentation, Lena Meari addressed the resistance, self-organization and anti-colonial struggle of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, highlighting the history, development and present situation of Palestinian hunger strikes, resistance to interrogation and refusal to confess as part of the practice of sumud within Israeli prisons and under interrogation. She emphasized the political and anti-colonial leadership of Palestinian prisoners, emphasizing that solidarity campaigns must not represent these strugglers as victims in need of aid, but as freedom fighters in a liberation movement.

The concluding speaker was Mohammed Khatib, coordinator of Samidoun in Europe, who spoke about the importance of supporting Palestinian resistance and upholding Palestinians’ right to resist, return and liberate their land. He read a statement issued by Ahmad Sa’adat about the case of Omar Nayef Zayed, emphasizing once again the connections between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and imperialist powers in repressing Palestinian struggle. He noted the importance of Palestinian organization and pursuit of an alternative path of resistance for liberation, calling for a boycott of the PA elections earlier called for by PA president Mahmoud Abbas.

The engaging and wide-ranging discussion addressed a number of topics, including the growing call to return to the full boycott of the Knesset elections in the Israeli colonial project, scheduled for March 2021, the need to center the right to return and the right to resist in boycott campaigns, and the history of the Palestinian revolutionary movement alongside anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements, especially those in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Lena Meari concluded the event with a stirring call for “radical solidarity” that embraces resistance and revolutionary politics, emphasizing that “solidarity with the Palestinian cause is also solidarity with yourself,” against all forms of exploitation and oppression.

On 15-23 January 2021, join Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network in a collective call for the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners, with action and global solidarity to escalate the boycott of Israel, end aid and support to Israel, organize for justice in Palestine and resist imperialism and colonialism.

• Upcoming Actions and Events
• Read the Call to Action
• Download materials and images in 11 languages (and additional materials in German, Danish, Dutch, French, Swedish (2))
• Watch the video calling for the week of action (English, Spanish and French)
• Background and materials on Ahmad Sa’adat

Upcoming Events

Join these events and actions for the Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and send your events to us at samidoun@samidoun.net!

Sunday, 17 January – Manchester, Britain: Street Stall – Free all Palestinian prisoners! Free Issam Hijjawi! 12 Noon,  Outside Morrisons, Wilbraham Road,  Chorlton, Manchester M21 0UA. More info: https://samidoun.net/event/manchester-street-stall-free-all-palestinian-prisoners-free-issam-hijjawi/

Saturday, 23 January – Online Event – Liberation vs Dependency: Strategies to Defeat Neoliberalism and Colonialism in Algeria, South Africa, and Palestine. 11 am Pacific – 2 pm Eastern – 9 pm Palestine. Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/722789698392609/

Sunday, 24 January – Paris, France – Protest to free Ahmad Sa’adat, Georges Abdallah, and all Palestinian prisoners! 3:00 pm, Place Jean Ferrat – Metro L2 Menilmontant, Paris, France
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1135211573605908

Source: Samidoun

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine considers Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections to carry no fundamental change regarding the rights of the Palestinian people and various Arab issues. It expects a continuation of the approach of previous U.S. administrations, which have not stopped their support for the Zionist entity [Israel] at various levels, maintaining its military superiority and protection and encouraging it to bypass international decisions, even those unjust agreements that were sponsored and signed in the White House.

The PFLP calls on the Palestinian leadership to beware of any false promises that the Biden administration might make in order to return to negotiations, and to stop any illusions that the goals of the Palestinian people can be achieved through them.

The Popular Front stressed that ending the occupation in all its forms, achieving the national goals of our people for return, self-determination and an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem, lie in severing the decisions of the Oslo accords and the resulting commitments and recognition of the enemy, cessation of the phony negotiations, ending division and restoring our national unity,  rebuilding the components of the Palestinian political system on a democratic basis with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) at its core, and agreeing on a national liberation program based on the fact that the struggle with the Zionist entity is a comprehensive and open conflict, and that unity and all means of resistance are indispensable in conducting this struggle.

November 7, 2020

Translation by Arab Revolutionaries and Greg Butterfield

Source: PFLP.ps

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Maher al-Akhras and the Palestinian people on the occasion of his victory after 103 days of hunger strike. His steadfastness and commitment to struggle, with his very life on the line, continue to inspire all  those around the world who support the Palestinian people and their just cause of return and liberation.

Al-Akhras, 49,  Palestinian prisoner jailed without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention, announced the suspension of his hunger strike after 103 days on 6 November 2020. Specifically, he announced an agreement to release him on 26 November 2020, and he will remain hospitalized until the date of his release for treatment. The agreement to end his hunger strike reportedly came with a firm commitment to his release on 26 November, unlike previous proposals to end the strike.

Al-Akhras is one of approximately 350 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention, a practice introduced to Palestine by the British colonial mandate and routinely used by Israel to jail Palestinian leaders and community organizers. There are approximately 4,400 Palestinian political prisoners in total at the present time. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians — including al-Akhras — have spent years at a time jailed under so-called “secret evidence,” never knowing when they will obtain their release. Al-Akhras launched his hunger strike on 27 July after he was seized by Israeli occupation forces and ordered to administrative detention.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network sends its warmest congratulations to Maher al-Akhras, is family, the Palestinian people and all friends of Palestine and forces of justice in the world on this occasion. We salute all of those who have protested, marched, gone on hunger strike and organized to highlight his case and the struggles of the Palestinian people, in every corner of the world. Now, it is time to continue the movement to support all of his fellow prisoners – and all Palestinians – in the cause of freedom.

We also recognize that all of these victories accomplished by Palestinian prisoners engaged on hunger strikes will only be partial so long as Palestinians continue to be imprisoned by the colonial Israeli regime, and so long as the Palestinian people continue to face occupation, apartheid, siege and dispossession at the hands of Zionism. We urge all who were inspired by Maher’s commitment, bravery and self-sacrifice to continue the campaign to free Palestinian prisoners. All of those who love freedom and justice look forward to celebrating with Maher al-Akhras – and look forward to celebrating the day in which all Palestinians are free on their liberated land. The steadfastness, struggle and commitment of the Palestinian prisoners – the leadership of the Palestinian movement – point in the direction not only to individual freedom and victory, but toward the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Source: Samidoun

In mid-October, the apartheid Zionist government of Israel announced that it would be building 2,000 more units of settlement housing in the occupied and oppressed West Bank of Palestine. The development went relatively uncovered in mainstream media, regardless of its significance and momentous nature. 

The announcement of the new West Bank settlement construction is Israel’s most aggressive expansion attempt in decades. Even more concerning, the settlement construction is in clear violation of the deal that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The entire basis of the agreement was that Israel would pledge to freeze plans to annex large chunks of the West Bank. While the construction of settlements isn’t technically immediate annexation, it serves the same purpose: Israeli apartheid extension into occupied Palestinian land.  

It seems that Israel intends to not only ignore parts of the normalization deal, but also to even more brazenly break international law. Israeli settlements are nothing less than a genocidal abomination. 

The Palestinian community in the West Bank was already facing the brutal yoke of apartheid in the form of a violent police state and random attacks from Israeli settlers. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in the first six months of 2020 alone, there were 143 attacks by Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian injuries. Over half of these attacks occurred in the middle of a COVID-19 outbreak.

As if this reality weren’t horrifying enough, a recent report revealed that Israeli settlements discharge millions of cubic meters of sewage into the West Bank every year. Almost all of this sewage flows directly into Palestinian villages in the area. More settlements with their racist violence and sewage waste are exactly the opposite of what the West Bank needs. What the West Bank really needs is the immediate end to Israeli military occupation and apartheid. 

Trump’s pressure for ‘normalization’

These new settlement plans come in a year when Israel has achieved a series of global political victories with the backing of the Trump administration. The largest of these victories have come in the form of normalized relations treaties with three majority-Muslim countries: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. 

For decades, all three countries refused to recognize Israel and solely recognized Palestine. However, the Trump administration’s willingness to withhold foreign aid based on refusal to recognize Israel has prompted a major sea change. 

Further contributing to the treaties was Trump’s promise to lift U.S. sanctions on Sudan. While the lifting of sanctions is a positive development, the event that triggered it was insidious. The U.S. essentially held countries hostage until they bent to imperialism and Zionism. 

As a result of the normalized relations treaties, Israel achieved another large victory in the Trump era. On Oct. 22, Benny Gantz, the leader of the supposed opposition to Netanyahu in Israel, announced a deal with the UAE that focuses on commitment to Israeli military superiority in the region. The core of the deal was the sale of F-35 fighter jets from Israel to the UAE. 

Beyond Israel gaining diplomatic momentum and trade partners, these developments are concerning in that they symbolize a growing U.S.-backed alliance against Iran. Earlier this year, the U.S. military murdered Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian general who played a crucial role in defeating ISIS. 

Increased economic and military pressure on Iran from Israel and the UAE could prove problematic for the Islamic Republic, an anti-imperialist bulwark in the Middle East.

Both major U.S. parties support Israel 

While state and settler violence against occupied Palestine escalates, both the Democratic and Republican parties dogmatically support Zionism and its apartheid system. For decades, both parties have squabbled over which party most fervently supports the racist Israeli state. After all, Israel amounts to a strategic U.S. military base in Western Asia.

There is certainly truth in the idea that Donald Trump’s pro-Israel policies are the most hardline and aggressive of any U.S. president. Trump’s pro-Zionist push began with the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and has continued in the form of arm-twisting normalization deals, military aid and a “peace plan” that really is nothing more than a sanctioned Israeli power grab. 

However, Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, oversaw a deal in 2016 that sent $38 billion dollars of military aid to Israel. This deal occurred less than two years after Israel viciously carpet-bombed Gaza City, killing thousands of innocent people. 

While there are material differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in some policy fields, their position on Zionism is not one of them. Whoever wins this election will continue to support racist apartheid in Israel and Netanyahu, as he continues an escalating crusade against the Palestinian people. 

You won’t hear either candidate denounce settlement expansion, the imprisonment of political figures like Maher al-Akhras and Ahmad Sa’adat, or the attacks on Israeli teenagers who refuse to serve in the military. 

People’s movement needed to combat Zionism

Now more than ever, all progressive people and organizations must unite in a movement against Israeli apartheid, Zionism and U.S. imperialism. The hateful ideology of Zionism cannot be allowed to grow without resistance domestically and globally. In particular, progressive Jews and Jewish organizations must combat Zionist socialization in our community harder than ever. 

Zionism is not an ideology that benefits the majority of Jews — only the wealthy and the fascist. Zionism is a disease that has plagued and misled the Jewish community for decades. It cannot be allowed to do so any further. 

The liberation of the Jewish people will not be achieved through a fascist Zionist state, but only through the end of Israeli apartheid, the liberation of Palestine and of the global working class and oppressed communities. 

As Israel is emboldened by Trump to intensify its aggression, all progressive and revolutionary organizations must stand together in unity against this phenomena. We must take to the streets and demand an end to Israeli oppression and support the liberation of Palestine. 

Down with imperialism! Down with Netanyahu! Combat Zionism!

Lev Koufax is a young Jewish activist based in Baltimore.

Oct. 23 — Close to a hundred people protested outside the apartheid Israeli Mission to the United Nations this afternoon demanding freedom for Palestinian hunger striker Maher al-Akhras. The father of six children may soon die from organ failure.

For 90 days, al-Akhras has refused to eat to protest his incarceration under the Zionist state’s administrative detention laws. These laws, inherited from British colonialism, can keep people in jail for years without coming to trial.

Demonstrators appealed to people on Manhattan’s Second Avenue. Some drivers honked their horns in support. Across the street were a handful of fascists waving Trump flags who were protected by police.

Maher al-Akhras is one of thousands of Palestinian freedom fighters who the Zionist authorities have jailed. They could not do so without the $4 billion “Israel” gets  every year from the U.S. treasury. 

Palestine will be free!

Today, 23 September, a series of major Silicon Valley corporations – Zoom, Facebook and YouTube (Google) – joined hands with racist, right-wing, Zionist campaigns in an attempt to silence an academic event, “Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled,” organized by Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi and Prof. Tomomi Kinukawa at San Francisco State University. The event featured Palestinian resistance icon Leila Khaled along with Rula Abu Dahou, Ronnie Kasrils, Sekou Odinga and Laura Whitehorn, all former political prisoners.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joined numerous social justice and Palestine support organizations in endorsing and co-sponsoring the event, organized by AMED Studies at SFSU and supported by the students of GUPS. The silencing campaign by Zionist, racist and right-wing forces is part and parcel of an attempt to block any and all communication by a distinguished, widely esteemed symbol of Palestinian resistance. Despite the attacks by some of the biggest global corporations, the full event was recorded by the organizers and will be made available to all. Palestinian women and Palestinian resistance will not be suppressed!

We will be sharing actions and alerts in the coming days to hold accountable all of those responsible for these attacks.

In the context of this event, we are sharing some existing videos of Leila Khaled as we look forward to seeing the full panel, to hear her voice of resistance and liberation and emphasize that the Palestinian struggle cannot and will not be silenced, despite apartheid, imperialism, reaction and corporate complicity. We encourage you to watch, share, re-upload and propagate these videos – and others- as widely as possible to make it clear that Leila will be heard! 

Leila Khaled in the Philippines (2015): 

Leila Khaled speaks at Israeli Apartheid Week in NYC: 

Leila supports four accused BDS activists in Toulouse:

Leila Khaled speaks at NYC event against imprisonment: 

Leila’s call to the Greek movement to protest Netanyahu: 

Leila on the Palestinian revolutionary left: 

Leila’s message for Denmark event on Jerusalem and the Palestinian struggle:  

Zoom’s cancellation of the event in response to Zionist pressure and dubious legal threats raises very serious concerns about the corporatization of the university, academic freedom and any and all expression, especially as thousands of universities and academic institutions have outsourced remote learning and classrooms to the Silicon Valley corporation.

This effort was led by an array of repressive legal organizations like the “Lawfare Project,” so named for their efforts to engage in “legal warfare” against the Palestinian people and cause. These entities demand corporations like Zoom silenced Palestinians based on scare tactics based on U.S. “anti-terror” laws and unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), themselves an unjust foundation for dubious threats.

Following the Zoom cancellation, the event was livestreamed on YouTube by the organizers – which rapidly shut down two streams despite a proliferation of content featuring Leila Khaled on the site, as she is an internationally renowned Palestinian leader and resistance icon.

While the university, its students and scholars were under attack by racist forces, SFSU’s response has been weak at best, placing the burden of these attacks, which attempt a massive infringement of academic freedom, on the back of Prof. Abdulhadi and Palestinian students at the university.  In response to the attacks on the event, SFSU President Lynn Mahoney authored an extremely problematic op-ed in Jweekly, a publication known for running numerous Zionist attacks on Palestinian faculty and students at the university and for campaigning against this event featuring Leila Khaled.

In the op-ed, Mahoney notes that the event is a matter of academic freedom, but also conflates Zionism with Judaism, dismisses the concerns of Palestinian students and calls panelists’ speech “abhorrent” and “deeply offensive.” Following the forced silencing of an academic event by an array of huge tech corporations in league with Zionist pressure groups, Mahoney was cited as attending an anti-Palestinian “vigil” organized by the same groups involved in the repression campaign.

Source: Samidoun

Israel is bombing Palestine again, although you likely wouldn’t guess that from watching TV news. For the eleventh straight night, Israeli Defense Force warplanes have been bombing the densely populated Gaza Strip. Israel’s bombs have caused considerable damage, forcing the shutdown of the area’s only power plant.

But US corporate media, focused on the coronavirus and election coverage, have shown little interest in the renewed violence in the Middle East. Searching for “Gaza” on the websites of NBC News, CNN, MSNBC and PBS elicits no relevant results. Nor has Fox News addressed the bombings, although it did find time (8/18/20) to cover the archaeological discovery of an old soap factory in Israel’s Negev Desert.

AFP (CBS, 8/13/20) describes attacks on Gaza as “the latest retaliation against fire bombs suspended from balloons that have been released from the Palestinian territory.”

Other major news networks were not much better. In a wide ranging interview with Trump advisor Jared Kushner, CBS’s Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan (8/16/20) did mention that “there were hostilities overnight in Gaza. There were Israeli airstrikes. Palestinian militants fired off rockets,” in a question about the US’s role in the Middle East, but did not return to it.

CBS (8/13/20) also reprinted an AFP newswire story headlined “Israel Responds to Fire Balloons From Gaza Strip With Fighter Jet Strikes,” which began by stating (emphasis added):

Israel attacked targets of Islamist group Hamas in Gaza and halted fuel supplies to the enclave Thursday in the latest retaliation against fire bombs suspended from balloons that have been released from the Palestinian territory.

The story clearly presents the bombing as a reactive Israeli counter-effort—not an attack on Palestine, but a response against Hamas, which it describes not as a political party but as an “Islamist group.” Hamas, it insists, was the target, despite later noting that a UN-run school was also hit. AFP did not comment on the lack of symmetry between homemade explosives tied to balloons and F-35 jets.

ABC News, meanwhile, relied on another news agency for all of its (limited) coverage (two pieces), reprinting (8/16/20) an Associated Press article that similarly presented the cutting off of Gaza’s electricity supply as a “response” to aggression from the “Palestinian militants” of Hamas.

A second AP story, headlined “Israel Strikes Gaza Targets After Arson Balloons Launched,” was picked up not just by ABC (8/16/20) but by influential outlets like the New York Times (8/15/20), Washington Post (8/16/20) and Guardian (8/16/20). The piece is at pains to present Israeli actions as directed purely against Hamas, and as a response, not an aggressive action, allowing Israeli military spokespersons to drive the narrative. Indeed, much of the report reads like an IDF press release.

A leaked 2009 publication from the Israel Project, an Israeli/American group that advises Israel advocates on what language to use when discussing the Palestine conflict, stresses that they should “clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas.” “If it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support,” they counsel. Media, it seems, are doing their job for them, in much the same way they reflexively present US actions against Iran as a “response” or a “counter” to the threat from Tehran (FAIR.org, 6/6/19).

In their seminal books on media coverage of the conflict, Bad News From Israel and More Bad News From Israel, Greg Philo and Mike Berry wrote that TV news followed a “consistent pattern,” which misleadingly presented the events as “Palestinian action and Israeli response and retaliation,” their focus group sessions showing that the presentation had a “significant effect” on how the public remembered events and apportioned blame, effectively legitimizing Israeli actions. Sixteen years after their first study was published, corporate media appear to be following exactly the same playbook.

The US press sampled here have produced barely any original coverage of the 11-day (and counting) bombing campaign of the area commonly described as the world’s largest open-air prison. This is in contrast to foreign channels such as Al-Jazeera and RT, or alternative media like Democracy Now!, all of whom have followed the events in more depth, and often with fewer resources. When corporate media have covered it, they have followed tried and tested conventions that reproduce an Israeli-friendly narrative.

Media coverage of Israel/Palestine is a topic FAIR has criticized for decades (e.g., Extra!, 1/91; Extra! Update, 2/05; FAIR.org, 8/6/14, 3/29/19). The reporting on the latest round of attacks on Gaza follows the patterns we have often remarked on: downplaying Palestinian suffering and viewing the conflict from an Israeli state perspective.

Source: FAIR

Aug. 7 — Hundreds of people marched through the streets of the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn tonight demanding freedom for Palestine. People came from their homes along the route to show support in this heavily Arab community. 

The Day of Resistance was called by Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine and the NY4Palestine Coalition. WOL posted on Facebook: “We will be taking to the streets again to not only reject the criminal annexation plan, but against the entirety of the Zionist colonial project from the river to the sea.”

One of the most popular chants was “We don’t want two states! We want ‘48!” This voiced opposition to the phony “peace plans” that have continually robbed the Palestinian people of their land. It expressed the determination to return to a united Palestine, as it was before 1948.

The action started with a rally on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue near 72nd Street. People stood listening in the doorways of the Arab shops that line the street.

Within Our Lifetime chair Nerdeen Kiswani emceed the rally and tirelessly led the crowd in chants. Kisawani expressed solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement that is shaking the United States and the world.

A contingent came from nearby Sunset Park carrying Mexican flags and a sign saying “Mexicanos con Palestina” (Mexicans with Palestine). 

Lamis Deek of Al-Awda NY, a Palestinian human rights attorney and longtime activist and organizer, denounced Donald Trump and called for liberation from the racist settler state. She denounced the hypocrisy of Israeli leaders for offering “aid” to Lebanon after they have killed thousands of Lebanese people by bombings and invasions.

A speaker from BAYAN expressed the solidarity of the Filipino people with Palestinians.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss expressed support for a united Palestine without Zionist occupation. While there was a tiny counterdemonstration of Zionists across the street — who carried a “Trump 2020” flag — there were more Jewish people attending the Palestinian Day of Resistance.

It started raining while people marched through the streets. That didn’t stop protesters, who rallied again at the end.

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

SLL photos: Stephen Millies