We Are All Palestinians!
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We Are All Palestinians! Solidarity against Massacres and Occupation! By Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA/PART) It is one of the odd conceits of US mythology that history is measured in Huwaida Arraf (Cyprus): +357-96-723-999, [email protected], presidential administrations (or occasionally in decade-long “generations”). Angela Godfrey-Goldstein (Jerusalem): +972-547-366-393, [email protected] and The unleashing of the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians in Gaza during the Ramzi Kysia (U.S): +1-703-994-5422, [email protected]. interregnum between Bush-43 and “Agent of Change” Obama makes it clear that this demarcation serves only the interests of the Empire. The convenient use by Meanwhile the efforts by the Israeli to prevent media coverage of their massacres has the Zionists of the “Who’s watching the store?” period between the election and resulted in the first stirrings of complaint even from the docile US media lapdogs, reflecting perhaps a certain unease or division among US rulers about the costs or inauguration of Obama allows Bush and Obama alike to pretend that their bloody consequences of Zionist intransigence. The Los Angeles Times went so far as to fingerprints are not all over the bombing, invasion and massacre.The Israelis print an op-ed piece directly from Mousa Abu Marzook of Hamas. He declared: have several weeks to create the “facts on the ground” while this pretense of “Palestinians everywhere mark the closing of the Bush era with relief. Nevertheless, U.S. non-involvement continues. skepticism runs high that any justice for our people might come from a new president who remained ominously silent in the presence of the latest Israeli onslaught, and who The Israelis and their Zionist apologists in the US profess to be outraged by comparisons has aligned himself so thoroughly with Israel’s interests, so long in advance of taking of Israel to the nazis and fascists, because, as one opined in the LA Times, there are power. But now, as the death toll rises in the hundreds, with thousands wounded -- more Palestinians today than there were when Israel was founded. As if complete all victims of American taxpayers’ largesse -- Palestinians wonder how Obama will extermination were the only definition of genocide, or as if Hitler’s genocide of European react to the escalating crisis. They demand of the next White House a new paradigm Jewry took place overnight without historical antecedents or a process of development. of respect and accountability, because when Palestinians see an F-16 with the Star of Of course, Hitler, too, started small, nurtured by US Klansmen, encouraged by the silence David painted on its tail, they see America.” Rightly so – Israel (along with Egypt, about Turkey’s massacres of Armenians, educated by Germany’s decimation of the which has acquiesced in the attacks) is the largest recipient of US military and non- Herero people of Namibia (‘German’ South West Africa), emboldened by the inability of military aid, affording the world’s 4th largest army. the League of Nations to stop the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. This month marks the 72nd anniversary of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, volunteers recruited from among working “Our spirit to fight on is the legacy of collective suffering. With tens of thousands dead and oppressed people in the U.S. as one of several International Brigades formed to fight or wounded by decades of the ‘peace process,’ you cannot find a family in Palestine -- the nazi-supported Franco counter-revolution in Spain, in which, as in Gaza, (not to Muslim or Christian, Hamas, Fatah, PFLP or Islamic Jihad -- without a son or daughter mention during “Shock and Awe” in Iraq), air power was used against civilian targets in killed, injured, jailed or tortured,” Marzook continued, “or which does not count itself violation of international law. These “premature anti-fascists” who later faced red-baiting or its kin among the millions of refugees living in UN camps. Hamas is not a handful and persecution in the US if they survived their engagement against Franco and Hitler in of leaders. Israel may kill all of the current leadership in this round of violence, Spain, provide a sterling example today of the true meaning of solidarity. including me, and its organic, social infrastructure will not go away. We are, simply put, a homegrown national liberation resistance movement, with millions of people Thankfully, we are beginning to see some glimmers of the kind of direct action that is who support our struggle for freedom and justice.” needed against the fascist onslaught by Israel in Gaza (as well as the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanista by the US). One such is the Free Gaza Movement, which has Marzook issued an invitation to Obama. “No American leader has ever visited a challenged the Israeli blockade. On january 7, they declared, “Today the Free Gaza Palestinian refugee camp anywhere, much less in Gaza -- a startling fact, considering Movement put Israel on notice that we are sending another emergency boat to Gaza. the central role America has played in our people’s narrative. None has dared to look We will announce our exact departure date, time and route in the next few days. We will our refugees in their faces and experience their suffering directly. In observance of travel from Cypriot waters, into international waters, then directly into Gaza territorial the storied tradition of Arab hospitality to guests, and anticipating that day when an waters, never nearing Israeli waters. The ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have American president fulfills his promise of change, we extend the invitation now, and killed over 640 Palestinians, including many children and women, and injured thousands. we will put the kettle on.” These acts by Israel are severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law … The United Nations has failed to protect the Palestinian civilian population…. Whether Obama will accept the invitation is unlikely. It’s time for the people who have Therefore, we concerned citizens from Belgium, Columbia, France, Canada, Great put so much faith in Obama to respond to this invitation ourselves by pouring into the Britain, Greece, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, Scotland, Spain, and the United States, feel that streets to denounce the massacre, carried out by Zionist settler-colonialism, but “made it is our moral duty to try to do just that.” in the USA,” the original home and world model of settler colonialism. The striking similarities between the maps of Native land in America and Arab land in Palestine The Israeli military violently attacked an earlier attempt by the Free Gaza Movement to attest to those affinities. In particular, US Jews need to declare our loud opposition to send an emergency boat filled with doctors and medical supplies to Gaza. In the early the attacks, the invasion and the occupation as a whole. Former US Ambassador to the hours of Tuesday, December 30, the Israeli Navy rammed their boat, the DIGNITY, in UN Bolton declared quite openly that the war against Hamas is the opening salvo in a international waters. Among the 16 passengers on board, whose lives were endangered wider Middle East war against Iran (which ARA-LA/PART has predicted for several by the three rammings by the Israelis, was former US Rep. Cynthia McKinney. While years is part of a longer-range genocidal US war against China). No true interest of Obama broke his silence to blame Hamas for the violence, McKinney was putting her life any Jews, either in the US or in Palestine/Israel, is served by support for Zionism, on the line and her money where her mouth was to defy the unlawful US-backed Zionist imperialism and settler colonialism, all of which inevitably breed war. We need to embargo of the Palestinians. Despite death threats received by the organizers warning launch a broad, militant and sustained people’s counter-offensive against the war them not to repeat their attempt, they intend to try again. You can reach the organizers at machine and settler-colonial capitalist imperialism as a system before it is too late. these contact points: Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Carlos Alberto Torres is going before the Federal Parole Board on Monday January 19, 2009! Now more than ever, we need to show the Parole Board that he has international support. We need to send the Parole board thousands of these letters! We must flood their mailboxes with our demands for Carlos Alberto’s parole! WE CAN MAKE FREEDOM HAPPEN! The National Boricua Human Rights Network, El Comite de Derechos Humanos de Puerto Rico (The Puerto Rican Human Rights Committee), and The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, are calling on all supporters of the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners to sign the letter attached and mail it to: Jan Susler (Lawyer) 1180 N. Milwaukee Ave. 3rd Fl. Chicago, Il 60622 TO THE UNITED STATES PAROLE COMMISSION: Carlos Alberto Torres has spent 29 years in prison for his struggle for the self-determination and independence of the people of Puerto Rico. His conduct in prison has been exemplary, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin, and working at various prison jobs, helping his fellow prisoners. He has become an accomplished painter and ceramic artist, and hopes to support himself and his family working as an artisan, teaching his craft and selling his work. In 1979 and 1999, two U.S. Presidents released a total of 16 Puerto Rican political prisoners, who are all living successful, productive lives, supporting themselves and their families and making positive contributions to their nation.