By Richard Edmondson (San Francisco Liberation Radio, October 14, 2000)
More than a thousand people rallied and marched in downtown San Francisco today in opposition to a wave of Israeli military violence against Palestinians that has shocked the world over the past two weeks.
Proliferating throughout the crowd were a number of signs and banners, including several containing a photographic triptych depicting the shooting of Muhammed al-Durrah, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who perished, along with his father, in a hail of Israeli gunfire.
The same series of snapshots also appeared upon thousands of post cards which were addressed to California Senator Barbara Boxer and which were circulated throughout the crowd.
"Not in our name!" the postcards proclaimed, additionally calling for support for an international commission of inquiry and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
One of the speakers who addressed the crowd was Hatem Bazian, a former student body president at San Francisco State University who now teaches at U.C. Berkeley.
"This may not do anything," Bazian said of the post cards. "But I want people to remember this. I want every politician to know that they cannot say, 'I didn't know about this.' Yeah, you did-and not only that, you voted for more aid for Israel, so when you get to the Nuremberg trial you can't say, 'I was just following orders.' You were giving the order. This is what we need to tell these people."
The entire rally will be broadcast tape-delayed at 9 p.m. Pacific time tonight on San Francisco Liberation Radio (SFLR), an unlicensed radio station with a 4-5 mile broadcast radius operating in the city of San Fancisco.
Other speakers at the rally included Radia Hajezzi, a student at U.C. Davis, Dr. Dwight Simpson, professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University, Richard Becker of the International Action Center, and SFLR DJ Jeffrey Blankfort. But perhaps the most poignant moments of the afternoon came with short speeches given by two Palestinian children, 12-year-old Kamal, and 7-year-old Mesa.
"All I say is stop killing these kids that are just like me," said Kamal. "When I saw the picture (of the killing of Durrah) I started crying. And I'm about to cry right now. So let me just say, 'Long live Palestine!'"
Palestinian flags were much in evidence throughout the crowed, while passing motorists frequently honked in solidarity.
"There's no peace without justice, and this is the message we have to give also to the American media," said Palestinian journalist Lamis Andoni, a correspondent for Middle East International who has also had articles published in the Financial Times of London and Le Monde Diplomatique. "The American media has been engaged in complicit dehumanization and a complicit and systematic campaign for the control of the Palestinian people."
Andoni's criticisms of the U.S. corporate-controled media were echoed by numerous other speakers.
"They call it-the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the rest of them-they call it lynching and murder when they see two Israeli soldiers killed. But no such terminology is ever used when a hundred Palestinians are shot and killed," said Becker.
He added:
"I just wanna say this in closing-that in all of the developments, including, I have to say, what happened to the U.S.S. Cole, there is something that isn't being brought up. Everyone is sorry to see young people killed. But someone has to raise the question: 'What was the U.S.S. Cole doing, and where was it going?' It was going to the Gulf to enforce the blockade, the genocidal blockade against Iraq."
The protest today is the latest in a series of San Francisco protests which have targeted Israel for its military assaults, including helicopter gunship attacks, against the mostly unarmed Palestinian population.