HOUGHTON -- A group of concerned citizens -- students and community members, including families -- gathered at Veteran's Memorial Park in Houghton on a very hot Saturday afternoon, May 22, for a Demonstration for a free Palestine.
"Palestinians are at best third-class citizens living in an apartheid state. At best," said Gabriel Ahrendt, co-organizer of the event and a member of Keweenaw Youth for Climate Action, a group that invited the public to participate in the demonstration.
Addressing the demonstrators, Ahrendt gave a brief historical background for the recent violence that has included extensive bombing of Gaza -- paused only a few days ago by a cease fire. He noted the following recent acts of aggression by Israel against Palestinians:
- During the holy month of Ramadan, the Israeli state implemented some cruel laws on the people of Palestine and East Jerusalem and banned prayer at Damascus gate.
- Israel has supported planned evictions of Palestinian families in the Shiek Jarah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, part of a larger effort to push Palestinians out of that area and to settle the West Bank in a checkerboard fashion, removing geographical and communal continuity from the Palestinians and allowing police and military to expand their jurisdiction into Palestinian communities, further colonizing their land.
- State and civilian violence against Palestinians included a police Raid on the Al Aqsa mosque, while people were inside the mosque praying on a particularly holy night of Ramadan.
- This has led to an exchange of missiles between Israeli defense forces and Hamas -- a conflict which historically has been and continues to be wildly asymmetrical in terms of power on the Israeli side and casualties on the Palestinian side.
"This is not a conflict, it is an occupation," said Ahrendt. "It’s time we call a spade a spade and look at this for what it is -- a soft genocide of the Palestinian people."
Ahrendt also mentioned the view that Gaza is the world's largest open air prison, left without access to or in control of key infrastructure, basic needs like food and clean water, and even things like the internet -- an example of how Israel is silencing the Palestinian people.
"This latest barrage has killed 230 Palestinians, destroyed the Palestinian COVID response headquarters at Gaza’s largest hospital, and killed 11 children who were being treated for trauma related to IDF’s (Israel Defense Forces') last 'mowing the lawn' in 2016," Ahrendt said. "The cruelty of this latest attack echoes the inhumanity of the whole Israeli settler project."
Miguel Levy, Michigan Tech professor of physics and co-organizer with Ahrendt of the demonstration, spoke to the group about the role of the U.S. government in Israel's aggression against Palestinians.
Levy, who is one of the organizers of the Indigenous People's Day
Campaign, a community group concerned about human rights for all
indigenous peoples, sent an email message to members of that group
following the May 22 demonstration.
"Israel would not be able to commit these genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people without the backing of the US government," Levy wrote. "In September 2016, the Obama administration signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding on military aid to Israel. Under this agreement, the United States pledged to provide $38 billion in military aid to Israel. This amounts to 10 million dollars a day of military aid to Israel by the United States. In 2018 Trump signed into law a $515 million aid package to Israel, the largest ever."
Levy added that President Biden has proposed selling to Israel more of the so-called "precision-guided weapons" that have killed many residents of Gaza.
"Thus, it is important for us, in the belly of the beast, to oppose and organize against US support for Israel. Biden is giving full US support to these crimes, the same way Trump and Obama did before," Levy added. "The Palestinian people ARE the Indigenous people of that land, from the river to the sea. That means all of present-day Israel. And they have the right to resist. This is not a 'conflict' between Jews and 'Arabs,' nor between Hamas and Israel as posed by the mainstream media. Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine long predates the existence of Hamas and is directed against the Palestinian people as a people. This is settler colonialism on the part of the Zionists. It is genocide, enabled and with the full military and political support of the United States. And we should not allow it."
Valorie Troesch, retired attorney and active member of the Houghton County Democratic Party, also participated in the May 22 demonstration.
"The Palestinians -- especially in Gaza -- have been largely abandoned by the rest of the world as we allow Israel to violate UN policies, kill innocent people, and take Palestinan property decade after decade with impunity," Troesch told Keweenaw Now. "Worse, the United States often provides the money -- our tax dollars -- that serve as an imprimatur of the Israeli government's actions. With Biden's election and leadership, this is an opportunity for the US to effectively advocate for a two-state solution and to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. The Free Palestine movement is strong and I am grateful to the people who organized it here in Houghton."
