Pro-Israel Rally in NYC (please watch video)
By Guest Post • Jan 16th, 2009 at 9:43 • Category: Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Religion, Video, War, ZionismShocking video where Pro-Israel Americans take to the streets in NYC and Alternet interviews them to hear their views on why it is right to "Wipe Gaza off the Map". If any of these comments were made regarding Jews or Israel, there would be an uproar. But… we know all of that by now.
On January 11, an estimated 10,000 people rallied in front of the Israeli consulate in midtown New York in support of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip. The rally, which was organized by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York in cooperation with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, featured speeches by New York’s most senior lawmakers. While the crowd was riled to righteous anger by speeches about Hamas evildoers, the event was a festive affair that began and ended with singing and joyous dancing.
Sen. Chuck Schumer highlighted Israel’s supposed humanitarian methods of warfare by pointing to its text messaging of certain Gaza Strip residents urging them to vacate their homes before Israeli forces bombed them. “What other country would do that?” Schumer shouted from the podium. Gov. David Paterson appeared on stage wearing one of the red hats distributed to demonstrators as symbols of the red alerts some residents of Israel endure when Palestinian groups fire rockets their way. Paterson cited the many Qasam rockets that have fallen on Israel as a justification for the country’s operations in Gaza, a military assault that has resulted in over 800 casualties and thousands of injuries.
Then Paterson highlighted the anti-Semitism that has followed in the wake of Israel’s attack on Gaza, highlighting the beating of a teen-age girl in France. “This kind of anger and hatred spreads like a disease,” Paterson said, “and one thing I've always pointed out is there's no place for hate in the Empire State.”
But hatred was plentiful at the rally Paterson addressed. Right in front of the stage, a man held a banner reading, “Islam Is A Death Cult.” Rally attendees described the people of Gaza to me as a “cancer,” called for Israel to “wipe them all out,” insisting, “They are forcing us to kill their children in order to defend our own children.” A young woman told me, “Those who die are suffering God’s wrath.” “They are not distinguishing between civilians and military, so why should we?” said a member of the group of messianic Orthodox Jewish Chabad-Lubavitch group that flocked to the rally.
No one I spoke to could seem to find any circumstance in which they would begin to question Israel’s war. No number of civilian deaths, no displays of extreme suffering — nothing could deter their enthusiasm for attacking one of the most vulnerable populations in the world with the world’s most advanced weaponry. There are no limits, no matter what Israel does, no matter how it does it.
The rally made me think of a passage in “The Holocaust Is Over, We Must Rise From Its Ashes,” a powerful new book by former Israeli Knesset speaker and Jewish National Fund chairman Avraham Burg:
“If you are a bad person, a whining enemy or a strong-arm occupier, you are not my brother, even if you are circumcised, observe the Sabbath, and do mitzvahs. If your scarf covers every hair on your head for modest, you give alms and do charity, but what is under your scarf is dedicated to the sanctity of Jewish land, taking precedence over the sanctity of human life, whosever life that is, then your are not my sister. You might be my enemy. A good Arab or a righteous gentile will be a brother or sister to me. A wicked man, even of Jewish descent, is my adversary, and I would stand on the other side of the barricade and fight him to the end."
http://www.alternet.org/audits/119372
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I'm just shocked. I mean, here are normal, some upper middle class americans/israelis and they are actually thumping their chests and bristling with self righteousness at the thought of Palestinians being wiped off the map?
Are they real? Is the persecution mania in jews such a great need for them to feel united?
Shocking and sick!
I attended a rally in Occupied Orlando on January 10, 2009.
I took it as a good omen when I rolled out my drive just as The Doobies sounded from my BOSE:
I ain't blind and I don't like what I [do] see
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
Take this message to my brother
You will find him everywhere
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
Takin' it to the streets
I was on my way to Lake Eola for an afternoon rally, where over 2,000 people came together in solidarity over our anguish for the misery in Gaza and to March in front of Senator Mel Martinez and Senator Bill Nelson's Orlando offices.
The area we were consigned to was 'roped' off with one strand of plastic tape that a baby could break. 150 police officers attempted to justify the waste of man power by checking bags and denying fluids to travel into the taped off area. I solved my dilemma at the Orlando Police Checkpoint in the Park by ducking under the tape thirty feet from 'Security's' back.
We the people with a conscience had come together to take to the streets our demand that USA Government stand up for an immediate bilateral cease fire and the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
We the people of all faiths and none came together in heart break over Gaza and anger at USA complicity in Israel's war crimes.
The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or Israel, is a war crime. There is NO justification for anyone, any army, or state to target innocent people. Over 800 lives have already been lost and an entire generation of children terrorized and traumatized. The 1.5 million human persons in Gaza have no way to escape the USA made bombs delivered by USA made Apache helicopters and F-16's!
I arrived at Lake Eola half an hour before the scheduled event and attempted to dialogue with a few of the counter protestors whom I informed, "I have been to Israel six times since June 2005. Here's my card, you can read eye witness accounts of occupied Palestine. Then, let's dialogue!"
A few accepted my card but I know they haven't a clue, for one of their signs read: End the Palestinian Occupation of Israel!
I laughed out loud and then prayed God have mercy on the deaf, dumb and blind. But I lost my temper with a robotic zombie Zionist who thinks she is a Christian.
Across her chest she expressed her mind with a JerUSAlem t-shirt.
I have met her kind many a time on the World Wide Web and in the flesh at such events as John Hagee CUFI conference in Miami
But, this particularly creepy psudeo-Christian was so arrogant, so closed of mind, her eyes so blind, ears deaf to the cries of orphaned babies and a heart so cold she chilled me to the bone.
But then she said, "God gave that land to the chosen people."
The simmering rage I carry with me daily erupted into flame and I raised my voice above hers and chanted: Blessed are the peacemakers-THEY are the children of God.
This simmering rage I carry with me was lit in June 2005 during my first of six trips to Israel and Occupied Palestine.
Although I had researched for two years, nothing prepared me for what I saw, heard and felt in my gut that broke my heart and inflamed my mind.
My Irish has remained up and not a day goes by, that I don't DO SOMETHING to help raise awareness of USA culpability in the suffering of another indigenous people.
Not just because the USA government has not been an honest broker for peace.
Not just because the USA media has failed so miserably to educate the American people.
More than anything, what keeps my Irish up and flaming are comfortable Christians who do NOT have a CLUE as to what Jesus/AKA the Prince of Peace was all about!
I leave it to moderate Muslims and Jews to correct their own. As a Christian Anarchist of The Beatitudes, my target is the fundamentalist militant wing in The Body of Christ who have so corrupted his message that they crucify him all over again by claiming to be a Christian yet they support bombing, torturing and occupying other people that God also created in his/her image.
They also never give a thought to the fact that Jesus was NEVER a Christian.
The term 'Christian' was not even coined until the days of Paul, about 3 decades after Jesus/AKA: The Prince of Peace walked the earth and taught that it is the peacemakers who are the children of God, NOT those that bomb, occupy or torture others!
2,000 years ago The Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry.
When JC said: "Pick up your cross and follow me" everyone THEN understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads into Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Empire and Military Occupying Forces.
Jesus, while never a Christian, was a social, justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up against the corrupt Temple authorities and challenged their job security by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God LOVED them just as they were: Sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under the Roman Empire and Military Occupation.
What got JC crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Empire and Occupying Forces by teaching the subversive concept that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under the Roman Empire and Military Occupation above the elite and arrogant.
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." -Father Philip Francis Berrigan
The early followers and lovers of Jesus were called members of THE WAY-being THE WAY he taught one should be and that his sisters and brothers were those that DID the will of the Father:
"What does God require? He has told you o'man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord." -Micah 6:8
Being just requires all sides are respected as equals and all should be heard.
There was no justice on Saturday's local NBC TV affiliate that 'reported' on the March for Gaza at Lake Eola Park.
There was NO video of the over 2,000 strong and nonviolent activists.
There were NO interviews with any of the organizers of the event.
But WESH TV did interview one of about two dozen counter protesters. His ignorance was blatant, but there was NO follow-up question from the ‘reporter’ holding the microphone.
While still flaming, I phoned WESH and expressed my distress to the patient and calm man at the News Desk. He then connected me with the voice mail of his superior and I left a message that I am a citizen journalist who has been to occupied Palestine 6 times since June 2005.
I expressed my distress was most acute as I was an eye witness to the event and to then witness such a slanted and uninformative reporting with no mention of the issues raised at the rally makes WESH/NBC News culpable in the ignorance of central Floridians who know NOTHING about the last 60 years of misery of the Palestinians.
The next day I again dismayed that the Orlando Sentinel/Slantinel DID NOT EVEN MENTION IT!
Imagine a media dedicated to the enlightenment of the republic.
Imagine a government that listens to a people who take it to the streets.
Imagine if we who claim to be Christian actually did what Jesus said was non-negotiable: you must forgive to be forgiven; you must pray, bless, love your enemies; NOT bomb, torture or occupy them!
Imagine when we who claim to be civilized respect all people, honor all life, treat all others the way we hope they will treat US.
Imagine a hope that is so audacious that this “HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.”-St. Augustine
Learn More:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/
Zionist and Evangalical Chrisitian Zionist killed and murdered not only Judaism but Christianity as well. I am sure if G-d can see what HIS/HER followers are doing HE/SHE will change mind about the Chosen One. I am sure these people do not read not the Torah not the Bible.. How can any Abrahamic book promote and advocate cold blooded murders. If this is the kind of G-d/God/Allah we are asked to worship, then count me out.
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