We marched in the streets on October 7 because Israel used the Hamas attack to launch a 3 year genocide, which killed over 70,000 Palestinians, including 21,000 children, and destroyed 82% of Gaza, turning it into an apocalyptic wasteland.
We marched because we know that despite the propaganda, lies and fake narratives spread by the mainstream media, Israel and its pro-Zionist supporters for over 70 years, it is Israel who is the real oppressor, posing as the perpetual victim. It is Israel who has terrorized the Palestinians, since the Nakba in 1948, when the Israeli army destroyed hundreds of villages, and violently forced 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes.
We shouted “Free Palestine” over and over again because we know the Nakba has not ended. Palestinians are forced to live under a brutal Israeli occupation. Israel controls their daily life through military check points, constant surveillance, blockades and walls, including the “Iron Wall” erected in 1996, equipped with sensors, barbed wire and remote-control machine guns. Thousands of them, including children and doctors, are tortured, starved, or sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons without due process of law.
We marched because the cowardice and complicity of our soulless and spineless politicians sicken us. While Israel was dropping 2,000 ton bombs on terrified civilians, and doctors were frantically trying to save lives in overcrowded hospitals, bi-partisan members of Congress stood up and gave Netanyahu 50 standing ovations during his speech in 2024. They voted repeatedly for billions in aid and weapons for Israel, including more 2,000 ton bombs. Biden repeated lies about Hamas decapitating babies, which he never apologized for when they were debunked. Trump and his greedy sons and son-in-law salivated over constructing a “Riviera” over the dead bodies in Gaza. Leaders in the US and Europe champion Israel’s right to self-defense, while denying the rights of Palestinians, affirmed by the United Nations, to struggle for self-determination and freedom from colonial and racist occupation, including armed struggle. With the exception of Ireland, Spain and Slovenia, they have done nothing substantial to stop the genocide. Instead, they continue to supply Israel with weapons and trade.
We marched to grieve for the Palestinians and the immense suffering they have to endure.
The visceral images of the people being bombed, shot at, beaten, tortured, starved and trying desperately to survive without adequate shelter, food, water and medical care haunt us. These images do not lie. They expose the truth that Israel is a racist, colonialist, apartheid ethnostate, stealing land and resources, committing ethnic cleansing and now a devastating genocide against the Palestinian people.
We marched because we don’t buy bombing over 82% of Gaza to make it uninhabitable, its homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, water and sanitation plants, is about targeting Hamas.
We marched because we don’t believe killing doctors, healthcare and aid workers, Palestinian journalists, people trying to get food and water, pregnant women and children is “self-defense.”
We marched for the children, over 21,000 killed, and thousands maimed. We watched in horror the testimonials of doctors who had to amputate the children’s limbs without anesthesia. Gaza now has the highest number of children amputees in the world. Why are the Israeli soldiers, the “most moral army” in the world, targeting children with head and limb shots, then posing for photos, holding Pandas, soccer balls and toys taken from kids they killed or injured?
We protested because we refuse to be silenced and intimidated by the Zionists and their allies, who have successfully “cancelled” people who dared to publicly oppose their crimes by charging them with anti-Semitism.. Students who protested against the Israeli genocide were suspended, expelled or deported; professors were purged; and performers like Macklemore, Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon were blackballed.
We will keep protesting because we refuse to allow Israel and their allies to normalize cruelty, violence, genocide and evil, and to weaponize the Holocaust to exterminate Palestinians and their children.
We will keep resisting because Israel has not stopped killing Palestinians. Over 1000 people have been killed since the “ceasefire” in 2025. Israeli settlers are escalating violent attacks, and killing Palestinians in the West Bank to steal more land.
The Palestinian people have inspired us with their heroic resilience against Zionist persecution for over 70 years. How many more of them will be killed before we can stop Israel? How much longer can they endure this terrible suffering? For as long as it takes, we must continue to support the Palestinians in their existential struggle for their humanity, and for ours.
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