Articles
WRMEA, August 2010, Pages 62-63
Waging Peace
Outrage in L.A. Over Gaza Flotilla Attack
SCARCELY more than 12 hours after Israeli armed commandos killed nine civilians aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Mamara and forcibly took 700 passengers to the Israeli port of Ashdod, more than 1,000 angry activists assembled in front of the Los Angeles Israeli Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard.
For the first time, large Turkish flags were prominent among pro-Palestinian demonstrators who march in protest at the mid-Wilshire building whenever Israel violates international laws by attacking Gazan or South Lebanese targets.
"Look at the person next to you," shouted Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. "Today, we're all Palestinians."
Voicing outrage at Israel's violent takeover of six vessels in international waters as they headed to besieged Gaza with much needed humanitarian aid, Syed remarked that Americans often ask him where is the Palestinian Martin Luther King.
"I always answer that all 9,000 of them are locked in Israeli prisons," Syed said to the cheering throng.
USC Prof. David Lloyd of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement said that despite President Barack Obama's decision to not utter a word against Israel's violations of Gazans' human rights, the struggle must continue for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners of conscience. "We won't be free if the Palestinians are not free," he concluded.
Stated Dick Platkin of Los Angeles Jews for Peace: "Many Jews are totally disgusted with Israel's policies and its siege of Gaza. The U.S. government and Congress are responsible, they could lift the siege."
Five TV stations and many other Los Angeles media representatives interviewed the huge crowd that continued to shout "Enough" to Israel's mounting violations of the Geneva Conventions and other crimes against humanity.
Incredibly, the next day, several hundred members of StandWithUs, the successor of the Jewish Defense League, gathered in front of the Los Angeles Turkish Consulate to condemn Ankara's support of the freedom flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
In yet another effort to claim "self-defense," when Israel was the aggressor attacking unarmed ships in international waters, killing and kidnapping passengers and illegally confiscating a convoy of vessels, L.A. Israeli Consul General Jacob Dayan called for a celebration of Israel on June 6.
A section of Wilshire Boulevard known as Ben-Gurion Square was blocked to traffic while local politicians swore their allegiance to the Zionist state. None other than California Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger stood on the dais and spoke by cell phone to the father of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is a prisoner of Hamas.
Nonetheless, large protests against Israel continued at the West Los Angeles Federal Building, the Israeli Consulate and in Orange County.
—Pat McDonnell Twair
