prairie fire organizing committee

Speech for emergency demonstration against Israeli occupation of Palestine, Oct. 29th, 2001

by benjamin evans

Thank you to the Palestine Aid Society and the Committee for a Democratic Palestine for organizing this demonstration and inviting us to speak and thanks to everyone for coming out on short notice and being here in the cold.

It is an honor to speak here today, on behalf of Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, to express our solidarity with the Palestinian people who are struggling for freedom against incredible oppression. We feel it is our obligation to speak out, since the United States government is also responsible for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The Bush administration claims to support the creation of a "Palestinian state", and the Oslo peace agreement. Yet, after Israeli occupation forces occupied six major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, killing over 50 Palestinians and leaving hundreds wounded, all the U.S. has done is ask that the Israeli forces withdraw "as soon as possible."

What does it mean when the current resident of the white house says he supports peace in Palestine, yet the U.S. continues to unconditionally support Israel. For example, in March of 2001, the United States used it's position on the U.N. security Council to veto a resolution in support of international observers in Palestine which had been passed 9 to 0. And this past September the U.S. walked out of the U.N. sponsored Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa in part to suppress criticism of Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights.

People around the world know, even if Americans do not, that the Apache and Cobra attack helicopters used to assassinate Palestinian leaders, the armored pile drivers and armored bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes and agricultural land, and the air-to-ground missiles, the shoulder-fired, anti-armour rocket launchers and the anti-personnel cluster bombs used to attack Palestinians are provided by United States.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. Between 1949 and 1998, the U.S. gave Israel, with a self-declared population of 5.8 million people, more foreign aid than it gave to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, all of the countries of Latin America, and all of the countries of the Caribbean combined ­ with a total population of more than a billion people.

How can we justify annual U.S. foreign aid payments of approximately of $12,000 per Israeli when we give less than $1 per Sub-Saharan African?

Since the signing of the Oslo Declaration of Principles, in September 1993, over 500 Palestinian families have had their homes destroyed by Israeli occupying forces; Palestinian land has been confiscated for Israeli settlements; and thousands of Palestinian people have found themselves homeless.

Like the Apartheid regime in South Africa, Israeli laws enforce segregation. Those Palestinians driven from their homes in 1948 and their descendents, the roughly four million Palestinians living around the world, are not offered Israeli citizenship, and their right to return is denied, but a Jewish person from anywhere in the world can have Israeli citizenship for the asking.

Clearly those of us within the United States who support human rights and peace have an obligation to oppose the U.S. government's subsidizing of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Just as we oppose the use of Vieques, Puerto Rico and Mae Hyang Ri, South Korea for target practice by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, despite the opposition of the people who live there, just as we oppose the U.S. sanctions on Iraq which have resulted in the deaths of over a million people, just as we oppose the U.S. military presence in Colombia, and just as we oppose the bombing of Afghanistan, we should also oppose U.S. funding of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

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