Los Angeles Protests Gaza Massacre

By Sarah Price

Since the beginning of the Israeli offensive in Gaza on 27 December, there have been hundreds of protests, with hundreds of thousands of participants, staged worldwide. The first two in Los Angeles were held on 30 December.The first was organized by LA Jews for Peace and was held at the Federal Building at Wilshire and Veteran in Westwood; the second, organized by the ANSWER Coalition, was staged in front of the Israeli consulate at Wilshire and San Vicente. Unlike demonstrations in protest of previous Israeli sieges on the Gaza Strip, these ones are garnering a lot of attention from local and national media, and many of them have been present for the protests that have been occurring since the start of the war.

There were many supportive car horns, but one protester at the Federal Building held a sign that read, “Honking is not enough” on one side, and “Stand with us” on the other.

The demonstration attracted protesters who were a mixture of Jews, Arabs, and other backgrounds. As well as standing together in protest, many of them found themselves in discussion with each other, until one man approached them to make his own message clear: he claimed the Palestinians could have shared in the prosperity, but chose not to, so they now have what they wanted.

“They just hate Jews and want to kill them all,” he shouted, “so they have to have a wall to keep them out. If they didn’t follow the Quran so much, they could live in harmony with them. But they don’t look at Jews as human beings – they look at them like a space alien would look at a human.”

One journalist, a young Muslim woman, asked for his name, but he refused to give it.

“You don’t want your name associated with your comments?” she asked.

He replied, “No, not really.”

Code Pink representatives were there collecting signatures for a petition they intend to deliver to Condoleeza Rice at the State Dept. At the time of the protest, they had collected more than 3000 names. They have been involved with protests all over the country, including one in front of California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s house in San Francisco. But, says one organizer, it isn’t just about the current situation.

“Our call is bigger than this moment,” said Code Pink’s Jodi Evans. “Israel is unconscionable and we need to speak to that.”

She is just back from Iran and says that Palestine is the big issue there. “This started with the way we have treated human rights. Allowing people to be kept in a prison affects our relationships in the Middle East. The US leadership has corrupted the leadership in the Middle East with its ‘you’re with us or against us’ policies. Leaders in the Middle East who want a relationship with us are forced to turn a blind eye to what’s happening. That this can happen in the 21st century is unconscionable. They haven’t learned that the more you kill, the more you foster hate.”

Jerry Rubin, a Jewish protester, said that whenever he speaks out, he’s called a self-hating Jew. “As a Jew, it is incumbent on us to speak out for peace and that’s what I’ve been doing for decades. People say if we don’t live in Israel we shouldn’t have an opinion, but I don’t agree. The heartbreaking thing is that the closer we get to peace, there are always people there to ruin it. This is the time we should be doubling our efforts.”

He was planning a Bye-Bye Bush Fast for Peace and Positive Change, to last from New Year’s Eve until Inauguration Day.

An Arab protester who identified himself as Hamoud said, “the American media is very selective. In the international media you see more reason. The US government unconditionally supports Israel, right or wrong. All Americans, whatever their background, are for justice, but they are not well informed about the Palestinian people. Our government is always supposed to be for justice, human rights and respect for international law, including the UN resolution related to the Palestinian issue, number 338 [UN Security Council Resolution 338, passed in October 1973, for a ceasefire in the Ramadan War]. But there is no justice applied to them. Hamas elections were monitored and democratic. You have to deal with the whoever the people choose. You have to deal with your enemies, not just your friends. When you bomb and kill women and children and call it collateral damage, you dehumanize them.”

At the Israeli consulate, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters were challenged by a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators, kept separate, and on opposite sides of the street, by police in riot gear. Rush hour traffic was backed up for a mile, approaching the site. Crowds were loud and passionate, but peaceful and caused no problems. Despite a large police presence, there were few incidents. One man was arrested after a scuffle with an officer, reportedly because the officer had asked his wife to move back, putting his hand up and inadvertently touching her. The man was offended by this and reacted physically to him. The organizers saw the arrest, made an announcement about it to the crowd and got the crowd chanting, “Let him go!” He was later released and returned to the protest site, to the cheers of the crowd.

Carlos Alvarez, a 22-year-old legal assistant running for mayor of Los Angeles in March 2009, spoke to the crowd. He is very pro-Palestinian, and says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is absolutely not, and should be removed from office immediately for his blind support of Israel. Mayor Villaraigosa has recently defended his support of Israel, saying, “If someone was launching rockets at us, do you think we would wait for 6,000 rockets to respond? Of course not. We would respond almost immediately.”

At the time of the protests, the bombing campaign was entering its 5th day in Gaza, and the death toll had reached 400, with nearly 2000 injured. Due to the lack of medical equipment, supplies and medicine, and space and medical personnel in the hospitals, many of the injured were not expected to survive. An aid boat carrying needed medical donations, as well as doctors who planned to stay and help in the hospitals, was intercepted by the Israeli navy, rammed three times by one of the vessels, and forced to dock in Lebanon.

At the time of press, two weeks later, there were more than 900 dead and nearly 4500 injured. More than 1300 of the dead and injured were children.