On Sept. 25, more than fifty organizers, and supporters attended a public forum in Los Angeles in support of the Palestinian struggle. In the midst of a new round of “peace” negotiations, members of the ANSWER Coalition hosted a public forum in the interest of exposing the latent context of the new foreign relations stunt, which will not include the right of return to the millions of Palestinian refugees. Only Abbas’ Fatah party is permitted to attend these negotiations. Consequently, there is no end in sight for the people of Gaza who continue to suffer a brutal blockade.
The forum began as award winning film maker Travis Wilkerson presented his newest project “The Sand Creek Equation,” which powerfully connects the vicious savagery used in the genocide of Native Americans by white settlers and American military in the 18th and 19th centuries to the current ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
ANSWER Coalition member Tamara Khoury gave an eyewitness account of everyday life for Palestinians living under occupation. Khoury spent two months living in Palestine while attending the Birzeit University. She presented photos of segregated neighborhood streets, segregated identification cards, even segregated license plates. As if Jim Crow style segregation wasn’t enough, Khoury also described her lack of ability to roam freely throughout communities and the densely packed checkpoints that turned thirty-minute trips into entire day events. Pictures of the market areas covered by Israeli cages overhead revealed that Palestinian street vendors were forced to tie tarps to the cages as Israeli settlers would dump buckets of urine and feces onto the Palestinians, humiliating them and preventing them from selling food to support their families.
The new negotiations are nothing more than another attempt to shortchange the people of Palestine and silence the rising and strengthening Palestinian resistance. In spite of the farce of “peace” talks, the ANSWER Coalition and Party for Socialism and Liberation will continue to fight back and struggle, building a movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, for one state with equality for all.
