New Yorkers Rally at City Hall to Protest Bloomberg’s Trip to Israel
By Zahra HankirJanuary 8, 2009 | Posted in IndyBlog , John Tarleton | Email this article
Some 300 New Yorkers gathered in front of City Hall in Manhattan Wednesday evening, slamming New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for a recent visit to Israel, during which he endorsed the Jewish state’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza and failed to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians.
“I’m really quite outraged. Here he goes out to a bomb shelter, and shows sympathy for people who suffer there, and he cannot be bothered to go a few miles away and visit Gaza to see how civilians are suffering there?” said New York resident David Letwin. “Why is only one group getting the sympathy of the Mayor?”
As a sign of symbolic protest, dozens of the spectators left shoes in a pile in front of City Hall before marching to the Federal Building under the rain. Shoe-protests have recently become popular after Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi pelted his shoes at outgoing President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last month.
The rally was the fifth in a series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in New York that have loudly condemned Israel for its disproportionate attacks on Gaza. The war has thus far taken the lives of over 700 Palestinians, hundreds of them civilian, and wounded more than 3,000. The protesters also condemned the U.S for providing the largest amount of direct economic and military aid to Israel. The latest rally, though smaller than previous ones, was the first to slam Mayor Bloomberg’s pro-Israel positions in particular.
“It was inappropriate for the Mayor, who is supposed to represent all the people, to go to Israel and to lend his support to just one side, and to actually congratulate the Israeli government,” said Tom Syracuse, Chairman of the West Side Green Party chapter.
“This is just one of many instances where this Mayor has shown his arrogance and his unconcern for the people of New York,” he said, referring to Bloomberg’s successful campaign to amend New York City’s term limits law, thus allowing him to run for a third term.
Bloomberg visited Ashkelon and Sderot on January 4 to pledge his support to the Jewish state, stating that Israel and New York City have a “special bond” and accusing Hamas of terrorism. The day before the Mayor’s visit, thousands of New Yorkers had gathered at Times Square in support of Palestine.
The Mayor had previously scoffed at the criticism that Israel’s force is disproportionate, saying that if the U.S. were in a similar situation, it would do the same. “If you’re attacked in this city, my instructions to Ray Kelly and NYPD are to use everything we have at our command to protect you and your family. There’s no such a thing as a measured response to terrorism. Period,” he said.
The rally brought together numerous speakers from various movements, including the Green Party, the Labor Party, Muslim organizations and African-American organizations. Speakers also asked protestors to recognize the war in Gaza as part of the ongoing struggle of the oppressed. “We must constantly build a massive resistance movement in every country that we are in so that we can all be free,” said Brenda Stokely of the Labor Party in New York. Speakers charged Bloomberg with being an elitist billionaire who is out of touch with the people of NYC, and with imposing his personal political views on the entire state.
“Mayor Bloomberg, where’s your heart? At least express concern for the destruction of human beings who may not be of Jewish descent but who are Palestinian and who have the right to live as well,” said Councilperson Charles Barron of the Mayor’s visit.
Speaking to The Indypendent, Barron explained that local politicians fear expressing criticism because of the strong pro-Israel Jewish lobby. “The City Council is pro-Israel, and they know that if they speak out that they can get punished politically,” he said.
“But you cannot sit here and watch people perish and say absolutely nothing but someone has the ‘right to defend himself.’ If you slap me in my face and I take a gun and blow your brains out, it’s a disproportionate response and a disproportionate use of force. You can still say Israel has the right to protect itself but you should not ignore the fact that innocent babies die. Bloomberg does not speak for me and he certainly does not speak for all of New York City.”
4 Responses to “New Yorkers Rally at City Hall to Protest Bloomberg’s Trip to Israel”
January 8th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The demonstrators’ outrage is directed at the Israelis and their U.S. patrons:
*Because Israel is indiscriminately bombing densely crowded civilian areas with the latest high-tech weapons.
*Because Israel has maintained Gaza as a giant, open-air prison since it “ended” its occupation of Gaza in 2005.
*Because Israel and the U.S. have done everything possible since January 2005 to destroy the democratically-elected, Hamas-led government in the Occupied Territories including cutting off almost all international aid and kidnapping and jailing dozens of Hamas legislators who were elected to serve in the parliament of the Palestinian parliament.
*Because the U.S. and Israel insist on imposing human sock puppets like Mahmoud Abbas on the Palestinians as their leaders despite the fact that they have been repudiated by their own people as corrupt and ineffectual.
*Because Israel has imposed an almost medieval siege on the people of Gaza since June of 2007, reducing its 1.5 million people to a Sub-Saharan African level of poverty where 80 percent of the people are now dependent on international food aid as the Gazan economy has been brought to a standstill.
*Because anytime more moderate elements in Hamas try to establish a ceasefire or initiate peace talks Israel finds a way to provoke a new round of violence. The June 19 ceasefire that halted the rocket fire into Israel began to unravel on Nov. 4 when an Israeli raid into Gaza killed six Hamas militants.
*Because the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords were a sham in which the PLO exchanged recognition of Israel for a promise of future final peace agreement that has never materialized in 15 years (including the seven years that preceded the Second Intifada) while Israeli settlers continue to colonize the West Bank and its best land and water resources. In return for this one-sided deal, Israel was able to outsource much of the day-to-day burden of carrying out the occupation to corrupt officials from the PLO/Fatah who were ready to do the bidding of Israel and the U.S.
*Because Israel has no desire for honest peace talks that bring an end to the conflict along the lines of numerous U.N. resolutions. And why should it? It has infinitely more military power than the Palestinians, or all the other Arab nations combined for that matter, and the unlimited support of the world’s most powerful nation. As far as Israel is concerned, the only “peace talks” worth the bother are ones where they dictate the terms of a final Palestinian surrender: a few shriveled, disconnected Palestinian bantustans in the West Bank, a walled-off Gaza, a defunct Palestinian economy entirely dependent on Israel all to be supervised by Fatah security forces trained, funded and supported by Israel and the U.S.
*Because 80 percent of Gazans are people who either had to flee from the original wave of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians that accompanied the founding of Israel in 1948 or are their descendants.
*Because the State of Israel is based on an inherently racist, colonialist, apartheid ideology that legally privileges one ethnic group in every sphere of public life while dehumanizing another group. The racist nature of Israeli society is perfectly expressed in this war in which the death of the one Israeli who has been killed by a Hamas rocket this year will be avenged by the deaths of thousands of Palestinians by the time this round of fighting is finished.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
the Palestinians do deserve a better life, but it is no Israel that is keeping them prisoners - they are the sacrificial lamb for Hamas and other Arab countries. Why haven’t their “brothers” the Arab countries taking in the refuges. They just want to use them. They oppress them, not Israel!
January 8th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
So let’s see, Carole. More than 70 years of violence, massacres, ethnic cleansing and terrorism by Zionists and the state of Israel does not qualify as oppression?
Oh, and your contradiction is showing. By using the term refugees, you admit that the Palestinians have been unjustly driven from their lands. Thus, in just a few sentences, you say Israel is and is not the oppressor.
And what do the corrupt, repressive Arab states have to do with the price of eggs in China? For one, most of them are U.S. clients and collaborate with Israel, particularly Jordan and Egypt. Two, the refugees are not their responsibility — they are Israel’s. Three, taking them in absolves Israel of the responsibility and allows the state to continue its policy of relentless expansion. And four, the Palestinians don’t want to leave their homeland.
The clientelist Arab states wish the Palestinians would just disappear, but their repressed citizens can see what’s going on, in terms of the Israeli massacres, the blanket U.S. backing and the Arab ruling elite’s complicity. So the states issue rhetorical denunciations against Israel to try to make it appear as if they are standing up for the Palestinians.
And before you say it, I’ll toss out your trite, irrelevant counter-response: “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people.”
January 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Where is their outrage at Hamas, a terrorist organization who is the one responsible for the suffering of the Gazans???