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Supporters For Palestinian Rights Fill New York Streets
NEW
YORK, April 9 (IslamOnline) - For a few hours Saturday, in spite of the predominance of a Jewish and pro-Israeli population among New Yorkers, the streets of Manhattan's East Side seemed to embrace the right of return for Palestinians.
The al-Awda organization, also known as the Palestinian's Right to Return Coalition, organized rallies worldwide to increase awareness of the Palestinian refugee problem in major American and European cities. New York's rally was one of them.
Gathering in front of the Israeli diplomatic mission on 43rd and 2nd Avenue, more than 5000 supporters poured onto Manhattan's streets representing a diversity of backgrounds representing different religions, ages, races and ethnicities, with Lebanese and Iraqi flags also visible among thousands of Palestinian flags.
Several groups, besides Muslim and Arab community members, also attended the rally and chanted for Palestinian rights. One of the most notable delegations were a large number of Puerto Ricans, who carried banners demanding the end of the U.S. bombing of Puerto Rican island of Vieques. They joined in chanting: "Puerto Rico, Viva Viva, Palestina, Viva Viva."
Shortly before 2:00pm, the crowd marched from 2nd Ave to Union Square, some thirty blocks away, where they were looking to hear from many speakers, including the prominent Palestinian intellectual and human rights activists, Professor Edward Said of Columbia University.
"This is a battle against an imperialist colonial power," Said said, igniting the crowd. "This is not Palestinian violence. This is Palestinian resistance."
Said also stressed his views of the importance of civil resistance as a means to achieve an independent Palestinian state.
The crowd was especially moved by the voice of George Habbash, a retired general of the Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as he affirmed his solidarity with the efforts of supporters of the Palestinian cause all over the world.
Habbash, who currently resides in Syria, was able to get in touch with New York demonstrators through a live international phone call wired through speakers at the rally around Union Square.
Demonstrators came from all over the U.S. and in buses and planes coming to the event, carried banners with slogans condemning Israeli practices and atrocities in the Occupied Territories and U.S. foreign policy backing the Israeli occupation. Banners reflected the attitude, saying: "USA: Stop Funding Israeli Terrorism," "Down with Israel" and "Zionism = Racism."
One group of marchers held a banner reading, "We Israeli & American Jews support the right of Palestinian refugees."
"We got at about 30 supporters from the Latino, African American and whites, who supported the Palestinian right of return," said Hatem Abudayyeh, the Youth Program coordinator at Chicago-based Arab American Action Network.
"Because we have been holding several educational and informational sessions about the realities and facts of the Middle East conflict, more Americans outside the Muslim and Arab communities are coming to our support," he added.
According to some of the rally participants, one of the most innovative forms of protest was when two women wore a giant cardboard model of Israeli tank, with its turret flaring paper flames.
Palestinian youth moved around the tank as if throwing stones. Another person in a traditional U.S. Uncle Sam costume walking behind the tank held a banner that read "Your Tax Money at Work."
Like last years event, the rally gave a chance for several hundreds of Palestinian supporters from all over the U.S., who have been chatting and discussing Middle East issues through e-mails and messages over the Internet, to meet in person and affirm their sense of community.
In September 2000, al-Awda organized similar rallies in Washington D.C. (about 4,000 attended that rally), London, Jordan and other cities, where more thousands participated, joining simultaneous protests with those in refugee camps in Palestine and Lebanon demanding the right to return.
The Palestinian refugee problem is considered one of the worst refugee problems worldwide with close to four million displaced and dispersed in Arab countries, Europe, Australia, the U.S, and the Occupied Territories.
The right of return was one of the key unresolved issues in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations during former Israeli Premier Ehud Barak, and it remains so presently.
Palestinian negotiators have demanded a full return of all refugees to their homes, but the Israelis only symbolically agreed and conditioned the number to be admitted into Israel, fearing that accepting a total return would jeopardize the demographic structure of the state in favor of the Palestinians, who would be called then Arab Israelis.
Currently, Arab Israelis constitute 20% of Israel's three million.
Saturday marked the 53rd anniversary of the attack of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the village of Deir Yassan.
Images graciously provided by al-Awda, The Palestinian Right To Return Coalition
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