Take Action in MN and speak out against Massacre

[annm4peace]

PROTEST GAZA MASSACRE!!!
National Day of Action Protesting the Bombing of Gaza
Local Actions

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30
1:00 p.m. Protest and Press Conference at Senator Amy Klobuchar's office. BRING SIGNS! Palestinians, Jewish speakers and allies together give their response.

10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Go to U.S. Senate and Congressional Offices and ask them to demand a Cease Fire
Senator Kloubuchar: 1200 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis
Congressman Keith Ellison: 2100 Plymouth Ave. North, Minneapolis
Senator Coleman: 2550 University Ave., St. Paul (Al Franken's HQ is across street)
Congresswoman Betty McCollum: 165 Western Ave. N., St. Paul (corner Western)

People are also encouraged to go to Senator Coleman's office at 4:30 p.m. or earlier (Al Franken's office is directly across the street.) BRING SIGNS!

Local protests and press conference sponsored locally by Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Coalition For Palestinian Rights, International Jewish anti-Zionist Network of the Twin Cities (IJAN TC), Green Party of Minnesota. National Day of Action called and/or sponsored, endorsed by National Council of Arab Americans , the ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, and Al-Aqswa, International Palestine Right to Return Coalition , Jewish Voices for Peace, U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation Project to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and to demand an immediate end to the murderous attacks carried out by the Israeli military against the people of Gaza.

[question everything]

1. Looks like I missed all the protests when missiles flew from Gaza

into Israeli towns.

Should have watched for these postings.

:sarcasm:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I'm sorry, QA, but I think people are protesting Israel's over-reaction

The U.S. government is arming Israel; it's not arming Hamas.

You sound like the people who said, "Go protest in Hanoi" during the Vietnam War or "Go protest in Moscow" during the nuclear freeze movement.

We are not responsible for what the other side does. We are responsible for what our allies do.

I know that Israel is feeling embattled, but the policy of disproportionate retaliation has gone on for forty years, and the situation only grows worse.

How many Israelis were killed in the last round of rocket attacks?

How many Palestinians, most of whom had nothing to do with the rocket attacks, have been killed in the latest bombings, in addition to those who have died from disease and malnutrition under the blockade of Gaza?

Being neither Jewish nor Muslim, I can look at this situation objectively, and in some cases, the Palestinians have been in the wrong, and in some cases Israel has been in the wrong. There are NO angels in this fight, except for the FEW on both sides who call for an end to violence and an end to the idiotic revenge mentality.

You have to know that Arab culture requires families to avenge the deaths of relatives. How is killing more Palestinians going to bring peace for Israel?

The whole world cheered for Israel in 1967 and 1973 when it beat back Arab armies under overwhelming odds. Traveling in Europe in 1967, I saw signs in windows in every country saying "We stand behind Israel." That sentiment was widespread in the U.S. as well.

Disproportionate retaliations not only create further motivations for revenge attacks but also ruin Israel's reputation in the world. It claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, but what the world sees is not its free elections but the harshness of its attempts to subdue the Palestinians by force.

Fighting against a revenge-based culture, the only way to "win" is to exterminate everyone--and that would be genocide.

[geardaddy]

3. Well said Lydia...

n/t

[question everything]

4. As Obama said last July:

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing."

Yes, there is a disproportion. Just as it was in Lebanon 2006. You either live in high density structures, or you purposefully set your artillery launchers in the middle of dense residential areas.

Israel has no choice. Just because not many Israelis were killed during the past eight years of non-stop missile attacks, intensified in the last few weeks, does not mean that it has to take it.

And while we do not arm Hamas, we do send funds to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia. Where are they? Gaza is a tiny land, it gets all its arms smuggled from the Sinai through tunnels. The Sinai is controlled by Egypt. Where are they? And the smugglers have to be paid, from were does Hamas get the money? Iran, I suppose, even now, when it suffers economically from the drop of oil.

One last question: is the OP from Minnesota? I did not see a profile..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. I think Obama would say the same thing if he thought about the situation

of the ordinary people in Gaza. Just today in the New York Times (whose editorial today leans toward the Israeli position), there was a story about a family that lost four daughters in an attack on Gaza.

I know you're from Israel, so you're naturally going to see the Israeli side as right. But I wish more Israelis would take a moment to imagine themselves as ordinary Palestinians, on the receiving end of all of Israel's retaliatory measures. (And I wish more Palestinians would take the time to imagine themselves as Israelis, but I don't know any Palestinians except the man who used to come to the Augsburg College campus every year when I was a student, selling handmade jewelry.)