1) Israeli "Independence" = Palestinian Dispossession
2) Palestinian Refugees
1948 - 800,000
2007 - 6 Million +
Right of Return for all Refugees
These are the two banners we (Jews, Christians, Muslims, others) snuck by the intensive security and unfurled Sunday at an event dubbed by the organizers "New England Celebrates Israel" (ofcourse it was only a small and shrinking fraction of racist and misinformed Jews in the area who joined the "celebration"). The direct action led by conscientious Jews riled the racist festival in Foxboro, MA and raised a ruckus. Some activists were not let in (security had their car license plate numbers apparently ahead of time, see report below from Tarak, one of those who did not manage to get in). But enough of us got through (>40 plus legal observers) to make this a very successful event. Kudus to the participants. The demonstration was visually so impressive that racist Zionists tried to block us with their bodies and umbrellas so that their fellow attendees do not see the messages about Palestinian dispossession. When we took our overshirts off, the black shirts had signs for depopulated Palestinian villages: e.g.
Al-Maghar Population: 1740, destroyed 6/10/1048 1 of 531 depopulated Palestinian villages.
My video of the event is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9lsB4HVhDQ
Still Pictures and press releases posted at http://questionisrael.blogspot.com/
We will be showing a video on refugees and I will be speaking on the subject Tuesday May 22nd at 7pm at 44 Danforth St, in Jamaica Plain, Massachussetts.
Please consider writing to the media including letters to the editor. And let us all mobilize for June 10-11 in Washington DC (see endtheoccupation.org).
Below are other reports and notes on the successful action in Foxboro, MA:
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Boston Does not celebrate Israel
http://www.thecornerreport.com/index.php?p=1737&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more1737
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Message from Tarak
Drove up to Walpole, MA today - home of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium where a 'New England Celebrates Israel' day was taking place on stadium premises indoors at the very huge Dana Farber Field house. Of course I didn't go to really do the Celebrate Israel thing but rather to be part of a very well organized counter demonstration to remember the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe). The plan was for people to wear black t-shirts under their shirts - we were each given 81/2 by 11 stick on sheets printed with the name in Arabic and English of a Palestinian village destroyed in 1948 and the number of people who lived in that village. You all know that 531 villages were destroyed and/or occupied then. There were about 50 of us and the planning for this, which was in the works for 4 months, was very impressive.
All details had been covered, press, security, contingency plans, back up, etc. We had a location to meet at before the event to go over details and get the stick ons. Two women carried large banners in under their skirts. At a command, once everyone that could get in was inside, the two women would take out the banners, 14 others would help hold them up and the rest of us would take off our outer shits to reveal the stick ons. Of course we were all aware of the potential for confrontation with the thousands of pro Zionists who would be attending he event but we hoped to avoid anything like that. There was heavy security at the stadium. State Police and a private security group in black overcoats
looking very ominous. You would have to show picture ID to get in. After our initial meeting I decided to drive to the stadium with 3 of the organizers and leave my truck which has all my radical bumper stickers and would have been a dead give away that I was not really a Zionist.
We four in the car I was in, got busted anyway. Somehow they knew who we were or at least that we weren't there to "celebrate" Israel. As we were in the long line of cars waiting to get in one of
those private security guys along with some state police pulled us out of the line off to the side and started questioning us. They took our IDs and after about 15 minutes of us sitting in the car with a number of cops around us, they gave us printed sheets with our names on it saying we were not welcome and if we come back to Gillette Stadium we will be arrested for trespassing. The private security guy, who was nastier than the cops (the cops were relatively polite - but firm) before we left tried to take our pictures but we got a better shot of him than he did of us. Anyway, a few other people didn't make it in but some 40 did and the event went off well. Actually the police inside protected the demonstrators until they were told to leave - about 5 solid minutes with banners and t-shirts unfurled. Tarak