Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century

The Marches of April 20, 2002

20 The Marches of April 20, 2002 April 29, 2002 Just over a week ago we gathered at San Francisco’s Dolores Park at 11:00 A.M. By noon, the park was a sea of people and we began our march to the Civic Center in that beautiful city. Literally hundreds of organizations were present. But what made this march one of historic significance? It was conducted simultaneously with a march three times its size taking place in Washington, D.C. People whose sole source of information is the commercial media would not be aware that the current peace movement is even larger than the movement during the Vietnam War. Why? Because the commercial media has chosen to ignore much of the current peace movement. In Los Angeles for example, a gathering of 5,000 people for peace was judged as a non-happening. Only those who were passing on the street . . . or those in the march itself or those who listen to Pacifica might know the depth of this movement . . . But this is not all . . . The current peace movement is to be found in every community in the United States . . . it is now to be found in every religious body as well. The conspiracy of silence can go on no longer. And there is something even more profound about the historic nature of the San Francisco and Washington marches. Aside from the issue relating to America’s new policy of eternal war, these were the biggest demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people in U.S. history and a repudiation of the shameful legacy of silence. In the light of the oppression and summary arrest of people in the United States since September 11, 2001, it is truly striking that so many tens of thousands of Arab-American, South Asian and Muslim communities appeared in the United States in this period of warmongering frenzy and governmental suppression. They know that many of their colleagues are held without trial in U.S. prisons but they were there. These commu- 21 nities had been demonized as terrorists. Thousands have been illegally detained, tens of thousands have been visited by the FBI. These marches were historic, therefore, because the plight of the Palestinians has not been part of the mainstream peace movement in the United States. Back in 1967, the same movement that supported the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and opposed the war in Vietnam did not respond strongly to the seizure of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. Similarly, when a million people opposed nuclear weapons in New York City on June 12, 1982, there was no condemnation of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that had begun just a week before. Twenty-thousand Lebanese and Palestinian people eventually died during that invasion as the Israeli defense forces led by General Ariel Sharon drove Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Movement from Beirut. Yes, the marches in April in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. were historic for the above reason but there is even more. The Israeli peace movement is stronger than ever. Men and women in black, Palestinians and Israelis are marching together, not only in San Francisco and Washington, but in Tel Aviv. Yes, today Israelis and Palestinians are marching for peace at the very moment when tanks and helicopters are striking Hebron. International solidarity that knows of no borders continues to arrive in Palestine by way of Doctors Without Borders, Voices in the Wilderness and a host of people from around the globe. Israeli peace people bring food and medicine to suffering Palestinians at the very time that the internationals are bringing such aid to the people in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Israel’s singer of war songs, Yaffa Yarkoni, has refused to sing in the face of the oppression. The Israeli peace movement is saying exactly what we are saying in the United States. In a report today from Israel, the spokesperson said that “Jewish Israelis don’t know what is going on in the occupied territories,” and we can add that the people of the United States are similarly deprived. There is no vitality in the forces of oppression. This is not a fight between Israel and Palestine. If it were, there would not be so many people from both sides marching together. This is a fight for the human race, which is on the verge of destroying itself by ignorance, violence and vengeance. History is...