Minnesota says no to Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza
St. Paul, MN – 100 solidarity activists rallied at the October 27 weekly Friday WAMM (Women Against Military Madness) bannering to stand with the people of Palestine. They joined millions around the world who continue to march against this slaughter on a daily basis.
Demonstrators were outraged by Israel’s continued brutal and genocidal bombing of Gaza, Israel’s impending ground invasion of Gaza, the shutting down of electricity and the internet, and the refusal of any meaningful humanitarian aid resulting in 7000 martyred Gazans, with the numbers increasing steeply minute by minute.
Demonstrators were particularity enraged by the rabid support and funding of this war by officials ranging President Biden to Representative Betty McCullom, to Governor Tim Walz to the Edina high school and middle school principals.
Once again motorists showed their agreement to the messages of “Let Gaza live” and “End U.S. aid to Israel” by honking nonstop.
The program included speakers from WAMM, the Anti-War Committee, and Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota. A powerful and moving moment occurred when a college student from Gaza read a poem describing what his heroic people are going through once again.
Drake Myers from the Anti-War Committee stated, “I work with elementary school children, and in the past weeks I have seen, even without wanting to seek the footage out, videos of shell-shocked children, shaking with wide distant eyes. My coworker has too, and we were commiserating about how awful it is to be here, while our tax money and our government is backing the murder of kids that look just like the kids we work so hard with every day.”
Myers continued, “As public employees, our retirement pensions are invested by Walz and Ellison and the State Board of Investments in this exact violence and we don’t really get any say in that. But we’re fighting back and we’ll have a rally and be at the next State Board of Investments meeting in November at the capitol, so this will be a showdown. Now or never is the time to divest from apartheid Israel.” Myers was arrested at Representative Betty McCollom’s office on October 25.
Emily Chu from SDS, who joined the walkout of 300 students at the U of M on Wednesday along with hundreds of campuses across the country, also spoke at the rally, stating, “At this walkout, we voiced our demands to the government to cease all military aid to Israel, call for a ceasefire, and denounce the ongoing occupation of Palestine. We also called on the University of Minnesota to cut all ties with the Israeli government and military. As a CSE [College of Science and Engineering] student, I find the welcoming of recruiters for arms and military contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, who develop and supply the bombs and weapons being deployed onto innocent civilians, onto our campus to be deplorable.”
The next major demonstration in the Twin Cities will be November 1 when President Biden comes to town. Thousands are expected. WAMM’s bannering will continue every Friday until Palestine is free.