San Jose hosts Nora Barrows-Friedman from Electronic Intifada
San Jose, CA – On Saturday, July 12, 50 people gathered to hear Nora Barrows-Friedman speak at an event hosted by San Jose Against War. Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor for Electronic Intifada and co-host for the live show with the same name. She has been a reporter and broadcaster focusing on Palestine for more than 20 years and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine.
The main theme of the event centered on contextualizing the Axis of Resistance, which consists of forces in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, to better understand how these forces are fighting back against the U.S.-backed apartheid state of Israel.
The event began with a structured conversation between members of San Jose Against War and Vigil 4 Gaza and Barrows-Friedman, which was followed by a question and answer session with attendees.
Barrow-Friedman highlighted that the Houthi resistance forces in Yemen are one of the most moral forces in the region with their humanitarian intervention via an economic blockade of the Red Sea, saying, “You want the siege on ships to stop? Then lift the siege on Gaza. It’s that simple.”
She addressed the question of dispelling the lie that the Palestinian and other resistance forces are acting on behalf of the Iranian government, saying, “It is an orientalist, racist claim that belies the most basic facts that Palestinians are fighting on behalf of themselves, their children, their land and their inalienable right to exist.”
Addressing the role that Iran plays in the region and how becoming a nuclear power is a method to ward off U.S. intervention, Barrows-Friedman responded, “There has to be deterrence and unfortunately that’s nuclear deterrence. It is Iran’s right to develop whatever they need to develop to maintain a level of deterrence.”
Answering the question of how to respond to political repression of activists in the U.S. in reaction to the growing Palestine solidarity movement, Barrows-Friedman said, “They can’t arrest everybody. There is strength in numbers. We cannot let state repression intimidate us into silence when this is the time that we need to be the loudest.”