Minneapolis, MN – On August 9, around 100 Palestine solidarity and anti-war activists packed the sidewalk outside Senator Amy Klobuchar’s downtown office to demand immediate action to end U.S. aid to Israel. The action was called on an emergency basis after several days of Israeli military attacks on Gaza as well as ongoing raids on the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.

This latest round of Zionist violence began on August 5 when Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) bombed a residential building in Gaza to assassinate a resistance leader. The unprovoked attack reportedly killed ten people, including a five-year-old child and several civilians, and was followed by sustained IOF bombardment of the besieged enclave for days. In total, the attacks on Gaza killed 48 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 17 children. Several additional Palestinian were killed by the IOF in the following days amid raids and arrests in the West Bank.

The Minneapolis protest was initiated by the Anti-War Committee (AWC) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and quickly endorsed by more groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations – Minnesota, Youth for Palestine MN, Women Against Military Madness, and the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition.

“Since 2009, how many massacres have we had in Gaza? Countless,” said Taher Herzallah of AMP. “How many children did we lose? How many generations did we lose? How many people have become homeless or permanently wounded and injured?”

“The people of Gaza will not let anybody break them,” he continued. “They will not let a bombardment, or the Israeli government, or Zionism, or anything that happens, break them and break their will to live.”

Activists slammed Senator Klobuchar for her hawkish record, including strong support for U.S. aid to Israel, but the AWC’s Andrew Josefchak explained, “Even if people like Klobuchar are against us, we are still making gains.”

“Palestine only makes the news when Israel bombs Gaza, but the fight continues all the time. There are victories all the time, not only in the rising tide of heroic resistance fighting in the West Bank, but here too,” said Josefchak, citing recent divestment announcements by U.S. corporations like Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury after being pressured by solidarity activists.

Organizers announced the next local Palestine solidarity action, a protest demanding that the Minnesota State Board of Investment divest its millions in public pension funds from Israeli companies like weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. That action will take place Tuesday, August 23, at the Governor’s Mansion in Saint Paul (1006 Summit Ave), at 5 p.m.

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Minneapolis, MN – 40 people marked the anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9 at 29th and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis. April marks the 74th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, in the Palestinian village where in 1948 100 men, women and children were systematically murdered by Israeli commandos. Every year Palestinians across the world mark Deir Yassin and demand the right to return to their homeland. The rally featured speakers from Veterans for Peace, Northfielders for Palestine/Israel, Middle East Peace Now, American Muslims for Palestine, and the MN Anti-War Committee.

After the rally protesters marched to the local Deir Yassin memorial on the Midtown Greenway bike and walking trail where activists with Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 did a bell ringing ceremony.

Autumn Lake, a member of the Anti-War Committee, gave a rousing speech to end the protest, “The legacy of the Deir Yassin massacre is one of continued repression and violence against the people of Palestine, backed and funded by the most powerful country in the world. However, there is another legacy that I want to draw attention to. It is a legacy of resistance. The villagers of Deir Yassin put up a valiant resistance to the militias terrorizing their home, and Palestinians to this day mount valiant resistance both in and outside of Palestine.”

Lake concluded, “Likewise, we in the Anti-War Committee and the anti-war movement more broadly, are proud to share in that legacy of resistance. We are going to keep taking the streets. We’re going to keep taking a stand against the U.S.’s continued political and economic support of a devastatingly brutal apartheid state. We’re going to keep resisting and continue to fight for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. The movement will not stop until all of Palestine is free, from the river to the sea!”

The protest was co-sponsored by Veterans for Peace and the MN Anti-War Committee.

#MinneapolisMN #Palestine #VeteransForPeace #deirYassin #MNAntiWarCommittee #AmericanMuslimsForPalestineMinnesotaAMPMN #MiddleEast

Columbia Heights, MN – Just outside city limits from Northeast Minneapolis, Central Avenue was awash with Palestine flags during Friday rush hour as Palestinian-Americans and solidarity activists commemorated Al-Nakba. Nakba Day, held each year on May 15, remembers the 1948 ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians from their national homeland by Zionist settlers. Around 60 cars and dozens of families drove in a long caravan through the heavily Arab-American neighborhood, with chants of “From the river to the sea…” echoing for blocks. The protest was one of many actions that happened internationally.

The event was organized by the Anti-War Committee (AWC) and American Muslims for Palestine-Minnesota (AMP-MN), and endorsed by Jewish Voice for Peace-Twin Cities, Women Against Military Madness, and the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition. Demands included the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants; an end to U.S. aid to Israel, and a free Palestine.

Drivers and pedestrians along the busy commercial strip honked horns and flashed victory signs in solidarity with the car rally. Palestinian-Americans residing in the northern Twin Cities suburbs have held Nakba Day rallies in various forms for years.

“When you’re Palestinian, you’re fighting for Palestine from the minute you’re born,” said Mariam El-Khatib of AMP-MN in a speech as cars gathered for the rally. “Al Nakba happened 72 years ago but we live the Nakba every single day as Palestinians in the West Bank, as Palestinians in Gaza, as Palestinians in the diaspora like myself and many of the Palestinians here today.”

“There’s 72 years of Nakba but there’s also 72 years of resilience,” El-Khatib continued. “We’re going to continue to fight and we’re going to continue to resist until Palestine is free.”

Christine Hauschildt of the AWC spoke about the situation in Palestine in relation to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, explaining, “We are living in a time where most people are experiencing restrictions and isolation in order to protect our communities against the spread of COVID-19. Many of us have never felt restrictions to our movement and what we have access to, which is something the Palestinian people have suffered through for 72 years without the comforting knowledge of some kind of return to normal or living a life of safety and freedom.”

“For Palestinians, COVID-19 poses a greater threat to their health and safety than before,” she said. “Palestinians had an extremely under-resourced health system with many people unable to access adequate health care. Now that the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza have seen their first cases of COVID-19, their health systems are challenged with an even greater burden.”

About a dozen reactionaries calling themselves 3% United Patriots of Minnesota attempted to provoke the demonstrators with a counter-protest, calling Palestinian people “cockroaches,” “terrorists” and “jihadis.” The group also had recently participated in so-called ‘Liberate Minnesota’ protests against a scientific approach to the state’s pandemic response. At the Nakba Day rally, they waved Israeli flags and loudly applauded President Trump while condemning as “cowardly” the wearing of pandemic face masks. They attempted their own car caravan but after circling the parking lot with only seven cars they retreated instead to holding flags at the corner away from the parking lot.

“It’s no surprise that the same people who reject basic public health measures to control a pandemic are also bigoted supporters of a racist apartheid state like Israel,” Kent Mori of the AWC told Fight Back!. “Oppressors everywhere see the pandemic as an opportunity to go on the offensive. We see this in Palestine where Israel is poised to expand its territorial claims in the West Bank, and we see this in Minnesota where these racists thought they could drive us off the streets. On Nakba Day we showed them they’re wrong.”

#ColumbiaHeightsMN #AntiwarMovement #OppressedNationalities #Palestine #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles #AntiWarCommittee #alNakba #AmericanMuslimsForPalestineMinnesotaAMPMN