Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was scheduled to speak at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy about “peace and prosperity” in the Middle East. However, on Oct. 15, over 200 community members, students and Palestine solidarity activists gathered outside of the event, decrying the university for hosting the notorious war criminal. Meanwhile, around 30 activists inside, mainly from Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, DePaul University, Loyola University and Northwestern University, disrupted Olmert's speech every 20 minutes for two and a half hours.

When the University of Chicago announced the event, Palestinian community groups around Chicago called in to demand that the lecture be cancelled. When this fell on deaf ears, the American Muslims for Palestine and the United States Palestine Community Network sent out a call to mobilize for a big protest. These organizations were joined by the aforementioned student groups and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee as well as solidarity organizations including the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the International Solidarity Movement, the Palestine Solidarity Group, Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, and Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago, amongst others.

The protesters inside jeered and yelled at Olmert for his role in the siege on Gaza earlier this year, which killed more than 1400, and the illegal invasion of Lebanon in 2006, which killed over 1200. They condemned the University of Chicago and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who sponsored the speech, for hosting a man who viciously bombed the University of Gaza and other schools. Some unfurled a banner that read “Goldstone” in English and Hebrew, referring to the United Nations report that found Olmert in violation of international law, making him a war criminal, and “possibly [guilty] of crimes against humanity.”

In the meantime, the protesters outside chanted loud enough for Olmert and the lecture attendees to hear. Slogans such as “Hey Olmert, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!”, “Free Palestine!”, “End Israeli apartheid!” and “End U.S. Aid to Israel!” rang through the air as activists weathered the freezing rain.

“This was the first time the community came out so strongly to the University of Chicago, which is really significant. The event was extremely successful,” said Ream Qato, one of the organizers of the disruption of Olmert's address. “He didn't give a speech. That was our goal – not to let him give any coherent thought. The only place he should be allowed to speak is in a courtroom.”

The action was so significant that the Arab satellite powerhouse, Aljazeera, sent a camera crew to cover it and broadcast a report across the entire world, over a continuous loop, the next day. An Electronic Intifada video secretly taped inside the venue went viral and Palestinian community activists in San Francisco immediately contacted the Chicago organizers for ideas as to how to replicate the action when Olmert visits their city on Oct. 22. (As this article goes to press, reports from San Francisco state that over 20 people were arrested at the anti-Olmert protest on the Oct. 22.)

As protesters inside the event at the University of Chicago were escorted out of the building after each disruption, police officials took down their student identification. Shortly after the protest, the dean of the Harris School of Public Policy sent out an email to the student protesters, trying to intimidate them from showing dissent. Disciplinary action was not clear.

“Right now the university is trying to instill fear in the students,” said Qato. “Students shouldn't fear any ramifications, because they haven’t done anything wrong. They have a strong community supporting them.”

The Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the city, with the support of grass-roots Palestinian community organizations and solidarity groups, protested another pro-Zionist event a week later, when over 100 people formed an energetic picket line, chanting “Twenty-five grand a plate, helps to fund a racist state!” at a fundraising dinner for the Friends of the Israeli Defense [Occupation] Forces. University of Illinois at Chicago Students for Justice in Palestine came out in force once again, and these back-to-back actions are only the beginning of a rejuvenated Palestinian student movement in Chicago and beyond.

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PFLP: PA decision to postpone consideration of the Goldstone report is an unjustifiable betrayal

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine denounced the actions of the Palestinian Authority in requesting the postponement of consideration of the report of Judge Richard Goldstone on war crimes in Gaza at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, declaring that this act of betrayal will not be forgiven by the Palestinian people or by the Front. The PFLP said this is a defeated, unjustifiable action that works hand in hand with the US and the occupation and betrays the struggle of our people and all those who have supported that struggle.

A spokesperson for the PFLP said that any misleading justifications for this action, such as a lack of consensus at the UN, or an “adverse impact” on the so-called peace process, indicate only a starkly clear example of utter surrender and complicity with US and Israeli dictates and complete disregard for the blood, dignity and rights of the Palestinian people. The spokesperson continued by urging all national and Islamic forces to condemn this action and hold the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah accountable for this betrayal that serves the occupation and its plans.

Comrade Khalil Maqdesi, of the Information Office of the Front, said that national unity is impossible with such so-called leaders who act on the international level to implement US/Israeli plans against our people. He said that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, including its leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, have sold the blood of the Palestinian people to US imperialism and the fascist occupation state of Benjamin Netanyahu. He demanded that all honest and responsible forces within Fateh take action to hold these so-called leaders accountable for their betrayal of the Palestinian people.

Comrade Maqdesi noted that the Netanyahu regime had indicated publicly that it was demanding the PA drop this resolution at the Human Rights Council in exchange for the approval of new mobile telephone frequencies for Wataniya mobile telephone company, a new corporation supported by the Palestinian Investment Fund and many cronies and members of the Palestinian comprador class aligned with Abbas and Salam Fayyad. Comrade Maqdesi said that this action at the Human Rights Council reveals the nature of the enemies of our people – Israel and Zionism, U.S. imperialism, Arab reaction and the Palestinian comprador class, who sell the rights and interests and blood of our people for cell phone frequencies and lucrative contracts. He noted that this total submission and collaboration with US/Israeli interests in exchange for financial benefit for a very few wealthy Palestinians is the true meaning of the “economic peace” propounded by Fayyad.

Furthermore, Comrade Maqdesi noted that the Front maintained its analysis of the Goldstone report, that it presented a notable opportunity to bring occupation officials to justice in international courts for its ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people – which continue daily with the devastating siege. He criticized the report for its failure to differentiate between the resistance and the occupier, saying that any attempts to criminalize the resistance to the brutal occupation are utterly rejected by the Palestinian people, and that the resistance forces of our national liberation movement engaged in heroic operations during the Gaza war against the occupation state that had targeted our people with the full range of its military arsenal.

However, Comrade Maqdesi said, the failure of the Human Rights Council to take up the report and its recommendations at this meeting shows complete disregard for the numerous and heavily detailed occupation crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority's active participation in this denial of justice reveals whose side it is taking in the Palestinian people's confrontation with the occupation – the side of the occupation state, continuing along the path of security cooperation, “peace process”, and repression of the resistance.

Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, denounced the actions of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in postponing consideration of the report of Judge Richard Goldstone on the commission of war crimes during the occupation aggression in Gaza as a shameful, reckless insult to the struggles and sacrifices of the Palestinian people and the blood of over 1400 martyrs and 5000 injured in the genocidal war of aggression on Gaza. He added that the Palestinian Authority will be held accountable by the Palestinian people and the Popular Front for this heinous act of betrayal.

Comrade Mizher said in an interview on Al-Quds television on October 3, 2009 that this action shows and confirms that the Palestinian Authority has moved beyond submission to US and Israeli dictates into full participation in US/Israeli actions against the Palestinian people.

He said that there had been a great opportunity at this meeting of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in Geneva to bring war criminals to justice before the law, particularly that this resolution formed a clear condemnation of the occupation state and the conditions were ripe to take action around such a decision, bringing the leaders of the occupation who committed the most heinous crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza to justice in international courts.

He said further that the PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front and the People's Party met today, October 3, in Gaza City, denouncing this defeatist attitude, saying it reflects the utter failure and lack of any political will on the part of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to act in the interests of the Palestinian people. He also said that the PFLP and the Palestinian people will punish those who are responsible for this decision and hold them accountable for their actions. He concluded by denouncing their reliance on the racist Netanyahu regime and their strategic partners, the US empire, saying that they will never recognize the national rights of the Palestinian people unless they are forced to do so.

Comrade Hussein al-Jamal, speaking with the Voice of the People radio station, said that this action confirms the existence of secret negotiations between the Zionist occupier and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. He said further that this exposes the PA as completely untrustworthy to the Palestinian people and the national and Islamic factions. He called upon the Palestine Liberation Organization and its Executive Committee to investigate the situation and act in order to prevent another Oslo-like catastrophe, that also surfaced as an end result of secret negotiations that placed Palestinian national rights in the hands of those who would give away our rights to the occupation.

#Palestine #Gaza #PopularFrontForTheLiberationOfPalestine #PFLP #PalestinianAuthority #WarCrimes #UNHumanRightsCouncil #GoldstoneReport #MiddleEast