And a downtown anti-war demo too –
This just in from pro-Palestinian activists, forwarded by NC Peace Action –
Protesters against Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon hope to take advantage of the big crowd headed into downtown Raleigh tomorrow night. I’ll paste in their email below as fyi. The rhetoric of it rubs me the wrong way, to the point that I nearly tossed it in the trash. But it is instructive to read it and think through the anger that’s boiling up in the Middle East. If things keep going the way they are, we may never get to global warming. I will say, I think Israel’s attempt to blast Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon — however righteous the Israelis think it is — will surely fail, and in fact will only result in more militants in the region who are more dangerous to Israel’s existence. (Kind of like our Iraq invasion.) And I think it’s way past time for the U.S. to get behind a cease-fire and start making it happen. Demo Against US-Israel Terror and War Crimes
This Saturday , July 29 , Raleigh , 5:30 PMPlanning meeting Friday night ; see below.Saturday, July 29th, 5:30pm
State Capital Bldg, Downtown RaleighWith the full backing of the U.S. government, Israel continues to unleash its U.S. funded military might on the civilian and refugee populations of Lebanon and Palestine. Israel has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over half a million people, while intentionally targeting the infrastructure of Lebanon and Gaza with missiles and bombs. With their propaganda, the U.S. and Israel also demonize Iran and Syria, in a bloodthirsty attempt to expand their war crimes further throughout the region. All the while the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq. The onslaught against the Arab world expands and continues, and we stand up to say no more!Meanwhile, the City of Raleigh is celebrating the opening of its new Fayeteville Street mall multi-million dollar project. There will be hoards of people and media downtown that we will not let forget about the war crimes of US imperialism in the Middle East.
If you have time, stop by the ACRe Space at 822 Chamberlain St in Raleigh on Friday at 7pm to help plan the demo and to make signs.
Stop the War on Lebanon and Palestine!!
Freedom for All Arab Political Prisoners in Zionist and U.S. Jails!!
End US Aid to Israel Now!!
The People of Palestine Have the Right to Return!Forwarded by N. C. PEACE ACTION!
Free Palestine!
Support Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition is the largest network of grassroots activists dedicated to Palestinian human rights.
http://al-awda.org
July 28th, 2006 09:59
A protest? Now Raleigh must really be a big city!
July 28th, 2006 10:12
Well, yes. Getting too big for a part-time, $15K a year mayor (& $10K Council), probably.
And at the risk of digressing from the subject of hand — which is a really awful set of Middle East wars — here’s more evidence of our maturity, in a note about the Crape Myrtle Festival, which is organized annually by the GLBT community as an HIV/AIDS fundraiser:
July 28 - “Neon Party” The CC, Hargett St. , Raleigh
Special guest: TAJMA HALL from Chicago
Music and special show from the 80’s
Come dressed in your 80’s attire!
11 p.m. $10 admission
July 29 - 26th Annual CMF Gala
Featured guest: RuPaul
NC Museum of Natural Science
7 - 11 p.m. $35 in advance/$45 at the door
July 28th, 2006 12:45
M’kay, so this kinda bugs me about protest culture. You wanna protest the bombings of civilian targets in Lebanon by Israel? Excellent. Awful, illegal, totally unjustified response. And I realize that this is the “Right of Return” coalition. But as someone who is incensed by Israel’s military actions but also skeptical about a “right of return” - I don’t think I’m alone in finding this to be exploitive of the former not for its own sake, but in service of the latter. And that’s too bad. As much as everything is linked in the Middle East, everything is also complicated, and I think linking opposition with Israeli military action in this context to the “right of return” (as well as a whole host of other things) is pretty detrimental.
That is, if their goal actually were to put pressure on the US to lean on Israel to stop the bombings. Which doesn’t seem likely.