Anti-Zionists Protest "Israel Celebration Day"

On June 6, 2004, protesters gathered at the PacBell Ballpark in San Francisco to express their outrage at Israel’s continued ethnic cleansing and genocide of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people and demand an end to U.S. support of such a country.

One of the highlights was seeing the plane that some of us had paid for flying overhead with the message: “Israel: 56 years of ethnic cleansing and genocide”! That was like out of a dream.

ADC (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee http://www.adc.org ) headed the main protest, with president Palestinian-American Jess Ghannam in attendance. Palestinian rights activist Tawfiq Haddid gave a rousing speech.

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism http://www.internationalanswer.org) was also present, including Richard Becker, one of the co-founders.

SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax Aid to Israel Now) staged some street theatre, including a big cardboard “Apartheid Wall”. (http://www.sustaincampaign.org).

There were also many other groups represented, as well as individuals not affiliated with any particular group, who also wished to express their outrage against apartheid Israel with big banners and signs.

One group there that was not an “official” part of the Justice for Palestine Coaltion was Americans for Justice in Palestine-Israel, founded by Wendy Campbell, who was in attendance wearing a white kaffiyeh that she had brought back from her recent trip to Syria.

Americans for Justice in Palestine-Israel (americansforjustice [at] earthlink.net) believe in the secular democratic one-state solution of Palestine-Israel (http://www.one-democratic-state,org ) where there will be completely equal rights, liberty and justice for all, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. They also support the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their ancestral homeland of Palestine-Israel, as it is their inalienable right according to UN Resolutions, International Law and world opinion. Finally, Americans for Justice in Palestine-Israel believe that Zionism is a racist ideology and must be completely delegitimized and marginalized. Zionism has always manifested itself in ethnic cleansing, apartheid and general persecution of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian people. For more information on the “Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict” please go to http://www.cactus48.com. Americans for Justice in Palestine-Israel believe that Israel must be pressured to transform from a Jewish supremacist state into a true secular democracy with completely equal rights for all regardless of ethnicity, race, religion or gender and believes that this can be accomplished along the lines that apartheid was ended in South Africa. For more information, please visit http://www.exposingisraeliapartheid.com.

While most of the other groups herded into a far corner of the sidewalk at Townsend and Third in front of the Willie Mays statue, Americans for Justice in Palestine-Israel and fellow anti-zionist colleagues-in-solidarity wanted to spread out and be closer to the Zionist attendees to confront them as they entered the stadium. We shouted “Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not lie!” and “Shame, shame on Israel!”

We were discouraged from doing so by some others from some of the other groups, whose focus seemed to be more on just “end the occupation”, however as Americans, we feel it is our right to express our outrage and ideas in our own manner as we ourselves see fit. Some even tried to get the police to get us to leave! However the police supported our right to express ourselves as we pleased. Thank God, this is still America, although it certainly needs to be improved, especially with regards to our U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East and our pro-Israel media needs affirmative action.

We certainly saw no reason not to directly confront the Zionist attendees to make them feel uncomfortable about supporting apartheid, genocidal Israel as they walked by. Many other protesters started to join us much to the consternation of one or two of the organizers who seemed to be overly concerned about offending the Zionists. This struck some of us as very strange, not to mention fascistic, and perhaps even hypocritical and subversive to the cause of equality for all.

Some of the other protesters seem to support the idea of the two-state solution, which many of us believe is official apartheid. If segregation and apartheid were not good in the U.S. and in South Africa, then it’s not good in Israel-Palestine. By the way, veteran advocate for Palestinian rights Jeffrey Blankfort and his activist sister Jan joined our area of the demonstration. Jeffrey Blankfort even verbally defended Wendy Campbell when a Zionist attempted to slur her as a “holocaust denier”.

Those who joined us also chanted “Israel is a racist state! Nothing here to celebrate!” and other such heartfelt sentiments.

It finally got to a point where the entire demonstration seemed to relocate over to our area, and then there was a general noisy but manageable confrontation between many of the anti-zionist demonstrators and the Zionist attendees.

At about 3 pm in the afternoon, there was an announcement by the police that there was a mysterious backpack on the street corner so all the protesters had to leave. We suspect this was just a ploy by the Zionists to get us to leave. It was OK, because many of us were leaving anyway, having been there since about 11:30 in the morning. We felt our mission was accomplished: to let Zionists know that we want all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel to stop NOW!