Some of the Hundreds of Supporters of Palestine Rallied at City Hall This Afternoon.

Abby Fuller Manages a Table at the Rally Distributing Material and Selling T-Shirts in Support of Palestine.

Palestinian Land Was Stolen From Them in 1947 When the UN Agreement Disproportionately Split up the Land. Would You Settle for Less Than the Whole?

Signs With Relevant Messages Were Highly Visible in the Rally at City Hall.

Zaid Adasi (L) with a Friend Mohammed Baz, Both Men Were Born in Iraq.  The Two Friends are Each Showing a Photograph of Homeless American Children Who Deserve That “Unconditional” Funding Rather than Israel. Adasi is a Pre-Med Student at UNE.

Hundreds of supporters of Palestine rallied this afternoon at city hall in Portland. Speaker after speaker delivered messages condemning Israel for its oppression of Palestine in Gaza and urging the Biden administration to revise its policies toward Israel.

This rally and others across the country were precipitated by the recent  conflict between Palestine and Israel.  It appears that a truce between the two has taken hold and may last a while – thus averting what some feared could be an all out war.

Following the hour long rally, Zaid Adasi, who was born in Iraq, said he supports the blocking of unconditional funding by the US to Israel.  That amount is $3.8 billion. Adasi also said that Americans deserve this money they pay in taxes more than the “murderers” in Israel.  (See below right photo of Adasi).

Over the generations, misinformation has been repeated over and over without appropriate responses – until people come to believe them; sound familiar?

Debunking some of the misinformation in a position paper is Marc Lamont Hill, the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities and Solutions at Temple University and a CNN contributor.

First, these two have not been warring “forever” as is popularly articulated.  Rather, the conflict between the two people “can be dated to the end of the 19th century …..the beginning of the post-World War 1 British Mandatory period.”  Such a belief frames  the conflict inaccurately as “something unsolvable and intractable.”  Not so.

The professor asserts in his position paper this is not a religious conflict as it is often described.  “While majority Muslim, the Palestinian community has always included Muslims, Christian and Jews.” Another myth is that Palestinians keep turning down “fair deals.”  Succiently put, Hill argues that “Palestinians have never been offered a deal that allows for a truly independent, fertile, sufficient and secure state.”

Hence, Arabs are often portrayed as “violent, irrational and undeserving of Western democracy or diplomacy,” Hill points out.  While Biden has stated recently that Israel has a right to defend itself, the people of Palestine have a right to defend themselves against their occupiers.  “To ask them not to resist is to ask them to die quietly,” charged the professor and CNN contributor in his statement.

Another similar rally is scheduled for next Saturday, May 29, at 2:00 pm also.  Same place. The rain date is Sunday, May 30, 2021. Same place.