[yshavurah] Fw: from JAT
- From: "Len Kramer" <lenkramer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <yshavurah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 21:34:44 -0400
All - given others are doing this, I thought I'd contribute...
Len
SCOPE: Global Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002
From: Avraham SOFFER
I admit it: The only reason I attended the April 20
pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, D.C., was to cause
trouble. Put 50,000 fundamentalist Muslims, angry
Arab-Americans, '60s-liberal leftovers and tie-dyed,
20-something neo-hippies in the same place, and the
comedy
potential is too great to pass up. So on Saturday
morning, I
parked my car a safe distance away and strolled toward
the
Washington Monument. The first thing I noticed was that I
had been the victim of false advertising. This was not a
"pro-Palestine" rally. It was a "Down with Israel and
George
Bush" rally.
While the throng was thick with banners, very few of them
mentioned the Palestine Authority and none - not one
that I
saw - mentioned the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.
Instead, most of the messages were condemnations of
Israel
and Ariel Sharon. One popular motif was mixing the
Swastika
and the Star of David, a gruesome image for anyone but
the
most ardent Holocaust denier. And just to make sure the
point wasn't missed, the crowd repeatedly
chanted, "Sharon
and Hitler are the same, the only difference is their
name."
There was no doubt as to what the crowd was against: the
"racist" nation of Israel and the evil government of
America
and its terrorist leader, George W. Bush. But what were
these people for? Did they really support the creation
of a
new Arab Muslim nation led by Arafat?
To find out, I waded into the crowd with my minidisk
recorder and started asking questions.
To Amanda from Atlanta in the "Free Speech, Free Media"
T-shirt, I posed the question: "Which
nongovernment-controlled Arab newspaper is your
favorite?"
When she couldn't answer, I pointed out that there aren't
any nongovernment-controlled newspapers in the Arab
Muslim
world.
"Are you comfortable supporting the cause of a group of
people who don't believe in either free speech or a free
press?"
"I, uh, really, uh, that's a good question," was the best
she could do.
Then I asked the gay-rights advocate with the "From
Stonewall To Palestine: People Fight Back"
sign: "Doesn't it
bother you that virtually all Arab Muslim governments
outlaw
homosexuality? That most of the people in this crowd
think
you should be stoned to death?"
"I hadn't really thought about it," he replied.
And of every woman I met protesting on behalf of a new,
Arafat-led nation, I asked: "Do you really want to see
yet
another Arab Muslim nation where women have few if any
political rights (Kuwait), are lashed for committing
adultery (United Arab Emirates) or are the victims of
female
genital mutilation (Saudi Arabia)?"
Vanessa, a liberal feminist from Michigan, answered this
way: "That's their thing, and I disbelieve [sic] in that,
but it's not just there. Women everywhere are captized
[sic]." She went on to tell me that all Americans are
"captized" too, but she wasn't exactly sure by whom.
When I asked Amina and Amira, two female Arab students
from
George Washington University, they had a novel response:
They refused to acknowledge that any Arab Muslim nations
restrict women's rights. I pointed out the obvious case
of
Saudi Arabia - where women cannot leave their homes
without
permission and can be beaten for showing too much skin in
public. They all but laughed at me: "Saudi Arabia does
not
have a Muslim government," Amira told me.
So the Saudis are, what - Lutherans?
As I worked the crowd, I was tailed by a group of Arab
gentlemen who listened in on several conversations before
finally confronting me: "Why are you asking these
questions?"
I told them I wanted to know if the people waving their
"free speech/free press/free love/free Mumia" signs
understood that they were at a rally supporting yet
another
oppressive, theocratic, dictatorial regime.
"That's none of our business," said Khalid, a Moroccan
living in Massachusetts. "All I want is for the
Palestinians
to be free. This is all about freedom." Before I could
crack, "Then they should move to Israel, the only place
in
the Mideast where Palestinians can vote," he interrupted
again.
"You know what, America's government isn't the best
government in the world. Do you like everything your
government does?"
"Of course I don't always like my government," I told
him.
"But unlike Arafat, when I say so, my American government
doesn't throw me in jail or kill me. And my
government-approved Imam doesn't write editorials for
government-run newspapers urging Muslims to kill Jews."
"That's not killing Jewish people," Khalid said. "It's
liberating Palestinians."
"So, that's what you call it!" I replied.
The conversation was over. I moved on to another
strategy. I
put down my recorder and picked up a large, hand-made
sign.
It read: "HEROES FOR PEACE: Gandhi, MLK, Arafat."
It was, I thought, the perfect sign. It was parodying the
Palestinian position, but without the obviousness of,
say,
"Suicide Bombers for Peace," a sign that might have
earned
me a bloody nose.
I took my insult to Dr. King and the nonviolence
movement,
and I marched into the heart of the crowd. I waved it, I
shook it, I covered the rally from front to back. I
pointed
it at black ministers in the crowd and watched them read
it.
I stood next to "Down with Israel" signs and held it
high.
And I waited.
When would someone challenge this obnoxious argument?
After
half an hour, someone finally spoke up. A plump, middle-
aged
liberal with her "Visualize World Peace" button read my
sign, then looked up at me and smiled. "God bless you,"
she
said.
No, I thought as I walked dejectedly back to my car, God
help us. We're gonna need it.
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