Boston protest: ‘Netanyahu is not welcome anywhere!’

Boston

Hundreds of pro-Palestine activists rallied on Jan. 20 at Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common, chanting, drumming and collecting aid for families in Gaza.  They listened to leaders of the Boston Coalition for Palestine, including the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Palestinian House of New England, North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) and Jewish Voice for Peace. 

All speakers made it crystal clear:  “Netanyahu is not welcome here, in D.C., on July 24 or anywhere!”  Additional demands of the protest were to end U.S. complicity in genocide and call for no more tax dollars for occupation.

Jean-Luc Pierite, a beloved Indigenous leader of NAICOB and the movement shared with the crowd: “We are on lands that are sacred to the Wampanoag, the Nipmuc, the Abenaki and the Massachusett; this is also home to many Indigenous peoples that have come here to live far away from their own homelands. As we continue in the urban Indian community, we affirm one truth: All Indigenous peoples have a right to return back to their original homelands!

“In acknowledging the land, we make a promise to all our host tribes to be good guests. We make a promise to support every effort by the tribes to repatriate land, natural resources and ancestral resources back to the original peoples! In being good guests, sometimes we have to keep the bad guests out. We need to unroll that unwelcome mat for a war criminal who is not welcome. Nor will we commit another nickel or dime for Netanyahu’s war crimes!”

‘From Turtle Island to Palestine: Resistance is justified!’

Pierite explained: “Indigenous peoples’ genocide has always been present within our lives. We are talking about stolen generations of youth lost to residential and boarding schools, our stolen sisters and two-spirit relatives lost to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples and the ecological destruction and poisoning of our air, water and land. The state of our world is so fragile it comes down to the whims and egos of aging oligarchs, settler colonists and so-called leaders leading this nation in bad faith. No more! We need to shut it down! From Turtle Island to Palestine, resistance is justified! When people are occupied, resistance is justified!”

Ahmad Kawash, a decades-long leader of the Palestinian House of New England urged everyone to keep organizing and resisting: “In Gaza people wake up hungry, thirsty and scared. It’s the same in the villages of south Lebanon; people wake up with destruction from the Zionist regime. We have to keep going and never, ever stop until all these atrocities and massacres end. These massacres have been happening since 1948 with unlimited U.S. support. Since October 7, there have been more than 128,000 martyrs and injured, most of them children and women.”

Kawash stressed: “Netanyahu continues these crimes ignoring the Security Council and so-called ‘court of justice.’ None of these crimes could have occurred without the blessing of the U.S., Britain and the so-called free world. I call them the  ‘hypocritical world.’  Netanyahu chose the path of bloodshed just like Hitler did during World War II. It’s time to end this war and bring humanitarian aid to Gazans.”  

‘Gazans did not live silent’

At the end of his speech, Kawash told a moving story about “the way Gazans are. Tell them we did not live silent. We lit up the skies. We laughed and took care of each other. Tell them, we were broken, but we did not live silent. We reached the impossible, and it was impossible. If I die, tell them we did not live silent. We sang, we talked, we learned and we danced.  

“We prayed for each other, we cried and held each other. We resisted and resisted.  But tell them we did not live silent. We told stories at night. We woke at dawn and we ran for our lives and swam for our lives. We leaned on each other and fed each other. We bled and we stitched each other up. We risked it all and never gave up. ‘Til the last breath, we did not live silent, and we died free.’”

A PYM youth leader gave a rousing salute to the heroic resistance forces supported worldwide by the workers and oppressed: “Glory to our martyrs, glory to our prisoners in the Zionist prisons, and long live the Palestinian resistance! We stand here to affirm that as the resistance in Gaza, in Palestine and the Axis of Resistance is freeing us and freeing our lands, we are accountable to the people and communities in Gaza to fight Zionism in the imperial core through direct action, rallies, disruptions and other tactics. We are also accountable to support their survival under bombs that are made by the U.S.” 

Information was shared about how to send urgent donations to agencies and families on the ground in Gaza.  

‘No more U.S. bombs!’

Chants of “No more bombs,” “USA: What do you say, how many bombs did you drop today?” and “Israel: What do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” echoed across buildings in the downtown shopping area as protesters crowded into the streets. They were carrying banners, Palestinian flags and megaphones to amplify the chants’ messages of revolutionary determination to shut down the illegal, genocidal Israeli settler state — permanently!  

Their signs read: “Free Palestine,” “Palestinian Lives Matter,” “Boycott Israeli Apartheid BDS,” and “Do You Condemn the IDF?” Also, “Satanyahu Burn in Hell,” “Global Solidarity,” “From the River to the Sea,” “Let Gaza Live,” “Stop Arming Israel” and “Victory to Palestine! U.S. Out of Palestine!”

Many families joined the march, pushing their children in strollers while bystanders took leaflets and nodded support for the marchers’ messages of: ”We charge genocide!” and “Free, free Palestine!”

Build the struggle to ‘Free Palestine!’

A closing rally of fiery and strategy-focused speeches took place in the tourist district at ‘Change the Name’ Hall. (It was named for Peter Faneuil, a colonial-era merchant enslaver, but there is an ongoing struggle to rename it for a historical leader chosen by Black, Indigenous and nationally oppressed communities.)

At the rally, ideas were shared on how to keep uniting movement forces and shut down the bloody weapons industry. Also, discussions took place on how to strengthen the global anti-apartheid struggle to Free Palestine from here — in the imperialist epicenter on stolen Indigenous land.

Lea, a PYM leader, affirmed this with the chant: “What do we want? Land back!” When do we want it? Now!” A youth activist from the Party for Socialism and Liberation urged the crowd to purchase tickets and “Get on the Bus to D.C.” for the July 24 demonstration that will surround the Capitol and demand: “Arrest Netanyahu!”