Many places around the world have been standing with the people of Gaza.  EPF PIN member Harry Gunkel of San Antonio TX tells us about the rally there on 13 April.

4 PM, April 13, 2018 in San Antonio. Midnight in Gaza where most of those demonstrating in the Great March of Return have gone home, while hundreds of them have gone to hospitals because of injuries from the Israeli military, and a few are being prepared for burial, martyrs who will join the dozens of others who have gone before. 

In San Antonio we’re gathering for a rally and vigil at Alamo Plaza to stand up and witness for brothers and sisters in Gaza, and to try to awake awareness of this latest chapter of the genocide of the Palestinian people. Our group is a remarkable gathering who represent the manifold pathways toward justice: teenagers and seniors; T-shirts and hijabs; an American who quit his job in the financial sector to start a permaculture farm in Nicaragua; a scion of a conservative Texas first family; representatives of Students for Justice in Palestine, San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, Democratic Socialists of America, Jewish Voice for Peace, Our Democracy; a family from Ramallah visiting here. 

In mid-April in San Antonio there is bright sunshine and it’s already quite warm. It’s dark at the eastern edge of Gaza – don’t call it a border, it’s not, it’s another apartheid barrier illegally put down against the indigenous people of the land that Israel has stolen. These days, the Israeli military make only desultory attempts to justify their actions – use of poisonous gases and snipers who shoot to kill or maim with outlawed exploding bullets. But you cannot justify injustice; the mission is to kill Palestinians, the evolving legacy of the European colonialists who came to take the land and extinguish the indigenous inhabitants. 

At our rally in San Antonio, speakers remind us that here where we stand, other European colonialists hundreds of years earlier stole land from the indigenous people. Killed some, imprisoned others, took away their languages and cultures and religions. The Alamo behind us is known as “The Shrine of Texas Liberty”, but we know it is a shrine to colonial conquest. 150 miles from here, 3 hours if we get in our cars and drive, is another demarcation line where armed forces are also ready to shoot and criminalize people who seek freedom and better lives. Gaza is not so far from San Antonio after all.

On Alamo Plaza, we hold signs and photos of Gaza’s most recent martyrs. We chant: “From Palestine to the Rio Grande, No More Walls on Stolen Land!” “Gaza! Gaza! Will Be Free!”. Hundreds of tourists and downtown workers stroll and wander nearby, some pause to look and listen, a few offer thumbs-up or Good Job. Police gather; are they here to protect us, or to protect from us? Or to be sure our dissenting voices don’t get too loud or go too far? 

Later, we sit with lighted candles and remember our brothers and sisters so far away in the dark. We share poems by Mohammad Moussa (“For life itself, we march”) and Remi Kenazi. We cry. 

Did our rally change US policy in Israel and Palestine? No. Did some people who saw and heard us learn something, or find courage to step out, or seek to know more? Possibly. Did those of there find succor and encouragement, new vigor to continue the struggle, new friends for consolation and solidarity? Certainly.

Gaza! Gaza! Will Be Free!