[News] Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago - Do It Again - SF Oct 22

[Anti-Imperialist News]

EI exclusive video: Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago
Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2009

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10834.shtml
Includes Video

Approximately 30 activists -- mainly students from area universities 
-- disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime 
Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of 
Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert's speech was 
disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists 
protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.

Protesters inside the hall read off the names of Palestinian children 
killed during Israel's assault on Gaza last winter. They shouted that 
it was unacceptable that the war crimes suspect be invited to speak 
at a Chicago university when his army destroyed a university in Gaza 
in January. They reminded the audience of the more than 1,400 
Palestinians killed during the Gaza attacks and the more than 1,200 
killed during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Both invasions 
happened during Olmert's premiership.

With interventions coming every few minutes throughout his 
appearance, Olmert had difficulty giving his speech and often 
appeared frustrated. At one point he appealed for "just five minutes" 
to speak without being interrupted.

The demonstration was mobilized last week after organizers learned of 
the lecture, paid for by a grant provided by Jordan's King Abdullah 
II. Within hours an appeal was issued, urging those concerned with 
Palestinian rights to call the university and demand that the lecture 
be canceled. The call was put out by major community organizations 
such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee 
(ADC)-Chicago, American Muslims for Palestine and the United States 
Palestine Community Network, as well as solidarity organizations 
al-Awda, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the 
International Solidarity Movement, the Palestine Solidarity 
Group-Chicago and area campus groups such as Students for Justice in 
Palestine chapters at DePaul University and the University of 
Illinois at Chicago, as well as the Arab Student Union at Moraine Valley.

The security presence at the lecture was severe with university 
police, the US Secret Service and Israeli security present -- many of 
them visibly armed -- with Israeli security checking in those who had 
registered in advance to attend the lecture. Video and photography 
was banned inside the hall and media were not allowed to cover the 
lecture. Despite these restrictions, activists managed to take video 
inside the hall and drop an eight-foot-long banner from the mezzanine 
that read "Goldstone" in both English and Hebrew, referring to the 
recently published UN report investigating violations of 
international law during the Gaza invasion. One activist was arrested 
and put in a headlock by a police officer, witnesses said, and 
released around midnight. Approximately 30 supporters waited for him 
at the police station while he was detained.

Towards the end of the lecture, Olmert put his hand over his brow and 
squinted to search out the source of the shout, "There's no 
discussion with a war criminal -- the only discussion you should be 
having is in court!" That call was made by Ream Qato, who graduated 
from the university in 2007, and added, "You belong in the Hague!" 
Qato told The Electronic Intifada that yesterday's protest "Set the 
stage for University of Chicago students and students in the Chicago 
area ... no one should be afraid of speaking out against someone." 
She added that the demonstration was significant because "The 
Palestinian community [in Chicago] for the first time went to a 
university campus to protest."

Second-year medical student Afshan Mohiuddin was removed from the 
hall after she voiced her disapproval at the Harris School dean's 
on-stage assertion that Olmert was invited to express his views. "He 
can do that at the International Court of Justice, not at this 
university," Mohiuddin shouted, adding, "[Olmert] belongs in a cage, 
not on a stage!"

Mohiuddin told The Electronic Intifada that "it was ironic that they 
searched us [instead of him]," considering that Olmert is suspected 
of war crimes. She added, "As a University of Chicago student I was 
upset with the lack of commotion on behalf of the student body before 
the event ... No one has protested the event."

Mohiuddin's frustration was echoed in a commentary published by the 
University of Chicago's student publication The Chicago Maroon 
earlier this week, in which third-year student Nadia Marie Ismail 
decried the lack of protest by the university community towards the 
Olmert speech. She contrasted this silence with the pressure the 
Center for Middle Eastern Studies faced after a lecture earlier this 
year by The Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah (who was the first to 
disrupt Olmert's speech yesterday), University of Chicago professor 
John Mearsheimer and Norman Finkelstein, whose lost bid for tenure at 
DePaul University is attributed to outside pressure by Israel 
government apologists. "[T]hat University center was put under 
unprecedented pressure for weeks before and months after the event, 
with claims that University centers and schools should not host 
'one-sided' speakers," Ismail wrote.

Olmert's lecture in Chicago was one of several scheduled throughout 
the United States. His speech at the University of Kentucky the 
previous day was disrupted by activists and met with a protest 
outside. These demonstrations are part of a wave of notched-up 
dissent towards Israeli officials implicated in war crimes and racist 
policy. In 2003, former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky was greeted 
with a pie in the face by an activist at Rutgers University in New 
Jersey. Last year at the UK's Oxford University, a speech by Israeli 
President Shimon Peres was 
<http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9983.shtml>drowned out by 
protesters outside while students inside the hall disrupted his talk.

One of the organizers of the protest, Hatem Abudayyeh, National 
Coordinating Committee member of the United States Palestine 
Community Network, hoped for a larger count of protesters despite the 
adverse weather. However, he said, "The fact that there's people 
around the world who know about it, the fact that PACBI [the 
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel] 
sent us a letter of support and endorsement of our action, the fact 
that there was coordination with the outside protest and the inside 
disruption -- all of these components and aspects of the action made 
it one of the more successful ones that we've done."

He added, "There is real change happening, whether it's the 
international response to the Lebanon war or the international 
response to the Gaza war. The US is the most powerful country in the 
world, Israel is a powerful military as well, but the Palestinians 
have the world on their side."

Video shot and produced by The Electronic Intifada.

Maureen Clare Murphy is Managing Editor of The Electronic Intifada 
and an activist with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago, which 
co-sponsored the demonstration.
**********************************************

Union Square, San Francisco
October 22 6pm

http://www.stopaipac.org/olmertprotest.htm

Protest Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister and  war criminal for his 
role in the brutal attack on Gaza in December/January, who will be 
appearing as a speaker for the 
<http://www.itsyourworld.org/assnfe/ev.asp?ID=2578&SnID=2>World 
Affairs <http://www.itsyourworld.org/assnfe/ev.asp?ID=2578&SnID=2>Council.

On Thursday October 22, while former Prime Minister Olmert speaks in 
the St Francis Hotel, we will be gathered outside on Union Square. We 
want Israel and its leaders held accountable for their crimes against 
the people of Palestine and Lebanon.

We support the findings of the 
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=2352>Goldstone 
Report, that detail the crimes committed by Israel during its war 
against the whole people of Gaza of last December/January, in 
"Operation Cast Lead". President Obama and most politicians have 
simply refused to take this report seriously, some by vocally 
rejecting it, or just ignoring it completely.

It is therefore up to us, civil society, to again do what politicians 
are just too afraid to do. Call for universal application of human 
rights and international law. This will be the message of our 
protest. We demand that Olmert, who initiated "Operation Cast Lead" 
be held directly responsible for the crimes that took place. Olmert 
is also responsible for the insane attack against Lebanon in the 
Summer of 2006. Olmert shares criminal responsibility for the siege 
on Gaza that leaves children hungry and 1.5 million people in 
desperate circumstances.

Please plan on being there. Please spread the word. We need to stand 
together to create a new reality. We will not accept that Israel may 
act with impunity and total disregard for human life. This protest is 
our opportunity to stand up and be counted.






Freedom Archives
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415 863-9977

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