[News] Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago - Do It Again - SF Oct 22
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon Oct 19 11:12:34 EDT 2009
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
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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