U.S. police and Gaza S trong similarities stand out between the
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world register majority condemnation in the scores of countries surveyed. Virtually every European na tion—including France, England, Spain, Germany and Italy—registered condemnation of Israel’s bombing. The figures in polls ranged from 60 to 72 percent! While the Zionist regime attributes this to rising antiSemitism, few doubt that the real cause is the Israeli slaughter of innocent and defenseless people by a na tion whose military strength ranks among the top in the world.
Bishop Tutu continued, “A quarter of a century ago, I participated in some well-attended demonstrations against apartheid. I never imagined we’d see demon strations of that size again, but last Saturday’s turn out in Cape Town was as big, if not bigger. Participants included young and old, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, blacks, whites, reds and greens … as one would expect from a vibrant, tolerant, multicultural nation.
“I asked the crowd to chant with me: ‘We are op posed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Pal estine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.’”
Tutu reported that “more than 1.6 million people across the world have signed onto this movement by joining an Avaaz campaign calling on corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation and/or implicat methods of the ever more militarized and racist police forces across the United States and those of the Israeli military forces in Palestine. Both forces are the outgrowth of a society that dehumanizes oppressed people and blames them for resisting the degradation attendant to a crisis-ridden and degenerating capitalism.
Three hundred and ninety unarmed Blacks, mostly youth, were murdered by U.S. police or “security guards” over the past year or so—one every 28 hours! Many of the victims were caught in routine “stop and frisk” operations and in other police detentions, which are based on profiling procedures that are reminiscent of those used at Israeli checkpoints against the Palestinians.
Some 7.2 million Americans—a majority Black (40 percent), Latino, and Native people—“live” under the jurisdiction of the U.S. prison-industrial complex. Eighty percent have been incarcerated for non-violent “crimes.” Many U.S. prisoners are warehoused in increasingly privatized facilities to serve the labor needs of private corporations at 50 cents an hour. In Georgia and Texas, their pay is zero. Some are charged for the cost of their incar ceration!
The spectacle of the Ferguson, Mo., police force being armed with the heavy weapons of war was a major contributor to the outrage that swept the country. Throughout the United States, in prisons and cities where the oppressed are housed, the soldiers and guards wear police uniforms, Na tional Guard uniforms, and now U.S. Army-issued combat uniforms, replete with armor. They drive land-mine-resistant armored personnel carri ers, generally priced at $470,000 per vehicle, and topped with supersized state-of-the-art machine guns. In Gaza, Israeli soldiers use the same U.S. weaponry, which, as in Ferguson, Mo., they get for free as hand-me-downs from the Iraq War.
U.S. police forces are issued these weapons of mass destruction to the tune of $4.3 billion in recent years—weapons that had been used to kill 1.5 million Iraqis over the past two decades. Similarly, the U.S. issues $4.1 billion annually to Israel to kill Palestinians. Another $1 billion was sent since the latest slaughter began—in order to “replenish” the rockets, mortars and bullets “used up” on Palestinians.
The fightback and mass protests in Ferguson, as in Gaza, were met with unprecedented solidarity actions in U.S. cities and in many nations around the world. Notwithstanding the terrible losses, when the oppressed raise their voices and take to the streets with righteous indignation, the long road to freedom is shortened. — J.M.
SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2014 7