U.S. Peace Activists Stand with the Palestinian People!

The organizers of the 20 March Peace demonstrations in Washington, DC, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco, CA have vowed that U.S. Peace  demonstrations against the continued occupation of Iraq, and escalation of war in SW Asia will also stand with the Palestinian people against Israeli aggression.

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, VT News

Stand with the Palestinian People!

Organizers of the 20 March Peace demonstrations in the U.S. are contacting participants across the nation with an urgent message about the repression and resistance taking place today in Palestine. They are reminding all Peace activists in the U.S. of the need to take action now to show U.S. Peace movement solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people.

According to international and Arab media, Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) soldiers opened fire on hundreds of Palestinian youth protesting the seizure of huge additional areas of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.

The IOF forces fired so-called “rubber bullets”—really plastic-coated steel rounds capable of causing death or permanent injury—wounding scores of Palestinians, many seriously.Israeli rubber bullets are produced in two main types. The older type, the standard rubber bullet, is a 2 cm steel sphere coated in a thin layer of rubber, weighing 14 grams, while the new improved rubber bullet, introduced in 1989, is a rubber coated metal cylinder 1.7 cm in diameter, weighing 15.4 grams.These bullets are fired from a special adapter attached to the muzzle of a rifle, similar to those used to launch rifle grenades. The rubber bullets are loaded into the front of the adapter, and propelled with a blank cartridge. Lethal injuries are often the result of head injuries caused by misuse.

Street-fighting spread to other West Bank cities, and Palestinian shop-owners shut down their stores in solidarity with the protests.

Last week, the Israeli government announced its plan to build 1,600 new settler homes in illegally annexed East Jerusalem. This latest aggression follows closely on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s annexationist declaration that the Mosque of Ibrahim/Temple of Abraham in the West Bank city of Hebron as well as a site in Bethlehem are now “Zionist heritage sites.” [VIDEO]

These provocations are so extreme that they have prompted a negative reaction from the administration in Washington, which fears that they will lead to new rebellions in Palestine and throughout the region.

The New York Times reports that Israeli aggression has Israel feeling the rising anger from the United States exemplified by Israeli Soldiers firing rubber bullets into crowds of Palestinian women, children, and students just as Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting.

Nowhere in the world is it more important to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and all peoples struggling against occupation than here in the United States. Without the massive military, economic, diplomatic and other assistance it gets from Washington, Israel could not carry out its relentless war against the Palestinian people.

Peace activists call on all like minded, freedom loving Americans to join them on Saturday, March 20 in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities to say:

FREE PALESTINE – END COLONIAL OCCUPATION FROM IRAQ TO AFGHANISTAN AND EVERYWHERE – END U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.