A massacre is happening in Gaza right now, and the people doing the killing are Israeli occupation forces. To date, 802 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 190 children. More than 5,200 have been wounded. In the last two weeks, thousands of buildings there have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Israel has repeatedly bombed homes, schools, hospitals, Mosques, water and power infrastructure, while Egypt has blocked relief aid from reaching the dying and wounded.
Without a doubt, Israel’s collective punishment constitutes war crimes. This is the third such massacre Israel has committed against Gaza in just 7 years. After the last ceasefire was reached in 2012, Hamas honored it for three months until Israel broke the agreement by dropping more warheads into the fenced-in strip where 1.8 million Gazans already were suffering a decade long blockade enforced by both Israel and Egypt.
Western media is now once again either ignoring the plight of Palestinians, excusing the targeting of civilians as unavoidable, or are simply blaming Hamas. U.S. politicians remain as cowardly as ever. A recent Senate vote unanimously endorsed Israel’s unchecked murder spree. When was the last time the Senate was unanimous on anything?
It was with this outrage at a world gone mad that Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER) put out the call for an emergency march here in Portland, Oregon. Early in the week, one of their organizers contacted me asking if I could mobilize PDX Bike Swarm, a group combining cycling with civil disobedience. I confirmed we’d be present, as at a recent meeting of ours there was already interest in doing a solidarity ride. Once our event page went up, dozens of riders quickly RSVP’d. The main event page saw hundreds of confirms soon after.
Shortly after 5pm Thursday, the Swarm of cyclists gathered. Few words were spoken. We all knew why we were here, knew of the asymmetrical nature of the crisis, of our own nation’s disturbing power to ensure Israel faces no level of accountability whatsoever. Any United Nations security council resolution meant to curb the IDF’s bloodlust obligatorily gets vetoed by the United States.
The Swarm set forth into the streets, heading across the Willamette river via the Burnside bridge, and into downtown to join the march.
Along the way, we actually ran into a ‘Free Gaza’ motorcade of cars, escorted by police. We scrambled to catch up to them, and rolled up Broadway together, honking and bike-belling in solidarity.
Arriving at Pioneer Courthouse square, we circled the block with the motorcade before dismounting to listen to the array of speakers passionately voicing their anger – that yet again here we were, furious at the carnage reigning down on the people of Gaza.
A short time later, the march began, with a few members of Bike Swarm out in front while the rest were scattered throughout the crowd of easily more than 1,000 people. By obtaining a permit for the march, there was no risk that police would attack the march or make arrests for the ‘crime’ of jay-walking. Instead, the police busied themselves doing traffic control, though they were visibly annoyed anytime the march would pause for any length of time.
Throughout the procession, call-and-response chants were relentless and thundering, ‘Free, free Gaza! Free, free Palestine!’ – ‘One two three four, we don’t want your bloody war! Five six seven eight, Israel’s an apartheid state!’ The energy was unlike any march I’d been to in years, with women in equal numbers often shouting louder than the men.
When this current massacre at the hands of Israel ends, the people of Gaza will still be living under constant occupation, to say nothing of the siege crippling their economy and forcing children to go hungry and become ill. The systematic destruction of Palestine will continue with the blessings of the United States, and you and I will continue paying the taxes that fund these atrocities. Without the US’s enabling, Israel could not continue this genocide. As it stands now, the desire to exterminate every last Palestinian is spoken aloud by members of parliament without apology or reprisal.
The people of Gaza know nobody is coming to their aid any time soon. They know in order to survive, they’ll have to defend themselves. A report by the UN predicts that at this rate, Gaza may be uninhabitable within six years. I truly hope Americans wake up to this truth before it’s too late, before Palestine is utterly erased.
See you in the streets.
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