Oakland Tribune · Oakland, California · 31 December 1987

CP-1987-009

Jews rally to protest Palestinian persecution

Barbara Lynne Harris, The Tribune, Berkeley

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Transcribed from the clipping

“BERKELEY — In an unusual rally downtown yesterday, more than 100 Jews gathered at dusk to protest Israel’s persecution of Palestinians living in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank.

It was unorthodox for Jews to speak against the government of their ‘Promised Land’ and was an unlikely sight to a group of young Palestinian immigrants, who happened to see the rally and stood on its fringes to listen.

‘We are outraged upon hearing the reports of continued repression by the Israeli authorities of Palestinian demonstrations against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,’ David Cooper told 125 people carrying signs and lighted candles outside the BART station.

At least 22 Palestinians have died and many more have been wounded, jailed or face deportation for protesting, he said. ‘We believe that sooner or later Israeli Jews must live in an Israel sitting beside a self-governed Palestinian state. . . . The longer this situation is deferred, the more violence will occur against Jew and Arab alike.’

George Atallah, a 25-year-old Palestinian who grew up in Old Jerusalem, said he left Palestine to study in the United States and later decided to stay. ‘There wasn’t a future there. If I went back, I knew I couldn’t get a job,’ he said. Atallah said he was pleased with the rally.

‘I’m glad to see there are some Jewish people who understand what it is like for the Palestinians living in the occupied lands. The Palestinians lost their dignity, they lost their freedom, they lost everything they have. And they will keep fighting until they win it back again.’ Speaker after speaker implored American Jews to speak out.

‘Many Jews feel they have to keep their discontentment with Israel within the family,’ said Larry Harris of the International Jewish Peace Union. ‘We as Jews have a responsibility for what our Jewish brothers in Israel do.’ Sam Saliba, 25, a Palestinian who now lives in Concord, said he was surprised by the Jewish protest.

‘I didn’t know there were Jews who knew how Palestinians felt.’… Protester Judi Hirsch said Israel does not need the occupied lands for ‘security’ against Arab invasion, it needs peace.

‘It is destructive for people who were oppressed to become the oppressors,’ Hirsch said… Most of Atallah’s and Saliba’s families remain in Israel. ‘It is their country. They will not leave,’ Saliba said. Atallah added that if a Palestinian state was formed, he would return. ‘It is my home, still.’”

Context added by this archive

Two young Palestinians standing at the edge of a Jewish rally in California, both named, both quoted, on the last day of 1987.

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