Palestinians march, ask for fair play

Walkathon contributions targeted medical programs, kindergartens and family support networks in Israel's occupied territories.

Sharon McBreen, of the Sentinel staff

Palestinians march, ask for fair play — The Orlando Sentinel, 9 June 1991 — The Orlando Sentinel · Orlando, Florida · 9 June 1991

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“About 150 Palestinian supporters demonstrated Saturday in downtown Orlando, hoping their call for peace here will win the same freedom of expression for their relatives in the Middle East.

In one of several walkathons nationwide, families, teen-agers and senior citizens paraded from Lake Eola, where they rallied, to the federal building on Hughey Avenue and back to the park.

They carried signs demanding a Palestinian state and called for Israel to follow United Nations resolutions to leave the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in return for recognition by the Arab countries. ‘We need a Palestinian homeland,’ shouted Mohammad Abuasba, who led the ceremonies organized by the Arab-American Community Center for the second year.

‘[Secretary of State James] Baker, Baker, go for peace. Occupation must cease.’ Walkathon contributions targeted medical programs, kindergartens and family support networks in the occupied territories. Violence has flared in the region, killing both Palestinians and Jews, since intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, began in December 1987.

Israel has said it needs the territories, which it seized in a 1967 war with Egypt and Syria, for border security and to resettle Jewish immigrants from other countries, including the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Israeli leaders have been hesitant to trade land for peace.

The Persian Gulf War also ‘created a whole new set of hostilities’ in the territories, said Catherine Price, Middle East task force coordinator for the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, a co-sponsor of Saturday’s march. Many Palestinians used to work in Kuwait and send money to their families in the territories, Price said.

In the territories, about 1.5 million Arabs have been under curfew since the war began. ‘We as Americans should stand against aggressions,’ said Dr. Talal E. Hilal, a Bethlehem native whose relatives still live there. He compared aggres…”

Context added by this archive

Two Palestinians named in Orlando, one of them a doctor from Bethlehem. The story continues on B-4, which is not on this clipping.

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"Palestinians march, ask for fair play," The Orlando Sentinel, 9 June 1991, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1991-003. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1991-003