BDS groups plan anti-annexation ‘Day of Rage’ across the US
"We demand the defunding and dismantling of US police alongside the defunding and dismantling of Zionist colonialism and racist Israeli apartheid."
By LAHAV HARKOVAn anti-Israeli protest inspired by BDS(photo credit: REUTERS)
Pro-Palestinian organizations across the US plan to hold demonstrations against Israel on Wednesday, the earliest date that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could bring to a cabinet vote the extension of Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.The demonstrations are set to take place in Chicago, San Diego, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as in Toronto, Madrid and Valencia. Among the groups organizing the events are Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, and American Muslims for Palestine.The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, one of the organizers, called for "direct actions and popular mobilizations in [Palestinian] refugee camps, cities and villages," and professed "loyalty to the martyrs" – euphemisms for terrorists and terrorism – on its call to organize events.Another, Al-Awda - The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, accused Israel of "72 years of genocide, ethnic cleansing and dispossession," and peppered the site with works by the antisemitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff, a second-place prize winner in Iran's Holocaust Cartoon Competition.Al-Awda also tied their demonstrations to the protests against anti-Black racism in the US and beyond."We demand the defunding and dismantling of US police alongside the defunding and dismantling of Zionist colonialism and racist Israeli apartheid," the group's website reads.Zachor Legal Institute, a legal advocacy organization, wrote a letter to LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Michael Moore to warn against the demonstration planned to take place outside the Israeli consulate on Wednesday, calling on them to ensure that it will be peaceful.Zachor President Marc Greendorfer cited his organization's own reporting on Samidoun's extensive ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated a terrorist organization by the US, among other ties between BDS groups they say are "providing material support to foreign terror groups in violation of United States federal law.""While we fully support every American's right to peacefully assemble and protest, there is every reason to believe that the planned July 1 'Day of Rage' will be a day of violence and antisemitism, commensurate with... the word 'rage,'" the letter reads.
