15 November 2012

Media Release:

Protest against Israeli strikes on Gaza

(2pm, Saturday 17th November, Aotea Square)
Global Peace and Justice Auckland is organising a march this Saturday to protest Israel’s assassination of a Palestinian leader in the Gaza strip and the deadly rocket attacks in which many Palestinians have lost their lives.

The protest will gather at Aotea Square from 2pm and march to the US Consulate in Customs Street where a protest rally, including the throwing of old shoes will take place. (Throwing shoes is a traditional way of showing disgust at US/Israeli policies in the Middle East following the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at the then US President George Bush in a 2008 media conference)

These latest Israeli attacks continue the brutal victimisation of the Palestinian people of Gaza who are effectively locked in the largest open air prison in the world and treated like animals through an inhuman Israeli blockade.

Israeli justifications for the attacks are hollow. It is Israel’s racist policies and vicious mistreatment of Palestinians which are at the heart of this conflict. Israel policies alone pose the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and in the world.

As well and blockading Palestinians in Gaza Israel maintain a military occupation of the West Bank while destroying Palestinian homes and farms to make way for Jewish-only settlements – all in defiance of international law and numerous UN resolutions.

Israel still tries to use the Holocaust as some sort of justification for their brutal treatment of the Palestinian people and in doing so the Palestinian people have become the second victims of the Holocaust.

GPJA applauds the Palestinian fighters who organise to resist the destruction of their right to self determination.

Saturday’s protest will focus on the US consulate because the US has supported Israel every step of the way in its brutality towards Palestinians.

John Minto
Mike Treen

ENDS

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