When Hannah Moushabeck woke up on Sunday morning, she found it difficult to get out of bed. The Israeli military had just resumed its massive bombing campaign in Gaza, and pouring rain promised to soak the solidarity rally the Palestinian-American author had helped organize that day.
But Moushabeck mustered the strength to get up and make her way to Northampton City Hall. And she wasn’t alone. Some 200 people were crowded under umbrellas, holding up Palestinian flags and signs calling for an end to the killing.
“I think that a lot of people are hoping that people will lose interest in Palestine and stop paying attention to the atrocities that are happening there,” Moushabeck said. “But as we can see today, it is just growing stronger and stronger.”
The rally was the first organized by the newly revived Western Massachusetts Coalition for Palestine, a coalition of local groups active in the Palestine-solidarity movement. And as Israel’s bombing and ground invasion continue to kill hundreds or more each day and to displace the majority of Gaza’s population — a response to an initial attack Hamas launched on Israel on Oct. 7, during which 1,200 were killed — protests have continued to mount across western Massachusetts. There have been standouts at the Northampton rotary and on Route 9 in Hadley, actions outside the weapons manufacturer L3 Harris in Northampton, and a student-led occupation of the University of Massachusetts Amherst administration building to demand the school cut ties with the military contractor formerly known as Raytheon.
Sunday’s rally was one of several taking place this week, including one on Thursday to support UMass Amherst students arrested during a recent action and a 25-mile march from Northampton to the Springfield offices of U.S. Senators Warren and Markey on Sunday.
These actions have ranged in goals from interrupting the work or economics of weapons manufacturers to directly pressuring elected officials. While Sunday’s rally at City Hall called unambiguously for a permanent ceasefire, it also had another goal.
“We agreed it was important to gather us all together and manifest our shared, collective power of the growing solidarity movement,” Huang Phan told The Shoestring over the phone before the rally.
Phan is a founding member of the Western Massachusetts Coalition for Palestine. The group first came together in 2010 after Israeli naval commandos killed 10 activists from the “Freedom Flotilla” attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli military blockade. In its current iteration, the coalition includes groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, Western Mass Jewish Voice for Peace, River Valley Democratic Socialists of America, United Auto Workers Local 2322 and the Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation.
While the coalition has evolved over the years, Phan said, its core principles have remained the same. Member organizations agree to support self-determination for Palestinians and the application of international law in the occupied territories, as well as the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement to compel Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands, dismantle the Separation Wall, uphold the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and end legal discrimination against Palestinian Arabs inside Israel.
Speakers at the rally included Phan, Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rachel Weber, Area Labor Federation President Jeff Jones and student organizers and other community members. Following the speakers, the crowd marched slowly down Main Street, chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids have you killed today?” After holding the intersection with King Street for about 15 minutes, the march returned to City Hall and dispersed. Police were present throughout.
“I want people to feel invigorated, to start having conversations about Palestine in their community, and doing activism online and in person,” Moushabeck said. “As a queer person, as a Palestinian who has lived in this community,” Moushabeck added, “I have always felt deeply supported, but since Oct. 7, there has been a deafening silence from the progressives who always stand up for justice, and it has not gone unnoticed.”
More to come
Much of the rally was focused on highlighting other ongoing organizing for Palestine in western Massachusetts.
Molly Aronson, a member of the local Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, explained that the 25-mile march planned for this Sunday is inspired by peace actions by Israeli and Palestinian feminist organizations, and by the forced relocation of northern Gazans to the south. Twenty-five miles is the approximate length of the Gaza Strip.
The march will culminate in a rally at the offices of U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, neither of whom have called for a permanent ceasefire.
“She’s inched forward,” Aronson said of Warren, who organizers have targeted with a number of actions across the state, including one that shut down a bridge in Boston. “But she has yet to use any of her power in a meaningful way.”
The march’s goal is to get Warren and Markey to introduce a companion resolution in the Senate for a permanent ceasefire to accompany the House version, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri.
The march is not targeting Representatives Jim McGovern and Richard Neal, who collectively represent western Mass in the U.S. House. Neal has not called for a ceasefire while McGovern has, though he has not signed onto Rep. Bush’s resolution calling for one. Neal recently voted in favor of a resolution equating criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism, while McGovern voted “present.”
A spokesperson for McGovern listed several letters the congressman has sent to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging a cessation of hostilities and a full allowance of humanitarian aid. Neither Neal, Warren nor Markey responded to The Shoestring’s requests for comment.
Over 100 marchers have registered for Sunday’s march so far, Aronson said. There are opportunities for people to march sections, serve as car or bike support, meet up for lunch or the final rally, and participate virtually.
During this past Sunday’s rally, Jeff Jones spoke of the WMALF’s ceasefire resolution and called on the entire AFL-CIO, the largest conglomeration of unions in the United States, to follow suit. Phan, who is a member of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and a delegate to WMALF, said the delegation approved the resolution unanimously out of concern for the extreme death tolls of women and children in Gaza.
“Politicians want to get out the vote and want union endorsements, but they are not representing us,” Phan said. “Ordinary, everyday working people do not need to be experts. People of moral conscience can see the devastation and the human toll.”
Also at Sunday’s rally, a member of UMass Dissenters and Students for Justice in Palestine spoke of the 56 students facing “repressive code of conduct charges” for occupying an administration building to demand the university cut ties with weapons manufacturers like Raytheon.
After many hours of arrests, during which some students were cuffed to walls overnight, arrested students are now facing “behavioral probation,” according to Bella Falacito, one of the arrestees. This means that any future “behavioral” issues that come up for these students — like another arrest — are more likely to result in suspensions or other harsher discipline.
“I think they’re just trying to disperse our organizing, I think it’s a scare tactic,” Falacito told The Shoestring. “The administration claims to be deeply offended by everything, which I personally think is absurd, considering the condition of the world.”
The Transformative Justice Coalition, a group of faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students at UMass that promotes transformative justice practices on campus, announced in a press release on Wednesday that it had been successful in lobbying the UMass Police Department to end its practice of publishing the names and addresses of arrested persons on its website after several students among those arrested and their families “were subject to anonymous threats and intimidation.”
The Coalition is still petitioning Chancellor Javier Reyes to drop disciplinary action against those arrested, and the District Attorney’s office to drop the criminal charges it is bringing separately.
Faculty for Justice in Palestine have scheduled a rally for this Thursday, Dec. 7 at 3 p.m. in support of the arrested students and staff and to deliver the petitions, and UMass Dissenters continue to hold other actions demanding an end to the University’s relationships with weapons manufacturers.
Brian Zayatz is an editor of The Shoestring.
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