THE MARTYRING OF GAZA
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No mention of how many people participated and that among the crowd were people with signs saying they were Jews protesting Israel's war on Gaza. The reluctant acknowledgement of the march isn't surprising. The Picayune is owned by Newhouse, and the Anti-Defamation League has a New Orleans office. And, unlike demonstrations in other cities, there wasn't a counter-demonstration of Israel supporters. In other cities, such as in L.A., where, as soon as word gets around of a scheduled protest rally, Israel supporters try to get as many Zionists as possible to show up.
I didn't know about the march until I looked at the Arab American Anti-Defamation Committee's website in a section about rallies. The New Orleans march was to be held from 2:30 to 4:00. It was 3:58. I had missed it, but I still had time to run over to talk to some people to find out if anything else was being organized in the city. I found quite a few people walking through the French Quarter from Armstrong Park on Rampart St. with their signs. I talked to a pleasant Palestinian couple from Haifa and a man from Syria.
They told me of a a professor at UNO (University of New Orleans) who was working with a group of students. I told them of my shock about the hatred I encountered when trying to discuss the crisis in Gaza with members of an online group (Struggling with Judaism). They were generous. "Oh, that's only due to ignorance," the Syrian man said. I knew this wasn't the case, and that even if it were true it was a willful ignorance. But that encounter only motivated me all the more to combat Israel's propaganda machine. I told them I wanted to purchase a prayer shawl to wear in solidarity with the people in Gaza and asked if they knew where I could find one.. The Syrian man told me of a place named Mona's. Then he insisted that I take $20 from him as a gift of the shawl.
I walked through the French Market to the Place de France, to look at the splendid golden bronze equestrian statue of Joan d'Arc, the patron saint of New Orleans. The statue is a replica of Emmanuel Fremiet's 1880 work, which stands in the Place des Pyramides in Paris. "Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans, 1412-1431," reads the inscription. "Gift of the People
of France."
I contemplated St. Joan's arrival in Orleans and how she delivered the city from the English troops who held it under siege; how she's credited with helping to turn the tide in France's favor in the One Hundred Years War; how she was handed over to England, who tried her for heresy, and burned her at the stake. She was only 19 years old. Years later the Church declared her a martyr, and centuries later canonized her. Gaza needs a Joan of Arc.
When I feel the sorrow of great suffering in the world, I go to one of the churches of my ancestors and light a candle at the pieta, or St. Anthony of Padua, or Joan of Arc. I felt an urge to light all the candles in all the churches in the city. For the suffering of the Gazans. Each a prayer that endures for the life of the candle.
My favorite priest when I was 20 years old was an Irishman who rocked the boat wherever he was sent. Once he went on a hunger strike to protest the unjust firing of a janitor. It was he who told me the purpose of a prayer is but to inspire us to take action in whatever way that is in our power to do, and another time that when we become aware of atrocities committed in a war it can make the entire world seem frightfully fragile.
Zionists condemn Palestinians, who in their desperation to liberate their people from the long siege by Israel, the long war of 60 years going on 100, resort offer themselves up as martyrs. Israel treats Palestinians as if they are less than human, and then accuses them of being less than human, of being animals, then less than animals. Gaza has already been tried, unjustly of course, and condemned to be burned at the stake. Gaza is our modern-day Joan d'Arc. The people who have the power to save her are too attached to the lies of their ideologies and their view of material profits, too detached from humanity. They're incapable of doing anything but to look on with indifference at the youthful populace of Gaza who are being sacrificed as all the people of conscience in the world watch in horror.
Only years later, centuries later, will Gaza be seen by some as a martyr who ended a lethal siege by the predatory Israel and the fading empires Britain and the U.S. One day Gaza will be canonized in the popular mind as great resisters of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Historians will argue for centuries over the evidence that hasn't been destroyed, and ideologues will continue to write and re-write the history, in a centuries-long propaganda campaign to leave out the interminable siege that preceded Israel's wholesale assault in the winter of 2008-2009.
It is little wonder that Gaza is the world's great resister. The name means "strong," and it has a history of sieges: Gaza was the last city to resist a siege and conquest by Alexander the Great. The ghosts of an ancient city are a deep well of resistance for future ages. Truths can be buried, but they are always simultaneously buried in our unconscious minds, springing to the surface during future struggles for survival.
A street musician on Royal Street prints out on a piece of paper a "thought for the day." Yesterday's thought: "What if everyone in the world told the truth?"
What if? There would be no such thing as propagandists, I told him, and everyone would know the truth about what's happening in Gaza right now. I showed him the piece of paper I had been carrying, a flier dropped by a marcher I had found on Decatur Street. The propagandists would be out of business and would have to find honest work. We wouldn't have so much work to do in countering Israel's propaganda machine that's now grinding away at full speed. We smiled together at the thought of it, and I walked away as he played and sang John Lenon's "Imagine." I
 Tomorrow I'll take the Canal Street trolly up to Mona's to buy a prayer shawl.
What can I do?
I'll light a candle at the Joan d'Arc statue at my ancestors' church.
What is it that I can do?
Education is the most radical activity there is. "If Americans Knew," says Allison Weir, we wouldn't allow the continuance of the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israel, largely financed by the U.S. What if the dominant news media told the truth? Well, they don't, and they won't. They're pathological liars. It's up to us these days to educate ourselves and each other about the whats, whens, whys, and hows in the world. The truth will set Gaza free. Our prayers, or meditations, can inspire us to circulate information from the truth-tellers. Light candles, wear a prayer shawl, write a "to do for Gaza" list, and a thought for every day: What if every American knew "what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine"?
We should ask ourselves just how many others must be martyred to the fires of these wars before we do?
Gaza Attacks Resource Center
Over 548 Dead, 30% Civilians, and Over 2,750 Injured Including Over 1000 Children. 12 Mosques Destroyed
ADC Calls for Investigations Into Reported Israeli use of White Phosphorus on Gaza
ADC Op-Ed in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Israeli action against Gaza will make matters worse
ADC Op-Ed in Chicago Tribune on Struggle for Peace
Continuous Live Coverage of Gaza Massacre
Make your voice heard in the media!
Contact your Representatives and President-Elect Obama
List of Protests, Demonstrations and Vigils Nation wide
Help the Victims in Gaza by Donating to United Palestinian Appeal, Inc. (UPA)
Help the Victims in Gaza by Donating to ANERA
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