[Seattle-editorial] Article on today's rally downtown

[typist at speakeasy.net]

Kristen, You mentioned enclosing photos in this.  You will need to upload everything onto the open publishing newswire and then let me know the web address (copy paste into email) Then I can post story as feature.  (I did post story to newswire and then read more closely and noticed photo reference.)

Photos would be good!

Judy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gentry Lange [mailto:g at art13.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 11:01 PM
> To: sheelanagig at juno.com, seattle-editorial at indymedia.org
> Subject: RE: [Seattle-editorial] Article on today's rally downtown
> 
> Approved... I have no time to post. Kirsten you need to learn how.
> 
> Gentry
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org
> [mailto:seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org]On Behalf Of
> sheelanagig at juno.com
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 3:26 AM
> To: seattle-editorial at indymedia.org
> Subject: [Seattle-editorial] Article on today's rally downtown
> 
> 
> Proposed article -
> 
> SUMMARY -
> 
> <P>A gathering of approximately 200 people met at Westlake Park today to
> protest the wall Israel is building in Palestine. Families are being
> locked out of land they farmed for thousands of years, and this wall is
> being funded by U.S. dollars. On the date that the Berlin Wall came down,
> today's protests were coordinated in 40 cities, and were meant to send a
> strong message to the U.S. Government that we, the taxpayers of America,
> agree with the rest of the world on this one. The Israeli wall in
> Palestine must be stopped.
> 
> *********************************************************
> 
> <P>STOP THE WALL
> <BR>by Kirsten Anderberg Copyright 2003
> 
> <P>In Seattle, on November 9, approximately 200 people gathered at
> Westlake Park to take part in the International Day of Action to STOP THE
> WALL being built by Israel in Palestine. Organizers chose November 9 for
> this action as it was on November 9, 1989, that the Berlin Wall came
> down. 40 cities participated in the protest, including Seattle and San
> Francisco (<a href="http://www.stopthewall.org">www.stopthewall.org</A>).
> At one point, a man carrying an Israel flag and an American flag that
> said "Proud to be an American" on it, as well as a man with three flags
> for the Navy, Army, and Marines maybe, lined the street on the Westlake
> Mall side, along with many protesters with signs, yet no robocops were to
> be seen. Very few cops were present at all, which is very odd. I would
> estimate seeing two cop cars on site, and about 10 cops in regular
> uniforms hovered about. I have enclosed several shots of the police
> working hard sucking down Starbucks' on taxpayer dollars at the rally
> today. In the park, a model of the wall was held up on stage and chanted
> down. Banners were draped over the stage area (see picture). The rally
> was nonviolent, due to the lack of violent Seattle riot police.
> 
> <P>The protest addressed the 400 mile-long barrier through the Occupied
> West Bank that Israel is building. At $2 million a mile, this complex
> series of walls, trenches, armed turrets, barbed wire and electrified
> fences, cameras and infrared sensors, every  30 to100 yards, will cost a
> total of $1.5 billion when completed. On Sept. 16, 2003, the U.N.
> Security Council voted on a resolution regarding the wall, but the U.S.
> vetoed it. On Oct 21, 2003, the U.N.General Assembly voted 144 to 4 to
> stop the wall, the 4 for voting for the wall were the U.S., Israel,
> Micronesia and the Marshall Islands! Out of the whole U.N., that was the
> totality of worldwide support for this wall. This wall will be much
> taller and longer than the Berlin Wall was. Palestinian families are
> being cut off from their 100,000 olive groves, 50,000 fruit trees, and
> family farms. 30 wells that watered Palestinian farms, have been taken on
> the Israeli side of the wall now. Israel is forcing Palestinians who
> lived and farmed here for over a thousand years, to get a permit to cross
> these zones around the wall now. A World Bank report says the wall has
> already affected 115,000 Palestinians by cutting them off from water,
> farms, schools, businesses, etc. Israeli military let these people in and
> out through guarded gates, and Palestinian kids sometimes wait 3 hours or
> more, to be let through the gate, to go home from school. Without
> American tax dollars, the wall could not be built. This protest was about
> OUR tax dollars being used to build Israel's aparteid wall. And our
> desire, as American taxpayers, to let our government know that we do not
> support this wall.
> 
> 
> *************************************************************************
> *********************
> For near-daily political ramblings from Kirsten, visit her blog at
> www.kanderberg.blogspot.com 
> or go to her writing website at www.kirstenanderberg.com
> 
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