In Valley, demonstrators express their support for Palestinians

Arab-American Community Youngstown

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Tuesday December 30, 2008 rally in downtown Youngstown, OH.

The White House has backed Israel’s air attacks that have killed more than 360 Palestinians.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Violence in the Mideast brought Arab-Americans downtown to express solidarity with those in the Gaza Strip under attack by Israelis.

A demonstration took place Tuesday afternoon in front of the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Market and Front streets. Members of the Arab-American Community Center of Greater Youngstown said portraying Israel as a retaliating “innocent victim” is wrong.

Some of the 75 to 100 demonstrators held up signs that urged “Stop the violence,” “End siege” and “Stop U.S. aid to Israel.” Supporters driving by honked their horns.

The White House, calling for a lasting cease-fire in the Mideast, has backed Israel’s deadly air attacks on the Gaza Strip and said Hamas, the Islamic militant group ruling there, had shown its “true colors as a terrorist organization.”

After Hamas fired mortars and rockets deep into Israeli territory, Israel retaliated Saturday with a bombing campaign — the deadliest against Palestinians in decades. The continuing airstrikes, which have killed more than 360 Palestinians, have enraged the Arab world.

Outside the courthouse Tuesday, Maher Ramahi, a member of the Arab-American Community Center, said he wants the U.S. to put pressure on Israel to stop the violence and wants to see an end to foreign aid sent to the Jewish state. Ramahi, of Boardman, said he has “good feelings” about the incoming administration of Barack Obama.

“We’re also hoping the United Nations passes a real resolution and puts some pressure on Israel to withdraw; that’s the main thing,” Ramahi said. “The Palestinians already recognize Israel’s right to exist. We want, as Palestinians, to exist, too.”

He said the national press needs to show the aggression by Israel is not fighting terrorists, it’s killing Palestinian civilians. He said Palestinians want real peace for both sides.

Ramahi said he doesn’t support Hamas.

“Israelis have a right to defend themselves,” Bruce Lev, a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said this week. Lev said bombing by the Israelis came only after Hamas discontinued its truce, stocked up on ammunition and began rocketing explosives into civilian territory in Israel.

Sam Kooperman, executive vice president of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation, agreed with Lev, adding Tuesday that Palestinians say they’re oppressed but they’re the initiators. He said Hamas broke the cease-fire and puts rocket launchers next to homes so that there will be civilian casualties in Gaza.

“There’s just so much on this issue it’s difficult for people to understand,” Ray Nakley, spokesman for the Arab-American Community Center, said at Tuesday’s demonstration. “I think we need to continue doing education, but today we specifically wanted to bring our concern out to the public and allow everyone to see that there are people concerned about what’s going on in Gaza.”

Nakley said he’s very concerned about the U.S. government’s “biased foreign policy and its absolutely unbridled support for one side against another.”

Most Palestinians, like most people in the Muslim and Christian world, are not religiously fanatic, Nakley said. When pressed or threatened, however, you tend to go back to your roots — and religion, for many people, is a large part of those roots, and that’s when fundamentalist beliefs take hold, he said.

“When you feel no one else will help, you feel maybe God will help and sometimes there’s positive expressions of that and sometimes negative,” Nakley said. “We certainly don’t defend or agree with everything every party in the Middle East says, including Hamas, but there’s a context which is missing in the national media. I think our local media tries to do a better job.”

The national media, he said, always tries to pick up the story with Israel having just suffered a rocket attack and responding to Hamas. There’s never the precursor to that, which is the demolition of a home, the shooting down of innocent demonstrators, the imprisonment of people without trial for months or years, the destruction of livelihoods, turning Gaza into the largest open-air prison in the world, cutting off electricity, clean water and medical supplies, and causing people to die simply from lack of essentials, he said.

“Until we understand that these people are reacting because they are being ethnically cleansed as they were in 1948 — there are war crimes being committed — we will never put it in proportion,” Nakley said. “We would have used our nuclear arsenal long ago to prevent [our undergoing] 1 percent of what has happened to the Palestinian people. What part of this country would we give up, would we cede without a fight?”