 I'm with Coach Pink, the anti-war organization and I have a question, why is the right to self-defense only given to oppressors? The U.S. has armed and enabled Israel to commit genocide for over half a year and for years before that they funded Israel's military whose history is characterized by ethnic cleansing and violence that extends well beyond Palestine including targeted attacks on Iran. So why is Israel a country that the U.S. swears is a sovereign nation with a right to self-defense being treated like a baby that you can't say no to? Is this what the U.S. government thinks is strategic an ally that commits genocide and attacks on sovereign nations with impunity? Let's not be mistaken it's exactly because the U.S. funds and enables Israel that it continues to destroy the world with violence. It's because the U.S. allowed Israel to feel empowered to attack Iran's embassy in Syria that Iran was pushed to respond. The U.S. must recognize that this violence will continue to escalate into a world war as long as they continue to give the green light to Israel's genocide campaign in Gaza and continue to send weapons to Israel's military. That is the root of all this so we can't allow them to distract us with all this discourse around Iran to distract from the real root of this problem which is Israel's genocide campaign in Gaza. We can't allow them to ignore the truth that is right in front of their faces and it's that this genocide in Gaza is clearly wrong and unjustified and not strategic unless Israel's goal is to rid Palestine of all Palestinians which we know it is and it's ridiculous that I have to even say that but Biden and the entire U.S. government needs to realize that supporting Israel in this genocide has consequences that will affect the entire globe. Israel's violence has already infected this country actually as the police right here in Chicago also feel empowered to beat our youth and elders and jail them like they did just a few days ago and surround us when we're literally just standing here right. I want to be clear that it doesn't take direct U.S. attacks to drag us into an all out regional war. They're comfortable enough funding Israel to carry out their attacks for them like they have done for years. Their job is to disseminate the narrative that justifies Israel's U.S. best violence and we see evidence of this in the outpour of statements that came out by U.S. officials condemning Iran's attack the same officials who have been completely silent of the over 35,000 Palestinian martyrs at the hands of Israel. Because it's Palestinian prisoners day I can't stand up here and talk not mention our political prisoners. I returned to Palestine recently before everything broke out in October and I had a chance to talk to a lot of political prisoners you know as you can imagine a lot of people in Palestine have been to prison and there's somebody who I talked to particularly who was in administrative detention if anybody here doesn't know what that is administrative detention is when you are in prison without a charge you don't know what the charge is your family doesn't know your lawyer doesn't know because I mean newsflash there's no charge you're Palestinian so congrats now you're detained right and not only is this a huge obstacle for Palestinians you know trying to get out of prison right but you're also being held for an indefinite amount of time so Palestinians are often in solitary confinement for six months by the way they don't even know how much time has passed six months when the six months is over they're like okay you're actually going to stay for another six months after that six months they stay for another six months can you imagine that psychological torture being in prison for just six months at a time not even knowing if you will actually get out of prison a lot of people here might have had the experience of being in jail for a few hours after an action and I'm sure you would say that that experience was pretty horrible right imagine that for just years on end not knowing when you're going to get out not knowing why you're in there and not knowing if you're ever going to have justice right you know not knowing if you're going to be one of the Palestinians who is killed in Israeli prison this is just one way the genocidal state of Israel terrorizes Palestinians but I want to bring us back to the bottom line here right and the bottom line is that there's absolutely no benefit in supporting genocide by a settler colonial state and that's why we're here right calling for an end to Israel's genocide campaign demanding the US stop arming Israel demanding freedom for all our political prisoners from the US to Palestine and of course saying no to war with Iran so thank you all for being here to show them that we are against the western imperialism and Zionism that has plagued this one a region region for generation thank you