 Shame! Children shouting Shame! Children shouting Shame! Children shouting Shade, shame, shame, shame, shame, Since he has decided that he can locked his doors And shut us out and ignore us We demand the university to step up And not speak to us step up for Palestinian students. UVM's pattern of promoting anti-Palestinian sentiments and ignoring credible threats to Palestinian and Arab communities on campus has contributed to the creation of the atmosphere responsible for the violence that we saw this past weekend. And the following. We demand that UVM acknowledge Palestine and the suffering of Palestinians. Demand transparency in regards to past and future canceled events and support with reorganizing them. Creation of a robust accountability system for admin and faculty that engage in anti-Arab and Islamophobic rhetoric. UVM commit to providing robust support services to Palestinian students. Transparency on the canceling of Muhammad al-Khored's lecture. UVM commit to not canceling events held by Palestinian organizers on campus. UVM commit to providing an open and accessible line for dialogue with student movements. Because not only, because not only is UVM silent, they are enriching their endowment in the ongoing occupation of Palestine. And in that case, we found that UVM is making great PR. Shame! Great deal, future political. We can't use them. If we use the mega-budding doors, UVM policies to try to expel us. Shame! Stinger missiles, walleye missiles, tattoo air-to-surface missiles, assorted emissions, air-to-air missiles, and headland laser-guided bombs. $80,000 invested in Milwaukee Martin. Shame! Joint strike fighter, which shows the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter also takes off and is tested here at Freelance International Airport. Shame! The F-16 fighter jet, the C-130J-30 aircraft, Apache Assault Helicopter, littoral combat ships, tattoo air-to-surface missiles, side-liner missiles, heli-fire-to-missiles, headway laser-guided bombs, rocket launchers, intercollar tanks, high frequency radios, other communications across an advanced radar system. Shame! UVM added $20,000. UVM had $482,000 invested in General Electric. Shame! Shame! General Electric supplied engines for the F-35 fighter jet and a variety of other military aircraft, including the propulsion system for Israel's AAH-64 Apache Assault Helicopter. Shame! Shame! Shame! Milwaukee Martin provides service projects for engineering support and testing of Israel's weapons. Shame! UVM has invested $165,700 in Boeing Corporation. Shame! Shame! The F-15 fighter jet, the C-47 cargo helicopter, the Apache Assault Helicopter, B-707 transport planes, guided bomb units, joint direct assault munitions, harpoon missiles. Shame! Shame! In addition, UVM has invested $102,000 in Honeywell International. Shame! Shame! Buster bombs. Shame! Fighter jets and torpedoes. Shame! And ITD, which supplies ejectors, which supplies X-16s, which supplies cable assemblies, and other release methods to keep the Israeli war machine going. Shame! UVM has invested $205,000 in the United Technology with its subsidiary division and its subsidiary division to Sikorsky and Pratt Whitney, supplies C-53, C-Stallion attack helicopters, Black Hawk attack helicopters, and engines for fighters in Congress. Shame! UVM has $306,000 invested in Hewlett-Packard and Hewlett-Packard subsidiary in Israel, supplies the Ministry of Defense of the Spadiel system, which is an automated biometric access control system for Palestinian workers. Shame! Shame! It's part of a system of control to use Palestinian workers while underpaying them and keeping them at threat of being reported to the war zone. Shame! Shame! In addition, UVM has these systems are sold in major checkpoints in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition, HP has several contracts with white technology to the Israeli army, including a two-year contract with its white PCSV army. Shame! Shame! Shame! In addition, UVM has $200,000 invested in LI identity solutions incorporated, which is like IR space and fingerprint identity recognition to track Palestinians. Shame! Shame! UVM has $45,000 invested in Motorola, and Motorola Israel supplies surveillance systems to Israel to monitor settlements in the West Bank and provides security to settlements, which display and steal the homes of Palestinians. Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! In addition, Shame! Mark Chug! It was the five weapons and two the idea. So, out three communications holdings, UVM invested $8,000 in, which and out three communications holdings provides Homeland Defense product and services, including the previously mentioned scanners for Gaza's checkpoints and for scanners in the West Bank. Shame! UVM has invested $62,000 in Dell, which supplied 50,000 PCs to the IDF for over three years at a cost of $200 million, which is well below the market value of these laptops. They sold laptops to the IDF at this time to the fuel occupation. Shame! And these computers I use to enforce systems of control. These systems of these computers I use to support Army and IDF, what, IDF mobilization, identify the people of Gaza. Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! And finally, Valero Energy Corporation. UVM has invested $30,000 and is a major supplier of fuel to the Israeli military. Shame! UVM must divest in order for it to be a just and safe community. In the 1980s, we are not, in the 1980s, UVM, there was a fight on campus over the divestment of UVM from apartheid South Africa. During this fight, UVM claimed that they were better by investing and they were better by keeping money in this horrific country. Disgusting! Shame! And since then, UVM has continued this pattern. They took years for measures to recognize the damage that they were doing by refusing to divest. They may have continued this pattern to this day. However, just in 1986, UVM sees one, the chance to divest, one divestment from South Africa and apartheid region. Shame! Shame! And again, UVM sees one when we push UVM to divest from the, when we push UVM to divest from fossil fuels. We must do that again. A place that we pay money to get an education to have investments to profit off of death in Palestine. Shame! Shame! And we will show up, we will keep showing up until they divest from Israel. Divest! To care about the shooting down the road of three Palestinian men, you cannot separate the death of Palestinians in Palestine from the death of Palestinians here. UVM did not claim to care about to be heartbroken by the shooting of three Palestinian men down the road when they actively profit off the death of Palestinians. Every year, where does it go? We do not. The death of the fence, institutional caterer in the occupied state of Palestine initiated an investigation into them and began to protect Palestinian students through the demands that we have laid out for them. They can either do that or they can continue to ignore us, continue to be silent, continue to repress us, continue to punish us for speaking out against this genocide that they are funding. Which ones are going to be syresh? Which ones are going to be? Are you going to listen to us? Or are you going to open your fucking eyes? We can supply cups from downstairs. Alright, in addition, there are going to be snacks passed around that couple of sides. People have snacks, bring snacks. We have this bag, otherwise if you go and grab snacks, there's still people. We need this because we are not going to run away. We are here until our demands are met. We are going to be here for a while. But even after today, after we all go home, we are going to keep showing up. We are going to keep speaking out until we are heard because he's got his fingers in his ears. I'm surprised that it has come to this because we have been pleading with him for months. We have been asking politely for months to listen to Palestinian students who are afraid, who are unsaved, who feel unsupported and he does not listen. So we cannot just walk away when he doesn't listen to us. We have to demand it and we are going to stay here and continue demanding it until he listens. Education! Money for staff and education! Not for law and occupation! Education! Money for staff and education! Not for law and occupation! Money for staff and education! Money for staff and education! Not for law and occupation! Not for law and occupation! Money for staff and education! Money for staff and education! Not for law and occupation! Not for law and occupation! Money for staff and education! Money for staff and education! Not for law and occupation! Not for law and occupation! Money for staff and education! Money for staff and education! Not for more, not for more, not for more, not for more. Mike Shirley, a respectful review, just asked for the same. I came from a meeting, canceled something to come out and be with you for a few minutes. Um, a mayor is here as well. Just supporting Janice. Put it down. If you could stop yelling at me, that'd be great. The president's not here. He's off-campus at meeting. I'm not sure what you want me to respond to. I'm waiting for your associates to come a little closer. We're giving you a heads-up. You want a problem if you want? I'm trying to make it helpful for you. All right. We're going to give you the courtesy of listening to what you have to say, but we're not here to negotiate with you. We are not here to reason with you. We are here for our demands. So unless you want to say something to that effect, you might as well not speak at all. No, I'm actually here to find out what they are. If you've got some information I can share with the administrative team, we're happy to do that. Absolutely. The president's not here right now. So Amir and I are here to gather information. We'll give that information to the president. Achieve a staff. Thank you. And if you have questions of us, we're happy to try to answer them if they're within our purview. And short of that, we just wanted to make sure you knew that. We know you're here. We appreciate the effort and energy that's going into this. We understand the complexities of what's happening worldwide. It's not going to be easy. It's the $7,000 in our field. I spend our days working to keep you safe. I do not know the answer to those questions. It's not going to be easy. I can't even finish the sentence. So when you're ready to actually have a conversation and not just scream at me, we will come back. We know what you have to say and we don't like it. There is no conversation to be had. There's only our demands and your decision to meet them or not. So you have them in your hand right now. You can take them to Suresh because he was too cowardly to come out and face us ourselves. And I'll read them just so that there's no confusion about what we want. We want UVM to acknowledge Palestine and the suffering of Palestinians adequately. Not in any kind of bullshit that they've done so far. They took over two months to even say the word Palestine. We want transparency in regards to past and future canceled events and support with reorganizing them. We have a robust accountability system for admin and faculty that engage in anti-Arab and Islamophobic rhetoric and robust support services to Palestinian students. We want full clarity and transparency on the cancellation of Muhammad El-Kurd's lecture and to commit to not canceling events held by organizers on campus. And an accessible line for dialogue with student movements because sending you out because Suresh is too afraid while we've been forced to all come here is not dialogue. UVM to divest all financial holdings from Israel. And doing us the courtesy of talking to us, having a civil conversation. None of that means a damn thing. And speaking to you as the dean of security, compliance and whatever, more surveillance is not going to do a fucking thing to make anybody feel more safe on this campus. So we have to tell this to you is shameful and that speaks to your incapability to protect Palestinian students. It's hard for us to listen to you when we haven't been given a platform for you to listen to us or for the administration to listen to us. Because we've been treated with such disrespect for so long. You have come here to represent Suresh. I know you specifically might not individually have done all of this but you have come here as a representative of the administration and you have to understand that. I understand that. And I appreciate that you're not feeling safe. And I appreciate you letting me say a couple sentences. I appreciate the fact that folks are feeling unsafe. Our team, Amaris team are here. You are bad. To create a safe environment on campus for all students in particular at this moment in the wake of what happened on Saturday, we have extra focus on our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students. Why do they take three students getting shot though for you to care? That's not what I'm saying. What are you saying? That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that in the wake of particular, why don't we do this at a different time when we can actually have a conversation? You're supposed to be in charge. You should be able to talk to us. Just continue speaking. All I'm going to be doing is interrupting people. That's fine. That's fine. That's not the way the conversation works. We can't talk about communication. We like to know what you have to say right now. I am trying to listen to you and respond to some of the things you're saying. Every time I start talking, you interrupt me. We'll speak up then. It feels like you're using interruption as an excuse. I'm using interruption as an excuse. Just keep talking. Not to say anything. You talk loud enough. If you are committed to your point, we should be loud enough that we can all hear you. How are the students? How's the students? We used to call the shooting. We're silent. He's feeling innocent. That's not what we've done. That is exactly what we've done. Are you ready to listen for give me 30 seconds or just answer one question? I'll say the timer. We held a forum yesterday. I very clearly said this is a hate-motivated event. A hate crime is a specific thing. Everyone involved in this is a class. There's evidence of that. It's a distinction without a difference. But at this point, we don't call it a hate crime for technical reasons. It is clearly an event motivated by hate. If that is not enough, I can't fix the fact that the criminal justice system identifies a hate crime in a particular way. But you're absolutely right. It's a hate-motivated event. I haven't heard anyone say that that's not the case. I heard you say that's not the case when you said no motive is no. That's correct. No motive is no. That doesn't mean it's not an hate-motivated event. No motive is no. I'm in the safety and security business. I'm in the security business. I'm in the security business. I'm in the security business. I'm here with you now because I respect the fact... I'm here with you now. That's not true. If we didn't want to hear, if I didn't want to hear what you had to say, I would have just stayed in the meeting that I was in and not canceled it to come be here with you. That's not my role in the process. I appreciate the invitation. What is your role? When you're in the safety business, we have to stay as neutral as possible. That's not what you're talking about. Folks, you're... It's completely... So, so far, I've been in the safety business and I've been in the security business and I'm in the security business and so far, so far, I haven't gotten one sentence out without you trying to turn it into something I did not say. To be clear, Mike, can we say you do the full 40 seconds silence problem? Thank you. All right, what we're going to do, we're going to be completely silent and let him say what he has to say, but... I'm not here to speak at you. Don't misunderstand why I'm standing here. I'm not here to listen. Don't misunderstand when you get interrupted. Well, when I'm asked a question and I try to respond, that's the problem. All right. Do you have anything to add? What are you here for? Here to listen, to figure out, because I wasn't here so I can't hear what the issues are. We've clearly got the issues. I appreciate that. All right, so what do you need? I'm going to relay those. I don't need anything else. Do you need anything else? We want to explain. Okay. We want to explain. Are we just following orders? We're going to delay the planning of your process. Well, we don't want to... You know, we appreciate you being here. Listen, why... Why do you specifically, because I have a security? You know, you say you can't meet our needs. Tell me that if I have a security and safety, you can't break us, then why Yeah, that's a great question. So let me reiterate it. I'm not lying to you. The president is not on campus. So it's not that he's hiding from you. He is away from you. I'm here because I originally thought there were folks here that wanted to interview me. So there was some kind of occasion. Because they were inside asking, and then they came outside. So apparently, there's a miscommunication for hours. They're in a miscommunication. There's a miscommunication there. There seem to be some indication. There are some students inside right before you arrived that indicate they were looking for me. So that's part of why I'm standing here. I was afraid to speak here. This is a little bit complicated. So I'm going to ask you to let me finish what I'm saying before you interrupt or don't like what I'm saying. Couple things to note. One, the security team does not make a decision. What we do is collect information, whether it's here at the university in private roles in state government or with the city of Burlington. We collect information. We do what's called a threat assessment, a risk reward. What are the issues and risks associated with a particular event? So that's our role. Relative to the event itself, the university administration, a variety of folks got together to make a decision about whether hosting at that particular time on campus was a good idea. So that's the nugget of what was decided. Couple additional things. We did not want to decline to host. What we actually offered the organizers on at least two occasions was to try to move the event because of the tensions that had grown both internationally, nationally, and regionally in the days following October 7th. So there was a concerted effort not to quote unquote cancel, but to try to just move the event a little bit further away from that particular flash point in time. But did you offer a full visit? It was open-ended. So for somebody who was speaking events a year in advance, you said, why don't we move it a few days? You're knowing that he had a busy schedule for another year. You knew this. When I started talking, I asked to be able to finish what I was talking about before you started yelling at me. OK, Dad. All right. That's ageism. This is genocide. They're not being viewed. They're not disrespecting you. She just called me Dad. How do you want me to respond? Throw my pronouns or they don't. OK, thank you. I lost my place. Brian, moving. Relative to the specific intelligence that we used to create that threat assessment, we don't discuss that publicly. I know that it's not satisfying. Yeah. No, it's not. What I can tell you is we have taken, one of the things we've changed just in the last couple of months is we have added a layer of transparency to that process. I specifically briefed the other members of shared governance, the Student Government Association leadership, the Graduate Senate leadership, the Staff Council, and the Faculty Senate on the intelligence that was used to make that decision. The reason that it's done in that manner is because we can't share that kind of information publicly. That is the same methodology that is used in government, whether you're in state government and you are briefing legislators, you're in the federal government and briefing congressional officials or you're in municipal government and you're briefing city counselors, that's the mechanism of representative government that creates an added level of transparency about the facts upon which decisions are made. I realize that is not particularly satisfying. That is the mechanism we have. Yes, sir. Why can you have numerous top cars and blockades for pro-Israel digital but not have those same resources for Palestinian students and Muhammed al-Qaeda events? Why can't you do that? Good question. So your event today was scheduled to be inside and the same... Not today, Muhammad. Why couldn't you give that to Muhammad? I thought we were having two different... two different questions. There's a different analysis of the types of events that happen. Why didn't he call us Indian? That's why... No, it doesn't matter. Folks, I can't... I didn't send an email. Oh, yes, I did send an email. Well, I know what my email said I wrote, so you don't have to read it to me. I want to hear it. I want to hear it. I'm trying to write a comment for what you're saying. Four days in advance of your... All right. And if you could just do the highlights because I do have another meeting that you have to go to at some point. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Our campus leaders have been working carefully with various offices on campus as well as community law enforcement partners to consider whether and how the university can meet with this event. It is our judgment based on local, national, local events so we cannot adequately provide safety and security for this event as it is currently planned. They consider it alternate venues on campus, but they determine that they could not be secured with the limited public safety resources we have. No! Unfortunately, there are no such venues where this could be held in a pathway. Additionally, our students extend beyond the date of the event. Secondary impacts for campus affiliates are off-course levels. What does that mean? What does that mean? Are you worried about our students? Are you worried about our friends? No, the opposite. We were concerned through now, of course, that our Palestinian students could be disproportionately targeted by folks who have their attention on that event. Why would I clearly say this? I think that's actually what it said. Did you receive concerns from a single Palestinian student that holding this event would put them in danger? I'm not going to discuss intelligence. Or did you communicate intelligible? The organizers of the lecture. I've given you... Wait, can I finish this email? I'm so sorry. You can, but I've given you all the information I can provide on that topic. Therefore, the event will not be held on UVM campus. We have notified University Event Services of this decision, and we'll notify our campus community as well. So, I guess the question is, why did you say you don't force of the cancel events? You didn't cancel the event. You said you can provide information. We're parsing words. Cancellation is fine. I prefer to look at it as we offered alternatives to host the event, and they were declined. And it turned into a... What I would refer to as an inability to host at that particular time. We weren't saying we don't want to host ever. Are you aware of... How many weeks is the administration is going to take genocide, and before we get up, letter in our inbox? You know I don't have the answer to that question, so I'm going to take that information back to the administration. Please do. Go! I can take two more, and I appreciate the fact that this has turned into an actual dialogue. My specific question about the email is, so if your intentions were giving you the benefit of the doubt, if your intentions were initially canceling the event out of the safety and concern for Palestinian students, why was that not explicitly stated as the reason for the cancellation of the event, and why is it that you guys didn't read over the email and think that, oh, if this is our clear message, maybe the message we're sending out sounds as though we're trying to silence Palestinian voices and speaking here at this university. It's a great question. Hold on just a second. I'm going to go out on a limb and answer a question I would not normally answer. Not for a nefarious reason, but the reason we did not specifically name that and sort of wrote it as a read between the lines is naming it at the time actually potentially paints a target for Palestinian students' backs. So we were trying not to elevate the profile in a way that would allow the concerns we had to actually play out. It's a complicated... Why did you console Palestinian voices? Why did you do that? I can't... Why did you ask Palestinians on camera to... Why did you make this decision? You were able to table for these discussions. You did! You did! Were you similarly concerned for students when addressing the events on October 7th? Were you similarly concerned? I'm not sure I understand. We didn't have an event here that was related to that. In general, you were saying that you didn't really address the topic also because you didn't want to pay the target on Palestinian students' backs. I didn't want to call out Palestinian students specifically in that, in the email related to the L.Curt event. We didn't want to call anyone specifically out as protecting them because that in and of itself... You all watch what plays out in the 21st century in terms of violence in the United States. So you know this as well as I do, that when you paint a target... Come back on your terrorism! I'm talking about your safety right now if you could let me finish. Shame! Shirley must go! I'm not! You did this all your time. I'll say let's go. I'm satisfied with them sending their head-cop out here to say a few literary words. They're wrong. Putting a damn thing until our demands aren't met. We don't want a conversation we don't want a dialogue. We want UVM to protect Palestinian students through our demands and divest their funding that they here to send a message that they can't ER talk us away we are going to keep coming out we're going to stay here we're going to keep raising our voices until through to the end of our demands being met when UVM sends out their email about this later they say oh we tried to talk to them but they didn't want to talk to us bullshit bullshit again we are not here for a civil dialogue or engagement or a friendly conversation we are here to demand what we want and what we want is the protection of palestinian students through our demands and the divestment from israel hi yo so can you tell me who we're here with today yeah um i'm here with uh the union of students the union of students i'm here with sjp as well yeah same here union students and sjp and students for justice in palestine oh also the yep that's sjp also the yeah union students union students yeah UVM us UVM moods us yeah and what happened here today what what did y'all get up to today so i guess we got to give the context right that uh this is wednesday and on saturday the 25th of november uh 2023 good good thing to know uh there was three students one went to brown one went to trinity one went to haverford who got uh shot up on north prospect street all three were palestinian all three were about 20 years or they all three were 20 years old all speaking arabic all wearing palestinian kafiz uh shot by a guy joseph jason jay not p jason james eaten i want to say damn nice cold back or nice cold fucking um so to protest that and to protest the university um like making an air or an environment that like led that to happen that that allowed that to happen um UVM us with the aid of uh sjp um organized a die-in here today at waterman um which is currently ongoing and i think it will be ongoing for another about hour hour and a half do you want to talk about maybe the rally as well yeah so we started with a rally in the first floor of the davis center and that was dense that was wild that was might be the largest thing i've ever seen the davis center happen just by a sheer volume of people like watching and chanting nobody was getting through it was we shut down the davis center for like 20 minutes i would say the entire fucking davis center oops sorry uh oh we're free so then so then we marched that was a lot we had some rally we had some speeches we had uh we read a statement that one of the survivors to sham gave to brown university's chapter of sjp and was read and was said at by brown sjp at brown's vigil the medical center uh what uh half a mile away if that yeah yeah yeah so that's so then we so we chanted we gave we gave speeches there they were great and then we started marching over to waterman and that's where it happened bullhorn that did not work um thank you migrant justice yeah those migrant justice the migrant justice megaphones you always gotta double check them because they run out of yeah they run out of batteries they get beat up a lot they go all over the place that would be so nice um i got a couple questions more specific questions so um how did the university relate to some random guy shooting three students who don't attend uvm so the fundamental thing is that there is is the fundamental problem is that there is that there is a climate of bigotry a climate of hatred and a climate of racism towards our palestinian comrades and our arab comrades who are and also who are not our comrades who are just who are in berlington who are in the united states and who are in the world yeah and that's because of that's because of zionist propaganda that's because of that's because of polarization due to like due to everything yeah and so that's creates a climate where this shit becomes normal yeah i was gonna say for some additional context of like concrete reasons the university is to be at fault here um since october 7th um when uh this the ongoing war began um began uh uvm has consistently like uh took and taken a stance against palestinians they initially like they had not released anything regarding palestinian students or death in palestine the first time the current president suresh garmel said the word palestine in any formal communication was three days ago which is on like sunday or monday yeah which is give or take like 47 i think days after um the the initial attack and then from there beyond like uh an over policing and and scrutiny of palestinians and and palestine organizing later last month we had uh a talk by him mohammed al-qurd uh who scheduled to speak here at the university on behalf of the english and the sociology department sociology department there's such a justice lecture series which has been going on for like 20 years yeah sponsored by okay okay okay um they cancelled the university cancelled that unilaterally sociology department was not consulted beforehand english department was not consulted before um in a situation where responsibility and and undertaking of like an event or or just anything falls into the hands of multiple people um one group or one person uh takes power and without consulting um makes a decision that has not been agreed upon or discussed with others which is what the administration did in regards to mohammed al-qurd um and then continued they have sent out uh emails to palestine organizers um claiming that uh they are violent threats um they have called like a real man wafik i forget his last name i'm not super sure i'm so sorry wafik i think it's f-a-r-r-o you are i'm pretty sure he was on uh democracy now a couple days ago which is crazy that's so cool um but yeah he's the realest guy in the world uh they they have harassed him they've called him violent um stuff like that they're still i mean like invested in israel from my understanding and and just generally within communications they have created a kind of um image that casts palestinians and palestinian organizers and people who care about palestine as like violent terrorists um along with the aid of not technically administration but very largely supported by the administration uh halal and that is something that can be discussed another time you know uh so what was the goal of this dying specifically that is a great question do you want to discuss vaguely and then i'm going to pull up the demands on my phone yeah so our goal for this our goal for this action was to was to kind of get was to get the university to actually to actually support palestinian students and get the university to because until now it's been kind of hot it has been hiding away and it's been kind of ignoring uh popular cement to get them to fucking get them to listen get them to get them to actually acknowledge our demands get them to provide support for palestinian students get them to provide get that get them to support palestinian events get them to yeah i have the list pulled up oh beautiful all right um we got the demand list yep so for this uh this action we beforehand to distribute to the crowd made little quarter sheets front and back in the back included our list of demands which are as follows acknowledge palestinian and the suffering of palestinians transparency in regards uh to pass in future canceled events and support with reorganizing them creation of a robust accountability system for islamophobic and anti-arab rhetoric um for faculty admin and faculty that engage in that um commit to providing robust support services to palestinian students clarity on the canceling of the mohammed occurred lecture committing to not canceling events held by organizers on campus providing an open and accessible line for dialogue of student movements and divestment from all financial holdings in israel and that was our demands which we said once at the rally and then a couple times here at the time huh huh huh huh uh what are y'all most looking forward to in the remaining week and a half of this semester um in regards to organizing would be cool to see them cave to like a one demand i don't think it's gonna happen um at least not that soon um i don't know i'm excited to go back home i miss being home i miss getting late in the city um i want to get i want to hit a drag show before another drag show before i leave do you want to come i'd love to you want to come awesome it's green mountain cabaret doing i i mean we can check i think they might i think they're doing a drag brunch oh yeah the week of or before five yeah yeah yeah i might be this sunday oh no i think it's it's the following sunday i'm sorry it's the it's december 10th yeah all right so it's the weekend before finals um shout out green mountain cabaret they rock um i don't know i i don't want to say anything about future actions even though i trust this camera right now oh incredible i think we're planning another action similar to this next week um that is not fully fleshed out and i'm not gonna say anything that is not um buckled down yes it was set in stone yet i'm excited for that um hopefully we can learn from this and then improve i say that as if this is not still happening um but i'm excited for that i'm excited to see if they came to a demand yeah uh so my so the thing i'm excited about is i'm excited about i'm fuck well the fuck woman there's not too much to be excited about i'm gonna be real finals are rough uh everything does kind of suck a little bit yeah yeah i'm excited to keep holding uvm accountable i'm excited to hang out with my friends who do great organizing shit and who are cool as fuck i have something i'm excited for if we can finish it in time god willing the next issue of the gadfly read it read the gad we ever fucking finish it i think i if we don't finish it by the end of the week i will take it on myself to finish the formatting stuff and then we're good perfect yeah i'm uh javier they them uh i was about to say your other fake name uh juniper they she yeah so so uh what else do i have what's what's the ideal world look like for y'all in 10 years now in at uvm and burlington or the world um fucking i don't know bro communism like yeah i don't think in 10 years we're gonna be at the the final stage of class society or whatever but um i don't know uh intent ideal world i mean well ideal world yeah communism man i don't know fucking i'm i'm chilling in like back at home in columbia on a farm in a fucking commune is what my ideal world looks like and everybody you know the the the colonizers have been driven out of the global south and i'm living my life um and everybody else lives theirs um peace and love and shit i don't know yeah uh same goes here global communism yeah uh in 10 years i hope i don't think that's happening in 10 years to be clear i don't think that's happening in like 50 years uh climate no no climate change no uh let's let's go for all the all the shit here no america no climate change no israel no state no no no government no border no border yeah the full demands no cars is cool i like the k trucks i would defend the k trucks what the fuck is a k oh i have great news for you they'd be a little like japan they're the little like japanese like mini i go to those are the only trucks that'll be left over after the revolution i can i can't consent with that but they gotta be off-road so we can destroy the damn straight yeah well like we can have like people roads where it looks all right that's that's my ideal world drag punches i do want to say um yeah trans liberation as well if we can get juniper here a uterus let's do that so if you're watching this video in 10 years she doesn't have one it's your good idea yeah you gotta you gotta buy her a uterus so i'd just like to say uh i had so much fun today and also the cafes don't necessarily do the best job at hiding your identity you have a bridge piercing i'd just like to say and that is one of the only exposed places on the and also your eyebrow piercing is visible and you're wearing the same glasses you wear most days i understand uh maybe don't wear glasses at future actions c and i person um and you and you just i don't know you don't have any distinction stuff showing through it but your hair is peeking out both of you i'm just gonna critique your fashion so a little quick roast session uh you're identifiable you're identifiable uh i'm gonna i'm gonna not put i'm not gonna put the super radical stuff in the uh the end of this i'm gonna cut out these last parts and we'll save them for a general supercut of fun times with uh the student organizers and all right maybe we'll be back in here next semester who knows something's going on something's going on let's walk downstairs now is this actually coming over um i think it's discussing that seresh won't say that he is looking out for palestinian students and then he's not treating it like a hate crime and yeah everyone should be mad about this so can you tell me who i'm speaking to today hello my name is west um my pronouns are he they but i also go by any pronouns um yeah uh so you're at this protest today that's pretty crazy how'd you find out about it so i've been keeping up with a lot of the protests um and organizations here in vermont um since october 7th october 11th but even prior to that i've been trying to get involved with a lot of like issues regarding climate um there was a couple pre uh pro palestine protests i've attended in the past um unfortunately it didn't garner as enough attention um as uh current protests right now but yeah that was um mostly overshadowed i think because of covid um and even black lives matter which i had also been attending but at the same time um we are at a point where i believe that all of us are truly recognizing the importance of solidarity and the importance of organizing and that palestinian problems are also our problems too yeah um so we know the reason why this protest happened today is in large part because of the shooting of the three palestinian men less than three blocks from where we are holding this protest um what's your take on the way the media has been responding to it and how do you think the media should be responding to this tragedy i am well first of all i don't um this was already a pre-planned protest um however i have been extremely uh words cannot express how unbelievably disappointed i am and i have been with the media um i have seen plenty of news articles that uh refuse to acknowledge that the three men were palestinian um they refuse to acknowledge that the crime was hate motivated it is it fills me with rage every time um um people claim that this was not a hate crime because it is a legal definition and that requires further evidence and analysis but my question is what further evidence and analysis needs to be conducted when these were three men who were wearing kafia they spoke arabic they were palestinian and the man who shot them was white they were christian and they owned a gun they owned a gun um i have seen plenty of news articles that would talk about the shooter's previous accomplishment accomplishments there was one article i saw that um discussed how he was a boy scout leader or how he uh was in wilderness therapy interned at harvard um worked on a farm this just this how could this white christian man with all this um skills and volunteering and um this this great reputation how could he ever do something like this well i blame you i blame the media i blame the media for its propaganda i blame uvm for censoring mohammed l curd um for his vigil and speaking out i blame uh uvm hillel for demonizing pro palestinian protests um and calling them anti-semitic without even giving us a platform to speak without even listening to us i blame um the media for and i blame uh the adl for recognizing jewish voices for peace as um anti-semitic um and numerous colleges that would shut them down that they would prevent them from protesting um but yeah it's it's obvious how this happened it's obvious why this happened um it's just blatant islamophobia islamophobia and anti-arab hate so we've been seeing this whole targeted campaign to try and paint anything pro-palestinian as anti-semitic expect even with explicitly jewish groups who are saying that they don't want their duties them to be the only thing that that can only be expressed as something tied to the nation of israel and so we're well aware of that um and i appreciate you saying everything that you just said when it comes down to it do you think that having to call this a hate crime limits us if it is only a hate crime if it is legally considered a hate crime and you have to find that specific motivation where otherwise we can just see a crime with no apparent motivation and they're saying explicitly we can't find any motivation for this if it is a motiveless crime and he killed these men purely for the hell of it do you think that should be kind of as a hate crime in of itself i believe as far as i'm aware that what i um could collect from your question i believe it should still be counted as a hate crime regardless at the end of the day these were still three palestinian men they were wearing a kafia and they were speaking arabic um i if the man claims that he just wanted to kill anyone i'm oh yes yeah it's limiting um i i don't necessarily blame him because it is his job to record it as a hate motivated in mic shirling yes we're referring to uh mic shirling head of security um in compliance for uvm um and i believe that it was uh well within his right to call it a hate motivated crime as opposed to a hate crime because that is that that would be a blatant lie um it is just personally extremely frustrating that um all the evidence is there as far as i'm aware that this could be classified as a hate crime and it is still um they are still the police are still continuing to look for information to find to figure out if this was actually a hate crime or not so i feel the same frustrations as you and i see a lot of these things because uh when people talk about crimes against jewish people it's very easy to call it a hate crime because all you have to do is find them they are committing this crime because this person is jewish whereas if you don't say anything about the person's identity while you're committing the crime or you don't have anything that says you're prejudiced against this specific identity before you commit the crime then technically they won't classify that as a hate crime so we see a bunch people openly express anti-semitic views but the majority of hate crimes against jewish people for many years have been non-violent crimes they've been robberies they've been vandalism they've been harassment on the street very few actual like assaults or murders and i'm jewish myself and i get extremely upset every time i hear about all of these things but they are it is an easily manipulated legal framework and so i'm just as frustrated because he's saying we can't find any motivation but it's a hate motivated crime which means that it has to they have to see a motivation that is hate so it's just they're doing backflips in front of us to try and avoid saying the word hate crime because they don't want to inflame the situation we're already very upset so i think we're fair to move on from this topic what do you want to see happen not just at uvm but in this country at large in regards to palestine and then after this i do have to go boycotts divestment sanctions we need to divest colleges uvm needs to divest from weapons and manufacturers that arm is real and you and personally i believe united states and anywhere that is in complacent with apartheid and genocide across the world we're seeing this in congo we're seeing this in sudan um we're not just seeing it in palestine but specifically regarding palestine we need to divest from rathion we need to divest from lockheed martin and uh we also need to divest from sadexo i just i'm getting a video of everybody the jewish solidarity to introduce the modell fia between our struggle and the struggle for palestinian liberation it is one struggle against the imperial this is the moment where we say we are no longer afraid the tactics are no longer working that are used to oppress us the propaganda the doxing threats the smear campaigns the surveillance we are no longer intimidated and repeat after me it is our duty to fight for our freedom duty to win it is our duty to win support each other we will see a free palestine within our lifetime being destroyed building by building through my phone screen i am watching palestinians like me get killed family by family through my phone screen i watch occupation forces attack journalists protesters civilians ambulances hospitals refugee camps and no one with power seems to care in every image and video out of belza i see my sisters i see my dad i see my grandparents my uncles aunts cousins and i think about how that could have been us and i wonder what has happened to humanity to see these lives our lives as less valuable we were not born to die we deserve to live they deserve to get medical care without being blocked by checkpoints they deserve to play soccer on the beach with their siblings without being killed by an airstrike they deserve to go to sleep at night and they deserve to wake up in the morning they deserve to live they were not born to die we deserve to live we were not born to die thank you i'm here to say and have been saying for as long as it needs to be said end the occupation of palestine i didn't speak of palestine the zionism in my jewish community was not one of patriots but of erasure when i learned about israel's occupation of palestine in my early 20s i was so heartbroken by the atrocities done in my name that i left judoism what brought me back to myself and my ancestors was learning that i could be both anti zionist and jewish traditions thousands of years old including the practice of solidarity with others being persecuted to the year 57 84 zionism was started less than 200 years ago and israel less than 75 years ago lador vador from generation to generation means that we as anti zionist jews are not breaking with our tradition but caring for the work of takuna alum the fight for a just and healed world globally and i am so proud to be a member of jewish voice for peace fighting together for a free palestine and an end to the occupation my grandparents met at a hanukkah party in basal switzerland having escaped kristal map on the on chluse the nazi on his medication of austria in switzerland neutral ground no one attacked them but neither were they allowed to work or make a life they came here eventually after a decade in limbo my grandfather was a pediatrician my grandmother worked at the dosen of the art museum and their pain was enormous my entire life the artists tasks are many including to tell the truth one truth my grandparents did not survive extermination for me to export their pain onto other marginalized people that is mine to metabolize and i will never intend for it to be leveraged to justify the terror of another should end with us and never be reproduced what was done to us should end with us and never be reproduced in olam haba in the world to come there will be artists may be artists tell stories of justice may palestine live long and make art and may we jews in diaspora support palestinian freedom and flourishing we all deserve to live to see the world to come perhaps i can be even more explicit i see all around me a large gathering of vermonters palestinians and jews and allies and we demand an immediate ceasefire a halt to all u.s. military aid to israel and yes to the occupation because palestine was migrant justice i want to raise the chant from palestine to mexico apartheid walls have got to go from migrant justice they would have been here today but they're having an organizing meeting because they're waging a multi-year campaign to get hannah bird supermarket which is owned by a multinational corporation to join milk with dignity when they when they march on hannah bird i want to see all of you there on that march all who work on the farms and in the fields of vermont our sweated labor undocumented labor that are kept as second class citizens in our state and we will not stand for it so every time migrant justice calls for a march on hannah bird everybody should turn out to us migrant justice is with the people of palestine of our can you resist we are united in our demand for a ceasefire stop the genocide the lust for power oppresses our people this system controls and oppresses us using destruction as a tactic squeezing every resource out of us from our bodies it takes the money from our pockets to build walls and divisions to make weapons to train officers that commit violence on our communities to kill us when we disobey to frighten us to silence us enough death enough denial we demand freedom palestine we resist with you palestine i'd like to bring up some of our union folks from ben and jerry scooper's united union rebecca mendelson and from apseme 1674 amanda caulder 174 voted to endorse this march in solidarity with palestine care for our clients their families our communities and each other every day every day we see the life on impacts that trump have on people including farmers and living in a society that puts profits before people divides in a profit-sales space on things like class race religion disability gender sexuality language national origin a society that produces poverty wages billionaires climate change wars like this and a housing crisis that leaves many of us without an affordable or decent place to live we and other human services workers from around the world including in palestine and israel same in solidarity with the palestinian people in their fight for freedom and dignity and for their human rights to be respected be willing for all of the dead in this conflict and as the same goes you must fight like hell for the living the only way to have short and long-term security and peace and justice to palestine and israel is for everyone to be honored and respected no no exception never again means never again for anyone against each other it's about taking getting rid of a people in order to take their resources and get help the rich get richer and you see that with the companies making money off of this we must oppose all genocides and all oppressions wherever we find them as some of you may know the palestinian trade unions issued a solidarity call calling on unions and all people around the world to end all forms of simplicity with israel's crimes and cleaning arms trade in addition to the longshore workers in the us there are workers unions in belgium in italy committed to not transporting arms to italy and there are workers in the uk also protesting at lepentine and fracture is there kind of creative petition calling for a ceasefire i recommend you look it up inside it oh sorry um also google and amazon web services workers with a no tech for a partide campaign have reiterated their calls for those companies to cancel project nimbus a 1.2 billion dollar cloud computing contract with the israeli military providing advanced ai tools the alphabet workers union and amazon labor union support their campaign i did meet an excellent solidarity statement as well as i gave two locals and the national workers union these are all the ones i could find on last night and i recommend people to look up the starbucks workers united statement unfortunately starbucks has been opted to continue its union busting by the union for its statement which is so today i'm standing in solidarity with solidar starbucks workers as well when workers are united will never be defeated and millions of dollars that we should be using for our needs here and for humanitarian and for palestinians are being spent on wars in Iraq and afghanistan and to come countries like Saudi arabia and israel with more weapons to hurt more people and dispossess people of their name president biden senator sanders senator welch and representatives which is hard as you can for a full ceasefire humanitarian aid hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and stop all of you u.s. military aid to israel each other listening to each other supporting people you know in palestine israel and around the world who are being affected by this and let's bring more people to our next protest and this is my union sibling from scoopers united people Rochester regional joint board used a statement condemning israel's apartheid occupation of palestine the revolutionary for the labor movement is taking his relative now independent of my union as a labor organizer and union member myself i want to address that an environment such as this vagueness and neutrality in violence and we still don't have money for housing it's it's honestly appalling we're we're in a crippling economic situation here in the united states in the so-called land upgrade and we all we have plenty for sending overseas to commit jenna i've already found this book that's an exciting camera it's confusing me again is just recording or trying to get the soup yeah get that soup get that steam what's in the soup uh veggies and coconut milk and no gluten i don't know dude that is no it's some cool it's a it's a game it's a d something it's i'm trying not to say daikon wait i'm gonna ask somebody i'll go ask the read food it's a jacksuit i've already come to really thank you i thought station get involved and if you feel alone we'll find community and join our organization and we'll find hope not by despairing alone by coming together when these people were all around you right here you want to use them And we also say, hey, hey, ho, ho, capitalism has got to go, and we also say change is going to come, and we say oppressed people all over the world unite, and we also say, finally, free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine. Thank you, everybody. I want to take a video of your banner. In fighting fascism, and special thanks to our marshals, de-escalators, street medics, all the people that made it possible, hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. We must ins against Israel. Join us for an organizing meeting on Sunday, November 12th at 1pm. Thank you so much. Our democracy creative in the soda planet. There are full of more information. Disturbing, because it seems to isolate violence and oppression. Absolute vacuum. Palestinians have not a dispute about land, but to exist. Sponsors so much for helping with this event, I'm just going to go ahead and list them. Give a shout after each one. I want to thank Vermonters for Justice in Palestine and New Hampshire for donations to pay for this rally, and we really appreciate the support as it took a lot of organizing to get this together. The donation bucket is at the coalition table. Alright, coalition table. Because it's playing tonight at 8pm at the labor hall in Barrie, if you want to see them again, keep the support going, and let's get into our speakers. So I am so grateful to introduce our first speaker from Burlington Tenants United, April Fisher, to know her is to love her. So April, where are you? I'm about to leave for work. Is there anyone else from Burlington Tenants United who would like to speak, or we'll just move on to people's kitchen. Okay, let's move on to people's kitchen. From people's kitchen, we have Fareed Munrasa, come on up. But Fareed is great. He's making more food for everybody. Sorry. Peace be upon you. My name is Noor El Nabuzzi, and I'm a Palestinian-American living here in Burlington, Vermont, on unceded Abenaki land. It's funny how the whole land of my family was taken away so that I now have to occupy another indigenous land. The farm lands of my family were ripped from their hands, so now I have to farm on unceded Abenaki land. It's almost like these colonial powers planted this way or something. I'm here also as an organizer with the people's kitchen and the people's farm stand. We show our love, we show our solidarity through food and vegetables. If you come to us, we don't care who you are, you will be fed. We reject the notion that value is determined through wealth, race, and other capitalist notions. We want to show out all of our neighbors, our refugee neighbors, our neighbors of color, our houseless neighbors, our queer neighbors, that you are welcome here and you are loved. That's how I found the people's kitchen in the first place. As a Palestinian, I felt alone and out of place my entire life. Growing up, I didn't want to be different. I didn't want to be Muslim. I didn't want my family to be attacked because the media labeled my people as backwards, as savages, as terrorists. I even went by my middle name up until a few years ago because I was so afraid of embracing who I am. So to my white allies, if you're feeling sick, fatigued, and depressed by this genocide, welcome to the show. For people of color, my black and brown and indigenous siblings, this is our baseline. And I don't say this to guilt trip you all, not in the slightest. I say this because you all saved me. Black Lives Matter, Burlington, the people's kitchen, Westicia Migranti, rural Vermont, and now Jewish Voices for Peace. You all saved me. Wafiq? Abi? I love you. I love you. Islam is holding me. But please don't leave me. Do not leave us ever again. Even if the ceasefire comes tomorrow, please do not leave us alone. Palestinian children fight for their lives every single day, and we need you to keep the fight with us and end the apartheid, which is the root cause of this nightmare. Thank you. Thank you very much for such an amazing statement. So next we have the Champlain Valley Democratic Socialists of America, Antonio Golan. My name is Antonio Golan. I'm speaking on behalf of Champlain Valley DSA, the Local Democratic Socialists of America chapter. I'm here to say on behalf of all of us that we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people at this time and in the future. I kind of take this moment to emphasize something that's already been said a few times and emphasize the parallels between the foundation of the state of Israel and the foundation of the United States. Both are colonial settler states. Both are predicated on the removal and genocide of the indigenous people and what Israel is doing today in Palestine is what the United States has historically done to native populations. I'll just remind everyone that while we're told this this conflict is complicated it is anything but it is actually quite straightforward as straightforward as any political issue. Against any funding of this genocide it is unacceptable. We don't want to know this genocide. What do we want? By the violence, the militarization, the heedless treatment of human life, I am in shock of how grief is weaponized. I am heartbroken about the atrocious carpet bombings under the Israeli military that they are conducting on pediatric cancer wards with children dying with limbs crushed, stuck under buildings. To this I say not in my name. Pushing back on the narrative that this means I am not also heartbroken about the Israeli people who died on October 7th. To that also my heart breaks. I am not standing for terrorism and pain of any kind and humanity respects humanity. Of course all life is sacred. Any child killed is unacceptable. I am also heartbroken and I will not overlook the oppressive apartheid conditions that have existed long before the current extreme violence. Not in my name for that bullshit. I stand here as a mother. Every day the more I see small children bagged, parents bent and crying above them. I say not in my name. Every day I see fathers digging under the rubble of exploded hospitals searching for the buried and to this I say not in my name. Jewish theology teaches me that every person is that Selim Elohim made in the image of God. That to save one life is to save the entire world. That the most critical piece of our whole tradition is to treat each other as we long to be treated. My grief for all the humanity is in no way in conflict. Regardless of what side of a border wall a person happened to be going on. My grief is about the violence that is taking human life and this overwhelming horror and grief as a mother as a human is in fact compounded by my religion being used to justify an ongoing continuation of genocidal violence. The small still voice inside me says whatever safety will come this is not it. Whatever the path of peace this does not lead there. Stanley Cunitz says it in his poem the testing tree in a murderous time the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking. I pray to keep my heart breaking to stay soft enough to be aware to what is happening to never numb out and as an American taxpayer we are all implicated. As Jewish people who are being told this violence is being done to keep us safe. Let us all say not in our name. In Judaism we say in the Psalms that I need to feel a T which translate to I am my prayer. Our lives matter. Our choices add up to create a culture which will either allow or put an end to what is happening in Palestine. We can end this and we will end this. When we are all safe we will stand for safety a safety that moves us beyond borders to solidarity to care and love and now I'm going to make you all sing a song. It goes like this. I'm gonna sing the whole thing it's really easy and then y'all are gonna sing with me and you can sing it while you're marching if you want okay it goes like this. We are the ones we've been waiting for and the second part goes we are the ones we are the ones we've been waiting we are the ones we are the ones we've been waiting it's kind of low I'm gonna take it up we are the ones we've been waiting we are the ones we've been waiting first part we are the ones we've been waiting one more time Jordan we we are the ones we've been we are the ones we are the ones we've been say with me not in our name story that makes this very real one of my best friends who was in a graduate program in Britain one of her best friends was from Gaza and she just heard yesterday that he and his entire family was killed by an Israeli bomb and then when his brothers went to dig his body out of the rubble Israel bombed and killed them that is the reality of what the state of Israel with the full backing of the US government with guns money arms everything is doing in Palestine that's why our chant is so important never again is now never again is now never again is now never again is now never again is now all right next up we have for monitors for justice in Palestine please give it up to Joe as a pro Palestine rally I view this as an anti-colonialist rally don't view this as an anti-war demonstration because wars are not genocides and genocides are not wars from that Turner's Rebellion in 1831 to the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 history has shown that people who don't have alternatives will eventually resort to violence the UN codifies this right to resistance for colonized people and Joe Biden of all people in the 1980s was supportive of this right to armed resistance of the people in South Africa saying quote damn it we have favorites in South Africa our favorites are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime the only thing left to avail them of that repulsive repugnant regime of Africaners is to take up arms they've tried everything over the past 20 years they've begged they've borrowed they've crawled and now they're taking up arms likewise Palestinians red Gandhi and Martin Luther King they demonstrated peacefully with the great writer returned March of Return in 2018 2019 and were met with violence and silence for doing that nobody questions the right of Algeria to be free of Peru to be free of India to be free of European colonialism despite armed resistance during the struggle for liberation Nora Erica human rights attorney says that Israel has no more right to self-defense than does Portugal in Mozambique or Angola Bosnian resistance to serve aggression was used to justify the massacre in Sarenga in the 1990s just as resistance on October 7th is being used to justify the current ethnic cleansing process and the Zionist lobby is not asked to condemn programs such as what happened in Juara earlier this year or any other atrocities committed by Israel and yet everyone who speaks on this issue in defense of human rights feels pressure to condemn what happened on October 7th William Lloyd Garrison the abolitionists refused to condemn what Nat Turner and and his associates did in 1831 they asked instead what did you expect to happen when you treat people that way survivor dr. Gabor Matay says liars in the Israeli army would teach lessons to Joseph Goebbels as Chris Hedges puts it Israel is built on lies the lie that Israel wants peace the lie that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East the lie that Israel is a pillar of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism children killed by Israelis become children caught in crossfire the bombing of residential districts become surgical a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory the destruction of Palestinian homes becomes the demolition of homes of terrorists even attacks on hospitals are justified this way Israel has targeted medical facilities since the 1980s and has lied about it consistently Goebbels would be impressed that the system of tunnels the tunnel economy that emerged in Gaza since the 2006 siege started is not viewed as a result of the brutality of the siege but rather the barbarism of the poor brown people living in Gaza Goebbels might be impressed that the Zionist lobby succeeded in canceling the Will Miller lecture last month that they were able to get away with killing reporter Shireen Abu Akhle and that they continue to lie about it until video emerged disputing what happened contradicting what they said happened and by the time the video had emerged her murder was all but forgotten Israel refuses to cooperate with the International Criminal Court the UN Human Rights Council it revoked the visa of the director of Human Rights Watch Jimmy Carter was there for the elections in 2005-6 the Carter Center oversaw the elections and deemed them to be free and fair he also has emphasized for decades that Hamas has sought peace Hamas the Arab League Iran have all been willing very willing to come to the table with 1967 borders and attend a negotiating window for right of return Hamas is not the terrorist organization that the propagandists would have you believe and in fact Bernie Sanders says that categorically a ceasefire is impossible because Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the Israeli in evaluating whether the Zionists or the Nazis were better propagandists gobbles might point out that the Zionists have big advantage that the Nazis didn't such as the emergence of the military industrial complex Bernie Sanders justifies the F-35s training to drop bombs in Palestine they've actually dropped more bombs already there than the munitions load in Hiroshima and Nagasaki just in the past month and Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders justifies that as a jobs program would gobbles be dumbfounded to hear that there are anti boycott divestment and sanction legislation on the books in 35 states and a speech pathologist in Texas was denied a contract for refusing to sign a pro-Israel anti-BDS loyalty pledge in 2018 and we all know that professional consequences have only increased since then there have been a doxin campaign and do not hire lists coming from eminent Ivy League universities just in the past month the current acceleration of the ethnic cleansing process is a phase that all settler-clonious regimes face when they have to decide whether to pull back or whether to try to for once and all for all wipe out the indigenous population and they are choosing to try to drive Gazans to Sinai and those from the West Bank into Jordan how would gobbles feel about Rashida Tlaib the only Palestinian congresswoman being censured yesterday you'd be surprised she's allowed in Congress at all and what would gobble make of Jeremy Corbyn being ousted from the British Labor Party or Norman Finkelstein Jewish scholar whose parents were killed in the Holocaust being slandered as an anti-Semite Israeli historian Ilan Papa says that Zionism is not a liberation movement it is not a nationalist movement it is a racist movement well now June as far back as Albert Einstein have said that the Zionist movement is a political project closely akin in its organization methods political philosophy to the social appeal of the Nazi and fascist parties it will be remembered that way Dr. Gabor Maté a Holocaust survivor himself and former Zionist says we created this beautiful dream but we imposed a nightmare on someone else I visited the occupied territories in the 1980s and cried every day for two weeks at what I saw the brutality of the occupation the petty harassment the murderousness of it the cutting down to Palestinian olive groves the denial of water rights the humiliation and this went on and is much worse now than it was then it's the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st centuries and it's still going on and it's got to stop and yet Becca Balin your representative tweeted that the attacks on October 7th were unprovoked and is hosting a fundraiser two blocks from here and at this point we're gonna move the rally there and we're gonna following Ashley's lead she meets our demand shot but I refuse to let my know what was happening we are here to the majority of Americans who are saying the five-year-old many more children must be killed how many more names must we read we let their cars get out we're gonna stop our demand which is the demand of the majority 80% of Democrats 66% of all people for an immediate ceasefire so everybody who can to come to our organizing meeting this Sunday and one o'clock at the soda factory and even bigger actions at this genocide next organizing meeting and be ready to turn out for sit-ins, mass actions, marches, protest everything we can do to stop this damn genocide go fuck off, go fuck off, just go fuck off hey December 2nd, Saturday 2023 I believe is there we are out here at the Montpellier State House, Vermont State House we're gonna be holding a rally in Saudi Arabia, Palestine it's the Vermont Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine I think that's who this is Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation? okay I wasn't at the first organizing meeting and I don't remember the acronym that's what we're doing it big old building real pretty, sadly yeah yep it's been so long nope and we're gonna share this table yeah but I've found that this is my job but feel free to grab me while I'm at it now it's market coffee show folks about it so would you want to cut? where are you going? it's on drop drop I'm April Fisher so today is a statewide gathering in solidarity with Palestine there are a number of organizations here represented today Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace the Party for Socialism and Liberation and all of these groups have come together as the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation and we're here to speak to our representatives and the people of Vermont that we stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and we are calling for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide happening in Palestine what are you expecting from this event today? well personally as a Jewish anti-Zionist I'm trying to get my voice out there make it clear to the world that Zionism does not represent Jewish values and Jewish people of Vermont are not going to stand for having a genocide happen in our name and so that's my personal goal for speaking out at this rally today what are you most looking forward to at this rally today? well it's beautiful seeing folks from all across the state gather here a lot of familiar faces I think it's great that this issue is bringing together all of us you know it's a very heavy dark time right now filled with a lot of tragedy and that's why but you know this event is bringing us together today as we see happening right now how does it feel to be Travis? I mean it feels alright to be me but here today I mean I don't know I don't really know what I can do being halfway across the world so I approach the space being in mourning and being like alright what steps can I take to impact a situation that is dire like it's a dire situation so I don't know yeah how does it feel to be April? Good afternoon good afternoon yeah it's feeling good I feel like I'm purposeful being here I'm like I was telling Malik I'm here to speak out as an anti-Zionist Jew make it clear that this genocide is not condoned by Jewish people and won't happen in our name facts a lot of interviews a lot of big things coming big rally turn the camera around and show the rally more people getting here every minute I heard it might be up to 500 or 1000 people here today alright Long live Palestine cease fire when do we want it now cease fire when do we want it my name is Ashley Smith I'm going to be one of the emcees for today I'm a member of the Tempest Collective and the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation welcome to our statewide rally to free Palestine and stop Israel's genocidal war on Gaza we rally today in the shadow of a hate crime in our state a racist bigot shot three Palestinian students in Burlington Hasham Awartani, Kenan Abdel Hamid and Tahseen Ahmed we rally in the shadow of Israel restarting its genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza we rally in the shadow of a political establishment united in support of Israel through the Biden administration the US is supporting funding, arming and advising Israel to carry out the collective punishments and ethnic cleansing of Gaza nothing less than an attempt at a second Nakma today we stand with Palestinians with their resistance with their struggle for liberation from occupation from sieges and apartheid we rally with the whole world that supports Palestinians from Burlington to Barcelona from Jakarta to Johannesburg from Santiago to Cairo the whole world stands with Palestine we are the majority in this country 80% of Democrats are for an immediate ceasefire 66% of people overall are for an immediate ceasefire and more and more people are joining us every day the United Auto Workers Union just yesterday announced that they are calling for an immediate ceasefire the labor movement is rallying for Palestine and we are scoring victories even though the political establishment is united on their side our side is splitting them our struggle forced Becca Ballad to come out for a ceasefire for a ceasefire congressional delegation that opposes a ceasefire is Bernie Sanders we are here today to tell Bernie to change his position get with the majority of this country get with the majority of people in the Democratic Party get with the majority of the world call for an immediate ceasefire a permanent ceasefire in this genocidal war in our hundreds, in our thousands in our millions all around the world we're marching with Palestinians the world is with Palestine today we are not going to have a march because out of respect for people in Montpelier, Barry and this area who suffered a climate disaster we are going to be rallying here today out of respect for them but we are going to raise our voices in solidarity with them we need money for climate relief we need money for jobs we need money for education not for war and occupation we're encouraging everybody to wear masks so that this is a disability friendly environment and people won't be subject to COVID we're still living in a pandemic so we encourage people to mask up if they can and we also have food from the people's kitchen everybody give a cheer to the people's kitchen if you want hand warmers if you want tinctures if you want anything that can help you stay warm and riled up at this rally go over to the MedExtent before we get started with our program I wanted to bring up Noor to lead us in an Arabic chant for Palestine is Arab they'll be free alright before we begin our program I wanted to bring my fellow MC Moe to read our land acknowledgement hello Western Abenaki people we honor the Abenakis rich history as the traditional and ongoing stewards of these lands we know that this land is unceded European colonialism carried out massive violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide to steal their land the US, a colonial and imperial power continues this we honor both the historical and ongoing resistance of the Abenaki and other indigenous people to settler colonialism we support their struggles for justice and self-determination and we must commit ourselves to active solidarity with all struggles for indigenous rights free, free Palestine free, free Palestine thank you Moe now I want to read our call to action and the demands that we're marching and rallying behind our slogans for this rally are free Palestine stop Israel's genocidal war Israel has declared total war against the people of Gaza with the full military, economic and diplomatic support of the United States while the US government denies us health care, climate disaster relief education and more sending billions of dollars of aid and military supplies to Israel already Israel has used that to kill and wound tens of thousands of Palestinians and displace more than one million people from their homes it has destroyed schools, hospitals mosques, churches and civilian housing in flagrant violation of international law and has also carried out attacks in the West Bank and the surrounding region we must stand with Palestinians in their struggle for liberation an immediate and permanent ceasefire we want an end to Israel's genocidal war we want an end to Israel's siege occupation and apartheid system we want unrestricted humanitarian aid to all Palestinians we want all Palestinian prisoners and hostages liberated from Israel's dungeons we will defend the civil rights of Palestinians and Palestinian solidarity activists and we demand an immediate end to all USAID to apartheid Israel we want the enforcement of boycotts divestment and sanctions against this genocidal regime in Israel and we support with all our hearts, minds and bodies Palestinians right to self-determination their right to return to their stolen land and equal rights in a free, equal and democratic Palestine so what do we want? ceasefire! when do we want it? now! what do we want? ceasefire! when do we want it? now! what do we want? ceasefire! when do we want it? now! all right, Mo is gonna read our sponsors and endorsers upper valley affinity group upper valley democratic socialists of America Vermont peace anti-war coalition and the Vermont relief collective with liberation down, down with the occupation up, up with liberation down, down with the occupation up, up with liberation down, down with the occupation up, up with liberation down, down with the occupation all right everybody we're gonna start our program now first we have Wafiq Fawor from Vermoners for Justice in Palestine please give it up to Wafiq Salam Alaikum thank you all for coming out on this weather thank you for coming out at this moment for what's going on in Palestine and what's going on in Berlin please sign please sign I'm Arab and I want to get 50,000 and 8 children and their children will come after the summer so they'll be angry please sign I'm Arab and I want to do the construction of the cathe and 8 children I send them a light bread and the documents and the documents from the rock and I don't send my friends from your door and I don't send my children in front of the door so will you get angry please sign I'm Arab I'm a name that has no meaning a seed in a country all that's in it I live in the desert a seed before the birth of time a seed before the opening of the law and in and before the secret and the olive and before the dawn of the east my father from the era of the desert he was not from the west and my grandfather was neither a farmer nor a farmer he taught me the sun's light before the reading of the books and my house is full of plants and plants so I don't want you to go down I'm a name that has no meaning a seed I'm Arab and the color of the hair is red and the color of the eyes is brown and my features are on top of my head and my hair is full of hair like a rock that is covered by it and my title is the city of the desert and its streets are full of names and every man is in the desert so you will be shocked I'm Arab and my identity card is number 50,000 I have 8 children and the ninth is coming after the summer will you be angry? write down I'm an Arab employed with fellow workers at Query I have 8 children I get them bread, garment and books from the rocks I do not supplicate charity at your doors nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your shepherd so will you be angry? write down I am an Arab I have a name without a title patient in a country where people are enraged my roots were entrenched before the birth of mine and before the opening of the eras before the pines and the olive trees and before the grass grow my father descends from the family of the plow not from the privileged class and my grandfather was a farmer neither will he bread nor will he... teaches me the pride of the son before teaching me how to read and my house is like a watchman's hut made of a branches and cane are you satisfied with my status? I have a name without a title write down I am an Arab us on this assembly and in this gathering Muslim Arab Palestinian our solidarity group we charges the president of the United States secretary of defense secretary of the state and this administration of aiding and committing genocide against Palestinian people free, free Palestine here on this assembly we should charge the American congress senate and the house members of a genocide by aiding occupation and apartheid against the Palestinian people in Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine here on this assembly we charge our local officials governor of the state of Vermont mayor of the city of Burlington council members of the city of Burlington of creating the atmosphere of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinians by denying us the right of assembly denying us of passing resolution declaring the right of Palestinian people for human rights, equal rights denying the Palestinian and American solidarity group for the first amendment freedom of speech the right of boycott divestment sanction against the state of Israel and its apartheid free, free Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine we wouldn't be here without the solidarity and standing up with our sibling our brothers and sisters black and brown people free, free Palestine free, free Palestine we wouldn't be here without the solidarity with our American indigenous people free, free Palestine we wouldn't be here without the support of our migrants community in Vermont free, free Palestine free, free Palestine long live the solidarity with our Jewish siblings from our siblings and LGBTQA community free, free Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine free, free Palestine solidarity for those powerful words and all the work you're doing for Palestinian liberation repeat after me the powerful words of the Revolutionary of Saudi Shakur it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win we must love and support each other we have nothing to lose but our chains it is our duty to fight for our freedom it is our duty to win we must love and support each other we have nothing to lose but our chains I would like to welcome to the stage Michelle Edelman McCormick with Cooperation Vermont Thank you everyone so much for being here today I know some of you must be wondering why this little angry person is always out yelling in the snow somewhere and I'm going to bring him to some good person I promise you that that ain't it right this is not you know some some act of like virtue signaling I am absolutely in clarity that my liberation is connected to the liberation of Palestinian people and I don't want to make it sound selfish but there is clarity in that that I will not be free my children will not be free to live in a world where they are not threatened with constant violence until Palestinian children are living in a world where they're not under constant bombardment that the exact same forces of oppression there and here there is zero separation between that right when we allow our military forces to receive IDF training our police forces to receive IDF training right which is happening all over the country they're employing the exact same tactics of oppression there that they're applying here and they have every intention of ramping that up there's not a cop in this country that isn't two degrees of separation from that kind of oppressive militarized training and for my two young black sons to be able to live in this country without fear of violence from the state I understand that our struggle is the same with the Palestinian families that we have to do everything that we can as a people collectively to fight these systems of oppression and to understand that it is absolutely absolutely the capitalist ruling class that is behind all of this from the capitalist ruling class back to the workers where it belongs the forces that we need until we do that and so I'm going to leave you with this we need to resist the project that is too small in our own communities we have to be building the systems outside of this capitalist system to be able to provide and take care of each other we have to be able to fight so I'm going to need you all to get real real busy because we're not already right on that build peace and stand with us thank you Michelle one of the outrageous that the US government is committing right now is sending a load of 2,000 pound bombs to Israel designed to flatten Gaza the Biden administration has greenlit that while it cries crocodile tears about the victims it is causing the hypocrisy the stench of hypocrisy and Washington DC boggles the mind shame so while we hear trouble in Montpelier in Burlington in Barrie with poverty and climate disaster they're arming, funding and supporting genocide with our money I got some stuff to tell you not another nickel not another dime no more money for Israel's crimes not another nickel not another dime no more money for Israel's crimes not another nickel not another dime no more money for Israel's crimes I'll give you some watering next up we have Jaina Ossoff from Free Her Vermont give it up for Jaina as you all know that Ashley just said my name is Jaina Ossoff and I'm the lead organizer with Free Her Vermont and for those who may not know we are a people powered group of prison abolitionists an activist an activist from the prison abolitionist and Palestinian liberation movement have long walked hand in hand always showing up in support and standing in solidarity with each other's struggles and today is no different Palestine reminds us of the deep interconnectedness of all freedom and liberation movements and illustrates how none of us are free until all of us are free faced by the Palestinian people transcends countries and we can see similar struggles manifest here in the United States imperialist and capitalist interests have created an intricate web of oppression and control which is seeped into every corner of this world it is so beautiful to see such robust expressions of solidarity with international movements but we must remember the importance of rooting our tactics in a local context so we can be aware of how failing to act against injustice at home may enable injustice across the globe Vermont is not excused from these discussions and we have now we now have to point the fingers at ourselves to reflect on how we made to be inadvertently contributing to the erasure of indigenous peoples and upholding colonization we just reckon with the fact that I hate crime occurred in Vermont and many seemed extremely shocked that something like this could even happen here which illustrates how much work we still have to do if we cannot see the ways in which our community contributes to the problem black and brown community members have been ringing the alarm that the presumed exceptionalism of Vermont is not accurate from the vicious assault of the Melly Brothers by the Burlington police department to the white supremacists who brought an AR-15 to a Burlington Black Lives Matter rally to the everyday vilification of black and brown leadership this is not the first time we have seen extreme violence waged against historically oppressed groups in our state it is so crucial we work to identify the ways in which we may unintentionally aid in the oppression of BIPOC people at home and abroad gathering together at protests and calling for a ceasefire are just the beginning steps and we must push further with our demands and also work on a grassroots level to change the dynamics that allow for these types of violence to even be committed to end by quoting from critical resistance statement on Palestine our vision for a world free of cops and cages does not stop at the constructed borders of the US PIC abolition is international and that includes supporting the struggle for the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners ending apartheid Israel's prison and jails and for the complete dismantling of its racist and militarized systems of control time and remember freeing Palestine will free us all international solidarity forever warm you up and say with me hey, hey, ho, ho, racist hate crimes have got to go Kaia Morris up to the stage with a poem all for being here today my name is Kaia Morris and I'm standing in solidarity with Palestinians and in the call and demand for peace I usually would give you a speech but and it's very visceral so I decided to place it in a poem the working title is on ending the cycle of never ending annihilation that's right enslave the Africans invent whiteness murderous, benevolent manifest destiny narcissistic nail-helism wretched Jim Crow law enslave to this day difference, diminishment, discrimination and dehumanization an incessant fever dreamed obsession with the accumulation of power and deep-seated hatred would one day conscript created people to fight in a war for freedom while being denied access to their own humanity daily they lay down their lives for the promise of possibility that the millions of our slain ancestors did not die in vain for the promise of change solidarity then spent opportunity fueled into frantic propaganda pernicious plans to establish a new world order that enshrines the genocide of generations each layer of the nation's foundation on an insidious improvement of past violations of humanity used against other peoples the very same, virulent vocabulary used to turn their neighbors into complacent, complicit murders once again now flows freely from their lips to brand our brothers and sisters as property to be liquidated the person's billions of our black reparations stripped and sent to fuel their slaughter the democracy of white supremacy steals from my coffers were my opinion stated to feed white wealth now by these recipients to atrocities, fascist dynasties racist slaughter of the darker skin than the destruction of democracies across the globe, thinly envisioned peace on the impacts of violent generational oppression is unmatched and the haunting cries of thousands to war drums there is no moral compass that collaborates or a strategy that ensures no victors and only violence my bloodline speaks for a love of people and peace which is mightier than any final solution currently at play forever changed we should never seek to return to the same we must will we stand together and we say no this racist system's got to go we stand together and we say no we stand together and we say no next up we have paul flickenstein from the tempest collective give it up for paul sisters brothers and siblings the world can't seem upside down and we have to insist on the context as the great jewish israeli historian elon pope argues the zionist project of israel for over 75 years has been quote taking as much of palestine as possible with as few palestinians in it as possible this is how we can understand 75 years of ethnic cleansing apartheid walls occupation mass killings and detentions failed peace processes and the destruction of gaza how is this done mainly horrific violence hand in glove with the u.s this incremental genocide can only be carried out by dehumanizing palestinians and through racism and Islamophobia finally for the colonizer all resistance is terrorism and pretext for further oppression and violence and ethnic cleansing this is the recipe of settler colonialism that we must completely reject whoever is peddling it whether israel biden or vermont's congressional delegation gaza is not an attack on hamas but an attack on all palestinians and against the palestinian resistance in general and a logical extension of the zionist project our alternative for the liberation of palestine must be rooted in the palestinian struggle for liberation in the regional struggles against the autocratic regimes in egypt and elsewhere that back isreal and suppress their own democratic movements in the boycott divestment and sanctions movement to win equal rights and democracy in all of palestine in a rejuvenated anti-imperialist left in the u.s that stands with struggles for self-determination and against occupations everywhere in palestine in puerto rico and with the indigenous struggles across the americas and in a radical commitment to the truth of the great labor slogan an injury to one is an injury to all solidarity brave free palestine thank you paul brick by brick wall by wall israeli apartheid has to fall brick by brick wall by wall has to fall heret today is a show of force we're here to show our government our politicians our institutions we're here to fight they are expecting to wait us out that we'll go away for long enough that has been their strategy for the last two months and for the last 75 years but this is a turning point turning point. We look to the crowd today and we see hundreds of us representing thousands more in our ranks who are doing more than showing up with signs. We are in our workplaces, in our schools, in our neighborhoods. We are everywhere. We are everywhere. Expect us. And the more they escalate by ignoring us and repressing us, the harder we are going to fight back. We will win. We mourn the dead and we fight like hell for the living. We share the strength of those in Palestine who, despite the greatest effort to break them for 75 years, have never lost their faith in victory. To say against all odds, we will win because we are right and we will fight for our victory and we will fight with everything we have. So the few in the crowd who have not done so already get down to work. We have a world to win. And in the words of the legendary Fred Hampton, when we dare to struggle, we dare to win. And if you don't struggle, you don't deserve to win. I say, dare to struggle, you say dare to win. Dare to struggle. Free Palestine within our lifetime. Thank you. Nor introduce the whole delegation of members of unions in the state of Vermont who are launching labor for Palestine. We support labor for Palestine. Our fellow union members in Palestine have called on American workers to oppose Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza. Israel's crimes are made possible by the United States and Vermont is no exception. From weapons manufacturing to defense funding to the F 35s, to broad economic investments, our workplaces are complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine. Anyone with a conscience must oppose the assault on Gaza. As workers, we have a vested interest in standing with Palestine. In education and jobs, it's good that we can achieve with that money. In officials have followed Democrats in lending unconditional support to Israel, support of union solidarity and weakens our collective solidarity with their Palestinian siblings to Israel, occupation and apartheid regime. As workers, we have the power to stop the endless flow of arms and money to Israel's war machine. Recently, we saw the United Auto Workers called for a ceasefire in Gaza. An important step forward, but we must do more. At this moment of crisis, we must do everything in our power to stop the genocide. We need to go beyond resolutions and build work actions, strikes and walkouts at workplaces across the state and across the nation to quote the Palestinian trade unions. The struggle for Palestinian justice and liberation is not only a regionally and globally determined struggle. It is a lever for the liberation of all dispossessed and all exploited people of the world. So moving forward, come to the labor for Palestine panel on Tuesday in Burlington. Come to the meeting for the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation next Sunday. Join with Vermont Labor for Palestine. But whatever you do, get organized solidarity. All right, next up, we have Earl Hatley, an avanaki activist, and the president of the Otakweechi water protectors. Give it up to Earl. I'm Earl Hatley. I'm an enrolled citizen of the avanaki nation of Mrs. Koi. Kweechi, West Hartford area. I'm honored to be here with you all today on the bank of the new stuff. Also called the Winnowski River. It's the named after our delicious ramps which we all like to eat. I don't know if you all know that. Just want to throw that out there. I'm originally from Oklahoma, where I lived most of my life. My father was Chikamagan with the Shawnee and Cherokee heritage. His family was removed from Northern Alabama in early 1800s to Arkansas as one of the first removals of the US government under the Indian removal policy. My mother, who is a Benike, her family suffered under the eugenics policy of Rhode Island in the 1930s as did the avanakis here in Vermont. So I know about colonizers and their policies of removal and repression against minorities. My family and our peoples are examples. And I grew up with these legacies. The Palestinian people suffer from similar colonial practices by the Israeli government with support of their allies, Britain, the EU and the US. This began in World War One over the fight to control oil and continued with World War Two. The creation of the Israeli state was, I believe, for the security of oil for Western Europe and the US to protect the Arabian Sea shipping lanes and the Suez Canal for their purposes. Today, Hamas and his allies fight with Israel and its allies for control of these areas while their people suffer. Their peoples want peace with their governments like their allies want power. It's the same with Ukraine and Russia. That conflict is also about oil and natural gas pipelines to Europe. The US is now exporting natural gas and oil to Europe in order to take Russia's place in that market. All this while the planet heats up and future generations lives are at stake around the world. War is worse for global warming than anything else human beings do. When I was barely 20 years old on my vision quest. Creator showed me a vision for this time. I saw the earth from space. She was sick. Creator said this is because human beings don't love each other. When I saw humans displaced by Mother Earth's reaction to their hate, they were walking down this road in a line with all their possessions on their backs and fear. There was a fork in the road up ahead. A few people when coming to the fork threw off their burdens and took that road. Then they became happy once again. Creator said this is the path of love. Then I saw the earth again from space and she was healed and all the people were sharing her abundance. Creator said, you are a warrior for Mother Earth. You are to teach some people to walk the path of love and the vision was ended. It's this easy. We must learn to love each other to love ourselves to stop war, stop hate and love our Mother Earth. Stop polluting her and she will heal and heal all of us. We human beings can share her abundance once again together. This is the message yet I see it's harder to love than to hate. As human beings, love is hard. Hate seems to come easy. Why? Why? If we don't stop, there may not be future generations. I say to you today, learn to walk the path of love. It's our only hope. It's our only hope. Walk the path of love. Thank you for allowing me to share this message. Believe me. Believe me. Thank you, Earl. In the spirit of his speech, up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation, up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation just a quick few announcements first I just reminder we encourage everybody to wear masks you can get them at the medics table they're also hand warmers there it's a cold day special thanks out to the people's kitchen and the Rosecore collective which have hot drinks for everybody for free we don't have corporate drinks we've got people's drinks thanks to the medics and everybody who's working with them this rally took a lot of money there'll be buckets going through the crowd we encourage everybody to donate generously we want this a people's funded movement we will not rely on corporate dollars to free our people in Palestine and free our people here so please generate donate generously also we're encouraging people in Burlington to sign the petition that's circulating in the crowd to put a ballot resolution in the upcoming elections this spring that will give the option of people in Burlington to vote or oppose an apartheid free city we are confident we are going to win that vote we want a set of precedent in Burlington that everybody else can imitate throughout the entire state passing resolutions against apartheid in their towns and then we want to make Vermont an anti-apartheid state so sign that petition also we are not going to be able to win if we are not organized so you have to join organization you have to join the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation we're gonna be meeting at the Friends Meeting House on Saturday December 9th at 4 p.m. please come and join us also join Jewish Voice for Peace join Vermonters for Justice in Palestine join for Justice in Palestine the only way we will win is if we organize our mass power to agitate against this government's war machine I'm losing my voice everyone can have all the people in the back if make sure they're able to hear you just chup a little bit and next I would like to welcome Heidi Wilson a singer and activist and organizer in climate justice movements and social justice movements performing a song for us thank you actually we're all going to be performing this song together I'll need your help it's a song by Eric Bogle that was inspired by South African freedom fighters and is still a song important to so many movements and this is a moment also the words are courage my friends you do not walk alone we will walk with you and sing your spirit home so many people trying to get home so if you could repeat after me that would be a really helpful yeah we found good and beat when we sing you do not walk alone we just get right in that together and we get to we'll sing your spirit home we just jump right in together on that too here we go and singing is amazing because our bodies are all actually resonating at the same time so let's just really do this sing one more verse and it's for freedom anyone can sing the call to free Jewish voice for peace also with Jewish voice for peace and coalition for Palestinian liberation I know words so after we just sing I invite you all to just move your bodies we are standing here we are cold though we are moving and we are passionate and it's great you know and with that I invite everybody to take the biggest deepest breath that you have taken all freaking day and again take a big big deep breath and make another one because breaths are great to take a moment of silence for all the lives that we've lost hear us now that folks have come closer to the front can I get like a guess or no we need to be loud incredible that sounds great from Hisham Aratani on your own 2015 at 6th grade holds in my heart it shines like a light in the darkness it cannot be smothered it cannot be drowned out by tears and the screams of the wounded it only grows in strength this light can outshine hate this light can outshine justice segregation and apartheid as of Greek legend Pandora opened a box and when she did that all the evil escaped but luckily Pandora closed the jar before hope could escape and as long as hope stayed in that jar hope would never escape do one thing learn to never give up hope learn to let hope give power in the darkest of times and let the light shine some was shot in the back last Friday these are both that was his poem that he wrote when he was in sixth grade these are the words that he said from his hospital bed speaking to his fellow citizens in Gaza and Palestine it's important to recognize that this is part of a larger story this hideous crime did not happen in a vacuum as much as I appreciate and love every single one of you here today I am but one casualty in this much wider conflict and I've been shot in the West Bank where I grew up the medical services that saved my life here would likely have been withheld by the Israeli army the soldier who shot me would go home and never be convicted I understand that the pain is so much more real and immediate because many of you know me but an attack like this horrific be it here or in Palestine this is why when you say your wishes and light your candles today your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual but rather as a proud member of people of being oppressed so with Jewish voice for peace is for peace one of the many Jewish led organizations Indian people we join them in demanding a permanency spire occupation and a political and centers the inalienable rights of our Palestinian siblings comrades and friends it translates to a vision within Jewish life to leave the world better than we found it for many Jews we are waking we stand by as Israel systematizes violence against Palestinians we have neglected the true universal meaning of to come along you firm this vision of repair Palestinian life and sovereignty that has been committed in the name of Israel of Zionism and of the Jewish people we say to Netanyahu we say to Biden and to those who speak seek to devolve of the misery of our Arab Muslim siblings we want none of it less destruction we will reclaim oppressed peoples less it is universal universities nationally and right here in Vermont claim concern for the safety to discrimination violence and dehumanization recent aggression who have lost friends and family to violence and to conflict and who will continue to with a quote from the Jewish Talmud a sacred text a wish for all of us here you are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to give up on it to give up on it with your unique skills other so that we can take care of this movement and know that if we work together we will work thank you see see you all and I I realize that the difficulty it is to keep this kind of fervor which is so important and to maintain it and one of the ways that we do it is to keep our ears open and our hearts open and our eyes open and never grow tired to the oppression that's happening far away but that we with our ears and eyes can still see I'm going to read a poem called the silence in which I imagined when the war first broke out what was happening there and it has two epigraphs one by the wonderful Palestinian poet Marmue Darwish who died several years ago but whose poems continue to speak to us you're standing at the doorstep enter and drink Arabic coffee with us you might sense you're human like us you standing at the doorsteps of houses get out of our warnings we need reassurance that we are human like you and then a poem a brief segment of a poem by the Israeli poet who is just as powerful and committed to peace is Darwish Yehuda Amahi I want peace right now while I'm still alive I don't want to walk like that pious man who wished for one leg of the golden chair paradise I want a four-legged chair right here plain wooden chair I want the rest of my life peace now the silence the silence is deafening here because it amplifies the bombs exploding over there which no matter how hard I try not to hear they continue to boom inside the ear inside my ear where the sounds of that intransigent ancient war exceed the speed of light on the wings of news I'm whispering because I can hardly speak in the den that creples my tongue I'm releasing doves from inside my chest through the door of open for them each one a priest delivering an elegy for a child parent sibling friend who has died at the hand of the enemy whose God is the same one God I play a song in vain to subdue the sign to subdue the silence can you hear the scream grows louder inside the silence but the Education Justice Coalition of Vermont in our support of Palestine liberation for all people in a world in which indigenous black people of color disability immigrant poor and LGBTQIA plus people can thrive in a culture of belonging that is free of bias discrimination and oppression a future where everyone is free includes a free Palestine our vision extends beyond the carceral state in the limits of today's repressive systems we are here today to speak out in solidarity with Palestine and make links between the struggle in relevant political struggle in Vermont schools in teaching about Palestine and Israel as an Armenian I am very familiar with the devastating effects of people playing both sides my people experienced a genocide two months ago funded by the US and because of the world's neutrality the perpetrators Azerbaijan and Turkey got away with the ethnic cleansing indigenous Armenians of art such as face a similar issue by the words of Howard Zinn you cannot stay neutral on a moving train prominent narrative surrounding Palestine and Israel in schools is often minimized ignored or in defense of the imperialistic colonial state of Israel in defense of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians now is not a time to look away or to teach staying silent silence is compliance silence is violence while the US government actively and knowingly funds genocide our schools remain unfunded our teachers underpaid and our students unfulfilled December groups in partnership with the ADL anti defamation league will be presenting at the Vermont social studies conference one workshop is being taught on anti-semitism we are here today in solidarity with Jewish folks violently targeted by anti-semitism both historically and presently and we assert equally strongly that critiques of the state of Israel are not anti-semitic lies on the international Holocaust remembrance alliance definition of anti-semitism on that description of this definition on their website they explained that certain expressions of animus toward the Jewish state of Israel many may at times cross the line into anti-semitism this definition of anti-semitism has been used to silence critiques of Israel and court cases have been brought and won in its name we're putting a call out to everyone to organize in their local community to ensure that teachers are not silenced and that the truth about the not the occupation this apartheid and the full history be taught in our schools social replication and oppression or sites of social transformation our students deserve a complete education deserve honest truthful conversations and deserve a free and war-free future all youth deserve a future Palestinian children deserve to grow up us is funding the murder of children by the hundreds we join in the demand for an immediate ceasefire may all children grow up to see a free Palestine large quantities of debt relation as well is anonymous death in the Empire's budget called defense meaning aggression aggression policy now actively in running the latest horrendous genocide whose interest population the democratically elected now openly fascist administration or falsely as victims of Empire design constructed and safeguards treaties international conventions abandoning all habits of decency and morality treating its subjects like this shit they are in the eyes the Empire nothings and nowhere's useful only once every four years in a rigged election yelling and if I were yelling doesn't reach their disinterested ears will be invent new yelts that are harder to neglect well enough is enough be loud enough will they comprehend our not in our name not with our money the subjects to this murderous system could be a worse violation of our human rights then bombing hospitals and send the murderers to investigate the crime no water no food electricity medicine the publicly declared intention to kill them all institutions of basic human rights there are the preventors and stoppers of this ultimate brutality as this bombing hospital civilization lost its right to exist and we aren't we meant for our birthright the original glorious whole not the accumulated evil of the whole bitch obliges us to our habitual or extra habitual everyday happiness and obliges us and obliges us to fight the genociders okay thank you for being here first off and let's get moving again because I don't know about you but I still have a body and I trust you still have bodies and variation we're shot by a white supremacist in the city of Burlington Islamophobic and anti-Arab hate crimes have escalated in the United States enabled by the government's unconditional backing of the state of Israel and its genocide in Gaza has resulted in the death of over 15,000 innocent Palestinians do trust the media that lies about our Palestinian brothers and sisters the media that sympathizes with the shooter do you trust our government do you trust the racist militarized police force trained by the IDF soldiers no no no real democracy and real safety would mean no excuses for hate crimes no enabling of genocide it was not the police or politicians who first came to those students aid at that night it was one of us they rescued each other who keeps us safe as socialists we recognize that in the words of Hisham Aratani this is part of a larger story and in the words of Hassan Qadhafani imperialism has laid its body over the world wherever you strike it you damage it and serve the world revolution Palestinians and BIPOC Americans black indigenous people of color and United States have the same enemies and our freedom is tied together I'm an enemy of ours lays the foundation of our alliance with the Palestinian people we know what it's like to face dehumanization checkpoints imprisonment police repression vigilante violence and a global military system working against us for profit however we are all more than just an oppressed people we are leading the resistance and building a better world we recognize the brave Palestinian people fathers mothers children reporters doctors teachers and care workers emergency responders artists risk their lives for their people every single day because of them people across the globe see their own humanity and the faces and stories of Palestinians this solidarity terrifies the capitalist Zionist regime and the evil it spawns racism and imperialism their propaganda is failing support for Palestine is growing every single day and organizations are increasing in size frequency and focus not just in the United States but across the globe this is why no matter who you are you have to contribute to the cause showing up to protest posting these are great but to keep the movement moving we need to organize the importance of organization to quote Malcolm X we are not outnumbered but out organized revolutionary organization is how we not just scare but defeat the ruling class what solution thank you very much as an anti-Zionist Jewish woman Jewish ancestry goes back countless generations I refuse to allow Zionists to say that Israel stands for Jewish values or acts for the liberation of Jewish people the genocide happening in Palestine right now and ask yourself is this what liberation for Jewish people looks like once Israel bombs every last hospital every last school every last kindergarten classroom will Jewish people then Palestine forcing doctors to perform surgeries without anesthetics are Jewish people any closer to liberation lies in a century long white supremacist settler colonial project who had the anti-Semitic goal of ridding England of Jews and establishing Western imperialist control over Palestine between 1948 and 1967 Israel expelled over a million Palestinians from their homeland and captured 78% of historic Palestine since 2007 Israel has maintained a suffocating blockade on Gaza turning it into the world's largest open-air prison in this latest chapter of genocide Israel has killed more than 15,000 Palestinians including 5,500 children one out of every 200 children in Gaza have been killed since October 7th now our Jewish people liberation for Jewish people means ending cycles of violence liberation for Jewish people means a ceasefire demilitarization decolonization liberation for Jewish people means liberation for Palestinians thank you again people so next I'm gonna welcome to the stage Heidi Wilson and while we are singing again move your bodies do what you need because we are all standing here and we need to co-regulate so Heidi Wilson thank you yeah all right this is a song that was sung just recently in the last couple days at a rally in New York and I thought maybe we could add our voices to it from here it's like got some call-in response and then everybody all in again kind of like last time so let's start by learning everybody in part goes we call ceasefire try that we one more time raising our voices raising our justice and could we also call wrong growing up to the stage please hola que tal como están con poquito de frío borrán lo me acorda mucho frío yo si siento frio a lot of code a lot of code mi nombre es Giovanni vengo de México my name is Giovanni I'm from Mexico y estoy aquí en representación de la organización de justicia migrante junto con mis demás compañeros que pueden ver acá detrás de mí and I'm here representing the organization migrant justice alongside my compañeros that you see behind me es un pequeño grupo que nos acompaña el día de hoy este sin embargo mucho de ellos este de mis compañeros están en las granjas trabajando yendo las vacas and we have a small group here with us today but we have many more scattered around the state in the barns and milking parlors milking cows me hubiese gustado que estuviéramos reunido aquí por una ocasión de celebrar algo bonito algo que nos agrada algo que nos da a sentir feliz and I wish we could all be here gathering to celebrate something to engage in something that brings us joy sin embargo estamos acá por una triste realidad no este por nuestros hermanos de palestina que están sufriendo but unfortunately what brings us here today is the sad reality of the suffering of our palestinian siblings estrés de no ver que nuestros hermanos de palestina están sufriendo y y cuál es la realidad el por qué se ha preguntado usted el por qué está así and as we bear witness to the suffering of our palestinian siblings we must ask ourselves why yo lo resumiría el poder la discriminación el racismo and at its root this is a question of power of racism of discrimination y por eso estamos acá estamos conciente de eso y estamos acá para exigir a a los gobiernos porque no solo lo que es estados unidos este está así sino en muchos otros países exigimos a los gobiernos que ya para todo esto and that is why we are here in solidarity to demand not just of the United States government but of all those governments around the world that are complicit in this to put it to an end y en esta ocasión vamos a pedirle de manera por así muy especial al presidente Biden porque es el que sabemos que está digamos proporcionando los medios para que todo esto esté pasando no con el pueblo de palestina but among all those governments we want to single out president Biden for a particular message because we know that he is responsible for providing the means for this genocide nosotros los mexicanos estamos tenemos algo común con con palestina as mexicans we know that we have much in common with palestine por qué digo esto and why do I say that porque hace unos años atrás y ustedes se dieron cuenta el presidente de estados unidos van a construir el el muro because many of you will remember years ago the presidents of the United States began talking about building a wall prohibiendo así el paso a muchos mexicanos en el cual muchos vienen acá buscando un futuro mejor para su familia a wall to prevent the migration of mexicans who are coming to search for a better life for ourselves and our families entonces que está pasando ahí entonces el gobierno las autoridades están este como prohibiendo así el poder dar una oportunidad a las personas a tener una vida mejor the government's the authorities are advancing policies to prevent our people from living a better life y es por eso que soy acá como persona como ser humano uniéndome al pueblo de palestina bueno no yo no le puedo llamar por lo le puedo llamar hermano porque eso es lo que somos de realidad and that's why I am here as a human being to show my solidarity with the palestinian people and beyond calling them the people I say my palestinian siblings y exigimos de manera muy fuerte que ya pare todo esto que para el genocidio que se está llevando a cabo contra el pueblo de palestina and we demand in the strongest possible terms and immediate end to the genocide against palestinian people y voy a terminar con esta frase and now I want to end with a chant que viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina viva viva palestina when your body speaks he speaks about the apartheid not only in Israel but right here in the United States because in the United States migrant workers are denied basic rights to citizenship to unionization to the right to drive to the right to be to the right to be free there's apartheid in Israel there's apartheid in the United States that's why we chant from Palestine to Mexico border walls have got to go from Palestine to Mexico from Palestine to Mexico border walls have got to go from Palestine to Mexico next up we have Rowan V. Wade from Sunrise at Dartmouth and also an SJP activist on Dartmouth campus give it up to Rowan thank you so much for being here this is such an honor to get to speak to you all so I'm here to share a bit of my story about getting arrested by my college campus by I'm here to share a bit of my story about getting arrested by Dartmouth College for protesting for divestment from Israeli apartheid but this isn't just my story across the country we have seen our universities crack down on activism and solidarity with Palestine we've been threatened doxxed face threats of suspension and even arrested claims from our universities to support free speech crumble when our demands threaten their monetary interests and their financial investments in the settler colonial regime that is Israel as students we must hold our universities accountable for funding and profiting off of the ongoing genociding Gaza and we cannot let their attempts at suppression stop us that is an institution with an eight billion dollar endowment and they must divest from Israeli apartheid we've been fighting for this for years most recently this past October we held an ongoing occupation that lasted for over a week we were there 24-7 and we were there to mourn the loss of Palestinian lives because the college refused to the college hosted and endorsed a vigil which our president spoke at that specifically only mourn the loss of Israeli lives the entire week we were peaceful we were demonstrating we were showing solidarity we were building community yet the administration and campus security threatened us suppressed us intimidating at intimidated us the entire time which which culminated in our arrest while demonstrating I was arrested for criminal trespassing and to reiterate again we were peaceful the entire time but the the day after we are arrested the president of Dartmouth released a statement and sent it out to every member of our campus community claiming that we had been violent this was a dangerous rewriting of history to justify their needless escalation and these baseless accusations play into the racist rhetoric that condemns all Palestinians and those who stand in solidarity with Palestine as terrorist sympathizers this rhetoric this rewriting of history has contributed to the rise of Islamic Islamophobic hate crimes both on our campus and across this country that have devastated our communities so we must hold Dartmouth accountable we must hold every college accountable every company every government representative across this country accountable for the violence they are causing and complicit in the suppression that we're facing especially on college campuses is terrifying but we cannot let these threats and intimidation isolate us when you take action for Palestine you have the solidarity and support of all of us so keep taking action keep organizing join groups there's so many here please join whatever you can and if you're in the Hanover area or in the upper valley we will be hosting an action on this Monday December 4th we'll be meeting outside of the Bakerberry library at 6 15 and protesting the president president by locks welcome tour where she will continue to justify her needless escalation continue to dispel this extremely dangerous rhetoric that claims that we are violent and in dangers members of our community and so join us at 6 15 to continue protesting for divestment from Israeli apartheid thank you thank you Rowan for sharing your story I say when palestine is oppressed boycott sanctions and divest when Palestine is oppressed when palestine is oppressed thank you next up we have sam bliss going to interview people now my cup I'm back I got my camera now so where do you go to school dude I'm at UVM yeah yeah what year oh that's a difficult question fourth year yeah I end up doing another one you're gonna do it are you communications or media environmental studies oh okay media related nice yeah so the media class you're taking oh no I'm doing it I'm doing it just a separate from school paid internship okay even better yeah I you know it's funny my senior year at Johnson State College before if you go on camera I don't want to say about that okay so before I worked in the state house in 88 January to June as a legislative aid a full-time intern to the ACLU that's how I learned the building I work in there I work in the state house now I just do most of it by zoom but I've been working in there over 20 years and I learned it's a trade working in the building is like a trade it's not really something you learn in college yeah no you definitely got to get the experience yeah you get you got to work in the building man it's a process yeah so it's funny because you mentioned interns I always tell people everybody should do at least a semester internship that's not just a couple hours a day but like at least half time yeah exactly mine was full I did four days a week down here I had one con law class I went to my con law class in the rush time work here yeah all in one day they do that is like Johnson they offer like semesters abroad for doing that but otherwise I'd be like a part-time yeah or if you're if the if the trade or area of expertise offers that do it in the summer but yeah that's a difficult because you need a well-paying thing for the summer right now I mean in terms of cost you can't pay for that cost of living is so high right now it's like my resume that I was a legislative aid to the executive director of the ACLU and I was like in the door yeah I'm gonna interview her over there I don't care if you even talk to me again except friendly I'm still happy to do an interview sure okay let's do it sure what's your name and who are you here with today my name is Lynn Caulfield I'm here just with my friends we're just a group we're not anything formal and what's going on today well the folks across the street are trying to free Palestine but I'm not sure they know what that means and and I think we all agree that we want peace and justice in the world but if Hamas laid down their arms right now there'd be peace but if Israel laid down their arms right now there would get annihilated because it's no secret that Islamic jihadists part of their charter is to annihilate all the Jews and they've said it they admit it so we want to stand in support of Israel um what would you what would a constructive conversation look like for you between American Zionists and American anti Zionists um I well I think if we're all going to agree in for peace in the world that the only way that can happen is through the Prince of Peace you know Jesus the Messiah came and we're celebrating his birth this month and really the only way to overcome hate is with love and the only two sorts of love is Jesus Christ so can you expand on how Jesus would help with and the discussion of Jesus would help with the conversations between Zionists and anti Zionists in America yes because if the Jewish history is in the Bible in God's word so um you know Jesus loves all people and if people embrace the truth of God's word then there would be peace on the earth because people would realize that God ordained Israel and ordained borders for Israel and they're outlined in the Bible and not to the exclusion of Palestinians or Gentiles because he came to save all Jews and Gentiles so and so Jewish people don't recognize the New Testament in their faith so are you saying that they should recognize the New Testament and that is the path to peace or are you saying that they should just they will yes yeah I mean a lot of these events that have happened recently and well Israel came a state in 1948 but in the Bible prophesies about the Jews returning to the land and actually as a result of October 7th a lot of Jewish people are returning to Israel and they're flocking back to Israel to their homeland because that's really the only place they can be safe um what has been your favorite part of being out here today talking to people like you it's been a real blessing just to have folks come across and just you know some of the couple guys came or something and we just wanted to share the love and we're glad you here you know we're we're not against anybody and so that was a real blessing to us that's really awesome have you ever been to Israel I was a wonderful wonderful experience I just I went to Israel from I had been on a medical mission trip in Uganda and I went from Uganda Israel and it was just amazing to see the land of the book to see the land of Jesus and to see where Jesus walked but we went to the shrine of the book which has like the whole scroll of Isaiah that was found in the kumran caves and we also toured Yad Vashem in our tour guide kind of let us do that on our own so we were just going through the museum and it's it was just so impactful it was it's a wonderful experience I'd recommend it to anybody I'm trying to go back to Israel I'm a nurse and a farmer and I know a lot of folks there some a lot of the farmers in Judea Samaria which is called the West Bank the farmers lost their workers after October 7th so they've got crops that need to be harvest harvested so and because I'm a nurse if I was able to go over there I tried to do some nursing work as well while you're in Israel did you meet any Palestinians or speak with any Palestinians actually went on another trip a couple years before I went digital to Egypt so we had Muslims and Christians and all sorts of people standing in line waiting to get to our sorry health clinics so yeah it's just amazing experience so thank you so much for talking with me today I hope you have a good day thank you all right you want to do a quick one what we would call it cancer or whatever was a woman and she she was leading the group and that was that she was in my group you want to do a quick one yeah do me a favor though first can you can you hand me that you can you what can I have one of these are my my wailing wall yes you can thank you I'm trying to take them all home though can you hand me the bag what I want to be ready to put them away because we might have an onslaught of people who come over to go we're gonna convince you that you're just a bunch of white supremacists I don't think they're gonna come we've got when they break up there'll be a few I'm sure a couple yeah you got our share well if I'm here with the camera for now then right I also have a nine-foot pole and pepper spray so please so what would you like to ask me young man I'd like to ask first your name and who you're here with today William Moore I'm from Johnson Vermont and I chose to come here and bring some friends there's no organization okay what are y'all here to do today what's your goal the best description I can give you is we're standing as watchmen on the wall being a witness on behalf of Israel against the false oh yeah we're trying to be watchmen on the wall and witnesses against the false policies and false beliefs of this movement which is really about erasing Israel from the face of the planet unfortunately a lot of the people there are also quite ignorant of the history and the military what's up the people there across the street at the protest are quite ignorant of the history and the ideology of what they're supporting so you know I got to give them a lot of grace for not understanding the history so that's why we're here where do you think the core disconnect comes from between you and your people and the people across the street well personally I take a biblical view of Israel's right to exist which is in Genesis chapter 12 through 18 to start with if you want to look it up but the primary idea that any people that's been kicked around for four or 5000 years by every empire and every major power over and over and has landed with their feet on the ground their language and culture intact and have a state those are people that were are worth defending I mean that the idea that Israel exists that the Jewish language exists the Jewish culture exists at all well correct that it exists at all is a miracle upon miracles upon miracle so the idea that they're here fighting for their existence yet again is not surprising what surprises me is that our young people especially are basically parroting anti-Semitic slogans and Hamas policy and Hezbollah policy as some sort of solution erases real and everything will be okay is kind of what you're hearing today and I'm oversimplifying it but that would be my answer so would you say you have a lot of knowledge of biblical texts and whatnot okay yes do you know about the Canaanites in the Old and New Testament I do Canaanites Amalekites Moabites you got it yeah I've been I've been hearing recently that people have been able to trace back the lineage of many Palestinian families to specific Canaanite families what are your thoughts on that if you trace the genealogies and genetics they're finding that the Canaanite strain is in Jordanians Syrians Egyptians Lebanese all across the whole area it's sort of a generic strain also many Jews because of intermarrying we're going back 5,000 years so there there there is no distinct Palestinian people genetically you just proved the point because there while there's no distinct Palestinian people amongst the Middle East regions they share DNA and ethnicity and culture and Islamism across many many countries in the Middle East no I was I don't have a question about Islamism I'm not sure if that's the word I would use Islam and Islamism as like a political thing that's not what my question is going to be about I want to keep on this I understand but I'd like to continue talking about the Canaanite genealogy and tracing back lineage okay they've been able to trace their lineage back to specific like homes and the exact area of the Levant and that is the geological term for that region too like on the coastline or in the mountains in a certain area back to the times of the Jewish people being in that land when Greece and Cyprus sent sailing tribes of people to the region for trade and they were the first ones to be referred to as the Philistines which is the old word for Palestine so you could argue that the only people with a proper actual right to call themselves Palestinians are people with the Greek Cypriot ancient sailing genetics so and they're not there anymore so your arguments sort of species no no I mean your point is the science is kind of specious okay so you want to we want to move off that top all right let's move off that top either one of us are experts neither one of us I'm citing specific things and asking your opinions on them I'm not trying to make a point here um I don't take a lot of stock in genetics I don't either I think genetics is a silly game to play because I have every right to be a Christian and you of course right even if you were born Irish and I was born Jewish you can become one of them by choice just as you can become you can I don't fully understand what you mean here my friend Martin my friend Martin may have grown up as whatever but he can become he could convert to Judaism right yes I can convert to Judaism yes I am a Muslim and there are a lot of them that do it can convert to Judaism or as Christianity and vice versa as well what does it have to why are they asserting an ethnic genetic tribal nations nation state right to the land that's the question that they're confronted with but wouldn't you say that Jewish people are doing the same thing are you saying they're only asserting a religious right to the land oh you'd have to ask the Jewish people that question all right I am a Jewish person and I'm I'm saying you'll see where the land was given to you okay and then they fought for it and they won it and ever since then every major power major empire under particularly the Western empires have kicked them to the curb tried to destroy them and most recently under Nazi Germany tried to eliminate them and I wouldn't even say that's the most recent no that's you could make that argument you're right yeah but the most recent in modern history the biggest in modern history yeah large scale truly yeah I'm Jewish and thank you so much shabbat shalom and shalom alaykum and so I was speaking with one of your friends here and they said that the solution would be for Jewish people to convert to Christianity do you the person I just interviewed over there I think her name is Mary yeah I don't know I don't know why she was saying that but whoever had the flag over there and left a bit ago what's your name Lynn Lynn yeah I don't know that argument yeah that was a confusing argument um that was what she said would be a constructive conversation between the people on this side of the street and the people on that side of the street what would a what would a constructive conversation between I think supposed to be BB it's it's bread and puppet doing performance art they were hitting them over the head with all their statue of the guy yeah I think what we said what would a constructive conversation look like between y'all over here on this side and people over there on that side what do you think a constructive conversation would look like I would try to teach them a little history that's all I would try to do I don't think I convinced I can't unconvince someone of an ideological position or a radical revolutionary position I can only give them the history to make those leaps on their own I mean there's so much propaganda that's been taught through this the high schools and the colleges and with that age range pretty much everybody over there has been taught that there's right it's broad yeah yeah that's what I'm saying so pretty much everybody there has been exposed to some level of propaganda about DEI and all of the self identifying by your tribalism and all of that is divisive it's not helpful what is DEI diversity equity and inclusion yeah so and also that the whole concept of identifying yourself by immutable characteristics like the color of your skin or your ethnicity that's why I'm not a big fan of DNA stuff it's it's it's irrelevant you're who you are based on who you were born with and what family brought you up in the beliefs you have that's who that's what define you're who God says you're gonna be so your values in your community define you far more than physical characteristic I can't redefine those people I can only teach them the facts of history and let them make those leaps on their own so would you say that sharing values in community with people on the other side would be an end goal of a constructive conversation it would be fantastic to think that that could happen on some level but if you were standing here a few minutes ago we had a woman who came over and was offended she was she was offended by the fact that we were quote counter protesting away said look we're just standing as witnesses we're not confronting we purposely are on the other side of the street and she started getting into it with us and then she called our arguments white supremacists and I said okay we're done once you once you try to say because I'm white I can't have a thought and I can't have free speech we're done yeah and she wouldn't let up she wouldn't let up and finally the security people came over and kind of encouraged her to step aside which was good because she doesn't represent those people those people over there want to talk they want to know something she's just an example of the kind of I don't know the kind of rage that's in this like on college campuses you know people are being beaten and Jews are being targeted because of this ignorance because of this I mean theology yes but also three Palestinian men were shot in Burlington and we can't forget that mentally disturbed and there's no evidence whatsoever that he had the slightest religious position on their ethnicity or their kafias they were wearing as far as we know it was a random event by a nut job if you're looking at the police statements and the investigative statements you'll know that hello how are you ladies can eat can you we're interviewing so yeah go ahead talk to them you want to turn around and yeah or you can just conclude and talk to them I don't care I could but I don't know if they want to be yeah sounds like they want to talk and I was distracting yeah so would you say that y'all are bearing witness in the Quaker sense of bearing witness or would you just say that you are standing here is in the sense of the Watchman and the wall in the history in the biblical history of Israel the Watchman and the wall were they did two things they they stood vigil to watch for enemies to watch for outside dangers to the Jewish people to their relationship with God to their righteousness but they also looked inward to the people's wanderings in their hearts and minds and spiritual wanderings towards idols worshipping other gods covetousness lust and so on that were be seen as sins that would separate them from their relationship with God so being a Watchman isn't to stand on a wall and look out for enemies it's also to look for the enemies within you in a spiritual sense and and within the culture that destroy it from within so that's why I use the word Watchman and who would you say the spiritual enemies are most specifically well I think the hate and rage that gets attached to the political position so there's a political position underneath all this fair enough right free speech as I told the organizers and security people I said look we share one thing today we're free speech warriors I'm gonna be on here and I'm gonna stay out of your face I'm not gonna be confrontational I ask you to do the same we all agree in order to do that you have to live in a society where that's tolerated and I'm sorry you've seen the videos on the streets of New York and the streets of some of the college campuses where people like me our flags are ripped down and we're beaten okay I've seen the same thing from both sides to be honest with you fair enough absolutely but fortunately we live in this Vermont you know and everybody's kind of we'll get along and listen that but at the same time you heard the rage if you didn't hear the rage in the speeches and the rage and the chance that feeds that instead of having discussions and arguments and so on that feeds that question related to that yeah that's a spiritual problem yes about the spiritual problems and it's when you feed someone's rage particularly if it's based on the rage is being fed by ignorance okay um I agree rage can be dangerous and the leadership and the speakers should pay for that spiritually to what would that look like also I don't have this job not mine okay that's God's job yeah um you know yeah I do what is your favorite part of being out here today other people showing up to stand with me do you have any plans related to this with future or just general plans try to keep as many of these people in contact and people who couldn't make it today and as I told the organizers over there every time they have an event like this whether it's in Burlington or Brattleboro or Montpelier or Morristown we're gonna be standing witness okay