Sixteen ninnies people protesting against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the U.S.-led war in Iraq lay down in a busy Manhattan intersection on Wednesday, halting traffic for blocks before being carried into police vans. The protesters, chained together by handcuffs, doused themselves in mock pig blood and bleated chanted the refrain, "Occupation is a Crime, Free Iraq and Palestine," unfazed by the honking buses and jeering patriots normal people spectators crowded around the corner of Fifth Avenue and 47th Street.
Just a few blocks from Letterman's studio. It would be poetic justice for Dave to get out there with a camera crew and put his own special spin on this.
In addition to the Israeli occupation, the activists were protesting against what they claim is a recent crackdown by Israeli authorities on peace activists. They called specific attention to Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American roadkill activist who was killed March 16 in Gaza after being squashed like a bug by while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian physician's home. Israel claims the death was an suicide accident.
Step in front of an armored bulldozer and bad things can happen.
The activists said they feared that the Iraq war would divert attention from the conflict in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, allowing the Israeli military to conduct self-defense police operations violent acts unnoticed. "It's important to know, as the chant goes, there will be no peace without justice," said Ryan Senser, 28, an unemployed a freelance numbnutz tutor who helped organize the protest. "The Israeli occupation is a constant provocateur of violent Palestinian resistance."
Some passersby, angered by the disturbance as well as the cause, yelled insults at the activists and pointed fingers in their faces. Some called the protesters "cowards" and "losers," telling them to get a job and take their protest to Iraq. The boos quickly turned to cheers as police moved in to break up the protest. The first activist to go limp and be carried away was a young woman who blocked traffic in an orange traffic-control vest adorned with a sign that read "Stop."
I would have been happy to ululate and pass out sweets to the police officers.
"They should all go to the West Bank and be left there," said patriot passerby Michael Lagana, 33, shaking his head. "They're cowards, every last one of them."
"I think they're a bunch of morons," said patriot Monica Nathans, 28, as she turned away from the scene. "We're fighting a war against terrorism. They're not Americans."
Yet not everyone disagreed with their message — or even their methods. "It's a dire time right now," drooled said apologist Pam Galpern, 34, who works for a non-profit legal aid organization. "I think dire acts need to be taken."
For dire action, see what the good people of Basra are doing to the Baathists.
The 16 protesters were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction of government administration, police said. |