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WASHINGTON, April 20: In the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration ever in the United States, tens of thousands of protesters gathered here on Saturday to condemn what they saw as the US administration’s pro-Israeli bent in the Mideast conflict.
Waving signs equating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and wearing the traditional Arab headdress, or keffiyah, crowds massed on the Ellipse in front of the White House to voice their disapproval of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and US Middle East policy.
Police estimated that around 50,000 people took part in the peaceful protest although organizers, a coalition pro-Palestinian pressure groups, put the figure at 100,000.
Saturday’s pro-Palestinian demonstration was billed as an answer to a mass protest by a reported 100,000 supporters of Israel on Monday at the US Capitol.
The pro-Palestinian protesters came from across the United States, including chapters of Muslim American Societies from New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and the Islamic American Institute and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
While Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz spoke at Monday’s pro-Israel rally, there was no representative of George W. Bush’s administration at Sathya McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, was due to address the crowd at the Capitol and the protesters heard a tape message of jailed former Black Panther member Mumia Abu- Jamal in support of the Palestinian cause.
RALLIES START: Chanting, “Stop the killing, stop the crime, Israel out of Palestine,” up to 2,000 protesters waved Palestinian flags and posters reading “Free Palestine, no war on Iraq” on the grassy Ellipse in front of the White House.
“The Israelis are animals. They are scary. All these lives lost for nothing,” said Jenin Ali, a Palestinian-American. She held a sign saying “A suicide bomber is a poor man’s F-16.”
Across the street a counter-rally by some 100 people calling themselves the Free Patriots waved American flags and held posters with tongue-in-cheek messages like “Gardening is murder!! Weeds have rights too” and “This sign killed a tree.”
Outside the Washington Hilton, several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted, “One, two, three, four, end Sharon’s bloody war; five, six, seven, eight, free the Palestinian state,” before marching to join hundreds of anti-globalization demonstrators near the IMF building.—AFP/Reuters
