The Mid Hudson contingent of the Gaza Freedom March is all back home now. It is 5:30 in the morning, but my inner clock has me busy with e-mails and posting on this blog.
Our last action was yesterday at the Israeli Consulate in NYC. About 40 of us, some Gaza Freedom Marchers and some supporters were there in the cold with our great signs that Laurie had brought from Cairo. "Free Gaza!"
We didn't get the massive response our demonstrations got in Cairo. No troops unloading from busses and erecting barricades. But the NYC police force told us something that the Cairo authorities had not: that we couldn't demonstrate on the sidewalk or they would arrest us.
Yes, the irony of walking on the sidewalk outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and chanting for hours, and then facing arrest in the "Land of the Free" for doing exactly the same.
I heard a plainclothes cop on his cell phone tell his superior someplace that the rally had "completely blocked the sidewalk." It was a lie, like most official pronouncements regarding Israel. We were walking single file and not blocking anyone.
Another officer, this one in uniform, told us that only six could protest outside a "business" in NYC. We would have to move across the street or face arrest. Soon there were police with their white nylon handcuffs taking up position. We were cold and jet-lagged, and we moved.
Yes, we should take back the street in front of the Israeli Consulate in NYC. We have a constitutional right to walk there carrying our signs. We simply cannot allow the Zionist lobby to dictate what is allowed in America.
Fred
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