It felt like the very bricks of the building housing the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco shook with the anger and ferocity of Palestinian youth who blocked traffic, chanting in support of the Palestinian resistance movement against Israeli terror, March 10. The demonstration, organized by the Palestine Action Network (PAN), protested Israeli terror and murder of Palestinians in the West Bank, including in Jenin, Huwara and Nablus. 

A sound truck blocked the street in front of the Israeli Consulate, where young leaders from the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center emceed the rally, leading chants of “Free, Free Palestine” and “Long live the Intifada.” 

Voulette of PYM called recent massacres in the West Bank, carried out by a fascist settler group with the support of the government, a Zionist campaign of “ethnic cleansing.” “This is what Zionism is. In Jericho, when they killed six people, they demolished six Palestinian homes,” she explained. 

A Palestinian University of California-Berkeley law student, Malak proudly proclaimed she was the great granddaughter of a Palestinian freedom fighter. She told the crowd: “We are standing at a time when our freedom fighters’ last words are begging their brothers and sisters to continue taking up arms against the fascist, apartheid state of Israel.” 

The event’s main message was that despite the fascist terror of the settlers and the Israeli government, Palestinians are more determined than ever to win their freedom. Monadel Herzallah, co-founder of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), said: “Palestinians will continue to fight; Palestinians will continue to resist, because the enemies of the Palestinians are the enemies of peace.” 

“The Zionist regime of Israel, the U.S. imperialists, may have a military victory here and there; they may have a political victory here and there, but they will never ever break our spirit,” Herzallah concluded.

PAN, a local coalition of progressive organizations supporting the Palestinian struggle includes PYM, AROC, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, Jewish Voice for Peace, ANSWER and Workers World Party. PAN is organizing a protest for this spring commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.

The Nakba (May 15, 1948) was the date marking the official expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland by the Israeli government. However Palestinians and their supporters know that Nakba, Arab for ‘catastrophe,’ was part of the process of ethnic cleansing that began before 1948 and still continues.