On Wednesday evening, 24 June, crowds of demonstrators marched through downtown Vancouver and to the US Consulate to express their outrage at the appearance of war criminal, Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the US Congress in Washington, DC.
The demonstration, which came alongside dozens of protests across North America and internationally as well as a major manifestation of thousands in Washington, DC, brought people together to demand accountability for genocide and an end to US imperialism in Palestine and throughout the region.
The demonstration was organized by Samidoun Vancouver, Masar Badil Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, Free Palestine BC, Canada Palestine Association and BDS Vancouver – Coast Salish.
Speakers discussed the student movement in Bangladesh and Bangladeshi-Palestinian solidarity; represented Samidoun Toronto; spoke on behalf of the Palestinian Youth Movement; and hailed the heroic Palestinian, Yemeni, Lebanese and regional resistance, particularly the armed resistance, confronting the genocide.
Demonstrators sat down in front of the US Consulate, and marched through the Law Courts demanding an end to repression of protesters for justice in Palestine. Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, laid out the clear connections between Zionism and imperialism, speaking in front of the consulate.
Marchers also stopped at boycott targets such as McDonalds and Starbucks to highlight and denounce the complicity of these global corporations in Zionist genocide and colonialism. One participant dressed in fatigues in honour of Aaron Bushnell, the US Air Force serviceman who burned himself alive in front of the Zionist embassy in Washington, DC, shouting “Free Palestine!” after he said, “I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
The next protest for Palestine in Vancouver will take place on Saturday, June 27 at 6 pm at the Olympic Cauldron, in a mass Silent March for Palestine.
Photos by Michael YC Tseng
