Saturday, March 23, 2013

The Palestnian who stood up to Obama in Jerusalem



This picture celebrating the Palestinian student, Rabi` `Id, who interrupted Obama's Zionist rhetoric in Jerusalem to speak about Palestinian rights is widely circulating on Facebook by Arabs and supporters of Palestine.   Rabi` requested my friendship on Facebook yesterday, and I of course accepted and we communicated some yesterday.  I asked him a few questions about the experience and here are some of his answers (I cite with his permissions):  He said that he was not arrested but that they (Israeli security) at first handcuffed him (after they forced him out of the hall) and told him that he was under arrest.  But after some journalists went out and started taking pictures, the chief of security said that he does not want to cause noise especially before the cameras and ordered that he be forced out and released.  He is a political science student at Haifa University and works as a journalist in Arabs 48 website and in the Fasl Al-Maqal publication.  He is active in the Hizb At-Tajammu` Al-Watani ad-Dimuqrati.  He said that he listened to the first 15 to 20 minutes of the speech before speaking out.  I asked him what provoked him most.  He said:  Obama's adoption to the Israeli historical narrative and his justification to the Zionist hegemony in Palestine: that he talks about democracy and justice and then supports a racist Jewish state.  How does he feel as a black man about the segregated Jews-only buses, he wondered.  He told me that he views Obama as a white colonialist man.He said that he has been receiving an avalanche of letters of support and congratulations, in the hundreds, and from all around Arab world and the world at large, and from Palestinians around the world.  He said a small number of Israelis sent support, and some are not Zionist and some are leftist and some he did not know.  HE said that one person clapped for him in the hall and yelled: Free Palestine.  I encouraged him to respond to media interview requests.