Protestors shut down Olmert's speech at University of Chicago

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Yesterday, Ehud Olmert (Israel's PM during the wars on Gaza and Lebanon) visited the University of Chicago as part of a speech (sponsored by none other than King Abdullah II of Jordan, who plays on his Playstation regularly). He couldn't give his speech because he was disrupted by some men and women who wouldn't stay silent to a war criminal who killed 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza and over a 1000 Lebanese. Here is a video of what happened (notice Ali AbuNimah at the beginning):



Many of you may question these methods of protest, shouting down a speaker that has been invited to campus, how could we get our message across if all we do is shout and scream? Now if you are asking this question than what happened in the recent war on Gaza hasn't really sunk in. Ehud Olmert ordered his army to destroy Gaza in the hope of toppling Hamas by exerting the maximum amount of pain and suffering on the civilian population of Gaza. This included targeting civilians in cold blood, bombing the Islamic University of Gaza, bombing schools and hospitals, using white phosphorus in populated areas, destroying homes, killing children in their hundreds.

These are all facts corroborated by the most stringent of human rights groups. The point is, there is absolutely no way that Ehud Olmert did not have knowledge of these war crimes, indeed as the Prime Minister of the attacking state he sanctioned these killings and is directly responsible for all the death and destruction that was wreaked on Gaza. He cannot be given a platform to speak (especially in a university, given that he ordered the bombing of the Islamic University ), he can only be given a chance to speak in front of a war crimes tribunal. He killed many innocent people and this wasn't in the fog of war or by accident - this was deliberate and precise.

We should all, therefore, congratulate the Palestinian community in Chicago on a great achievement and urge all activists in Universities around the world not to allow any Israeli's a platform to lie and exonerate themselves from the bloodshed that they inflicted on the people of Gaza.

Posted by Bilal at 22:06

Labels: activism, america, human rights, israel, olmert, palestinians