A Deafening Silence

On Saturday, January 10, I attended the “Let Gaza Live” protest rally in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House and a few blocks south of the Hay-Adams Hotel where President-elect Barack Obama and his family are staying until they move into the Blair House and then onto the White House next week.

The rally and march, sponsored by ANSWER Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda - International Palestine Right to Return Coalition, was an opportunity for me and others to raise our voices against Israel’s massacre of the residents of Gaza, many of them women and children.

Similar rallies took place across the nation in cities such as New York and San Francisco. In Washington DC, over 20,000 people took to the streets in the freezing rain to demand justice for the people of Gaza. Busloads of people came from as far south as Florida and from mid-western states.

The crowd was a diverse mixture of people, many of whom brought their children. Speakers included former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom; Rev. Graylan Hagler, National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice; Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chairman, National Council of Arab Americans; Ralph Nader; Paul Zulkowitz, Jews Against the Occupation; Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition; Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice; and others.

Participants then marched to the Washington Post, where demonstrators protested the paper’s coverage of the massacre and its blackout of protest activities in the U.S. Unfortunately, the hometown paper chose to ignore the event.

I thought for sure there might be some coverage of the rising tide of dissident voices demanding justice for the people of Gaza where the death toll is reported to have topped 900, many of them women and children. I didn’t expect front page coverage but at least something in the metro section. Nada. Instead, the Post devoted space above the fold in Sunday's paper to a picture of President-elect Obama ordering a meal at a famous local eatery with the story in the metro section. The president-elect lunched with D.C Mayor Adrian Fenty at Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street. I like half-smokes too, if they're beef.

Fortunately, alternative and some foreign press have been documenting the growing momentum of protests against Israeli assaults on the civilian population of Gaza. Can mainstream media continue to ignore them?