A “Free Palestine” rally held in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday with elected officials and community organizations from across the Detroit area featured cheers for the Hamas terrorist organization and chants for the destruction of the State of Israel.
The rally, held at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, was ostensibly a show of solidarity for Palestinians — but said nothing about the 1,200 Israelis murdered, 3,000 wounded, and over 100 abducted as hostages by the Hamas terror organization. A full stream of the event can be viewed here.
Instead, there were chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” meaning that the entire State of Israel, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, will be destroyed; and “With our souls, with our blood, we’ll defend you, O Aqsa,” a radical Islamic chant that calls for violence and echoes a false claim that Israel is threatening the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
There were speakers from state and county officials; Palestinian and Muslim activists; and a representative of Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. (Sharpton condemned Hamas’s terror attack this week, but evidently his organization still condones it.)
“Joe Biden is providing p*ss-poor leadership, he should be about love and bringing us together, instead of dividing us” Sam Riddle, Political Director of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, speaks at today’s pro-Palestine rally pic.twitter.com/mVoLKQkGLY
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) October 11, 2023
One speaker claimed that Hamas “is not a terrorist organization,” despite the mass murders and rapes; the killing of children, women, and the elderly, often in front of their families; and the abduction of hostages to an unknown fate in the Gaza Strip.
“We are not going to be intimidated by, stay silent when they say Hamas is a terrorist organization. The fact, it is not a terrorist organization” Remarks at today’s pro-Palestine rally in Dearborn, with cheers from the crowd after a speaker stated “the terrorist is Benjamin… pic.twitter.com/Si0tyjsjQ3
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) October 11, 2023
Another speaker claimed that white supremacists carry Israeli flags at their rallies — a bizarre claim that overlooks the fact that white supremacists are also antisemitic and opposed to Israel; as well as the fact that many Israelis are “people of color.”
“When you go to a Black Lives Matter rally, you see Palestinian flags, when you go to a white supremacy rally, you see Israeli flags.” Speeches held at today’s pro-Palestine rally in Dearborn, Michigan pic.twitter.com/4GQk1h2RNq
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) October 11, 2023
One speaker, who mentioned the mere prospect of “peace in the Middle East,” and who said “all of God’s children deserve to live in dignity,” without even mentioning Hamas terrorism, was heckled mercilessly and interrupted by audience members’ chants.
One Jewish organization was represented. David Finkel, from the Detroit branch of “Jewish Voice for Peace” — a radical left-wing organization that has supported terrorists — spoke out against negotiations toward peace and normalization between Israel and Arab states in the Middle East. He did not say anything about the mass murders and other atrocities committed by Hamas.
“Stop the siege of Gaza, end the occupation and Israeli apartheid. Free Palestine” David Finkel, member of Jewish Voice for Peace in Detroit, speaks at the pro-Palestine rally in Dearborn pic.twitter.com/OKbWniEsoj
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) October 11, 2023
Several speakers also slammed President Joe Biden, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and other elected officials for showing solidarity with Israeli victims of terror, saying that Arab American voters had been duped into supporting Democrats in recent elections.
Elected officials who addressed the rally included State Representative Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn), and Deputy Wayne County Executive Assad Turfe, who claimed that supporters of the Palestinian cause in the war were “on the right side of history.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: file
