Several comrades joined thousands of people in Lafayette Square outside the White House on Saturday, January 10th to demand an end to the siege of Gaza. We distributed CHALLENGES and communist leaflets to the demonstrators. Hundreds of Palestinian families traveled from the East Coast to rally against U.S. support of the war and against Israel’s genocidal policies.

We argued that if people didn’t try to forge working-class unity now, there would never be an end to war and genocide in the Middle East. One man carried a sign attacking all the Arab leaders in the Middle East and talked about his childhood in Palestine when his family lost their home in 1948. He had no illusions about the betrayal of nationalist leaders!

A long-time Palestinian friend of the Party helped distribute the PLP leaflet. She stressed international worker solidarity when we distributed the communist leaflet. All of us had good conversations with people about our long-term goals and our opposition to nationalism.

Asking people for some contribution for the paper when we are in large crowds like this is important, given the Party’s financial crisis. Expressing ideas about the economic crisis and pointing out that our Party is made up of workers hit home; and I collected about $15 for 25 papers. One man gave $5 and took another copy to give to a friend.

I hope that everyone in the Party takes their international responsibility to express solidarity with our brother and sister workers in Palestine and Israel quite seriously. I was thrilled to hear that over 10,000 Arab and Jews demonstrated in Tel-Aviv and tens of thousands more demonstrated worldwide!

                D.C. Red