Pro-Gaza rally at Museum Square Sunday
More than 2,500 people have indicated that they will be taken part in the march this Sunday against the attacks on Gaza in Amsterdam this Sunday.
Museum Square is set to come alive Sunday from 3.00pm when the “Youth for Palestine & International Socialists” hold their march. So far 2,700 people have indicated on the initiator’s Facebook page that they will be taking part; 615 have posted a “maybe”. “If you truly care, walk along for half an hour,” one of the definite attendees posted.
The organization, which says it is a nonprofit group that seeks to raise awareness about the injustices Palestinians are enduring, had invited 47,300 people to march with them to “Stop the attacks on Gaza! Free Palestine!”
“Over the last weeks more than 1300 Palestinians have been killed by Israel. 50.000 have been made homeless in an attempt to seize even more Palestinian land,” it said. “Hospitals are being bombed, are running low on supplies and remain in some cases without electricity. Palestinians are told to flee, but have nowhere to go in the open air prison called Gaza.”
The organization is highly critical of the Netherlands, saying the country is complicit and calling it “one of the staunchest allies of Israeli apartheid”. It said that on European Union level the Netherlands is constantly blocking statements critical of Israeli crimes such as the ongoing occupation. “Minister of Foreign Affairs Timmermans is an echo chamber for CIDI when he talks about Hamas using Palestinians as a human shield. This is disgusting. Even though the UN is pointing fingers to Israel for using Palestinian citizens as human shields,” it said. “We demand an end to Dutch complicity and call for sanctions and a boycott of Isreael!”
The organization vowed that “as long as Gaza is bombed we will not stop taking to the streets!"
The rally on Sunday was originally planned for Dam Square, but, the organizers say, at the advice of Amsterdam authorities it was moved to Museum Square over concerns that there could be football hooligans in town for the Ajax-PEC Zwolle Match.