‘Join Our Popular Resistance’ – Ramzy Baroud Inspires the Crowds at the Gaza War March in Seattle

Oct 6, 2024

Below is the text and video of the passionate call for justice and accountability made by Palestinian author and journalist Dr. Ramzy Baroud at the Seattle rally for Gaza on October 5.

The rally marked the first anniversary of the Gaza war and genocide, which killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in the besieged Strip.

Full Text:

One year ago, we witnessed a tragedy that is unlike any other.

We experience a collective pain that cannot be expressed in mere words.

We watched our loved ones perish before our own eyes.

They called on us to help. They pleaded, shouted, or cried in their dying breaths.

But we could do nothing.

We saw entire families mutilated, lying on top of one another, in their dozens, in their hundreds inside hospitals, mosques and churches.

And, still, we could do nothing.

We saw mingled bodies of little children inside the very United Nations schools, to which they had escaped, seeking safety from the holocaust underway in their cities, refugee camps and neighborhoods.

And we could do nothing.

Instead, we began counting ..

A Hundred Palestinians were killed in Gaza.

A thousand Palestinians killed in Gaza.

Ten thousand killed.

42 thousands.

And now, the Lancet medical journal is telling us, that the number will be much higher.

186 thousand would be killed, they say. But that is if the slaughter ended in July.

Now, we are in October, yet the genocide continues.

The American weapons, of which you, you and you and I are paying for, keep flying to Israel.

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Our lethal weapons are transported in every possible way, all with the hope that Israel may sustain its killing machine in Gaza, and now in Lebanon, for another day or another year.

Washington tells us that Israel has the right to defend itself, even if the price of this ‘right’ is the extermination of a whole nation.

They say that Israel is a democracy, and somehow democracies, like our own, are entitled by some strange wisdom to carry out genocides against native people, anywhere, anytime.

We have done it; why cannot Israel?

But what about our people’s rights to defend themselves?

Aren’t we entitled to freedom, safety, and security like everyone else?

How about our right to know that our children will wake up in the morning alive, have a school to go to, a mosque or a church to pray at, loving parents to hold them and to reassure them that their love is infinite and will last a lifetime.

But here we are, we continue the count:

50 killed in Khan Yunis.

94 in Rafah

33 in Gaza City.

274 in Nuseirat.

And now, thousands in Lebanon, who are being killed in the exact same way, by the same criminals, by the same weapon supplier, and for the exact same reason.

One year ago, we also witnessed courage, like no other. A power of a people that is unmatched in history, ancient or modern.

A year ago, we watched as a nation reanimated itself, from underneath the rubble of their homes, under a siege, under a military occupation, and under a system of racist apartheid, rising in unison to lead us, to lead this broken world in a march of freedom, unlike any other

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Not only their freedom, but ours as well.

One year ago, we witnessed the birth of a miracle, a miracle called Gaza, where a people never die no matter the firepower or the Israeli US-supplied bunker busters.

And where the shouts of freedom, and justice can never be buried under the weight of shattered concrete.

And where the resistance can never end, even when the fighter is martyred.

Because – sisters, brothers, comrades – it turned out that resistance is not about guns and bullets.

Resistance is about our collective courage. Resistance is bout heart. It’s about faith. It’s about hope.

So please join our popular resistance. Continue to march.

Stay on the front line of this new resistance. Until Palestine is free. Until all of us are free.

FREE FREE PALESTINE. FREE FREE PALESTINE.

𝐀 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐳𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐝, 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥𝐢 𝐛𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚
Early this evening, Israel killed, or more accurately assassinated, my sister Dr. Soma Baroud, by bombing her taxi in the Khan Yunis area, killing her and six other innocent people. She was the kindest soul, a great mother and a most loving sister. She was a member of a generation of female doctors that revolutionized medicine in the Strip. She healed many people, never charged the poor and until the last day of her life remained principled, loving, kind and patient, even when Israel blew up her house a few weeks ago. I don’t know what else to say, aside from the fact that I suddenly feel as if a child who became orphaned all over again. She was a leader of our family, and fulfilled the role of our mother who died at a young age. I am sorry, sister, that I could do nothing to protect you. I feel deep shame that I live in the very country that paid for and made the bombs that killed you. When the numbness is gone, I will try to stay strong only driven by the hope that we will meet again in Paradise.
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