SPOKANE, Wash —
Just before Spokane city council met Monday night, ‘Free Palestine’ demonstrators gathered outside city hall doors. They shouted, "Long live Palestine!" and "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea."
One of the rally organizers, Zach McGuckin, told KREM2 he hoped the rally would show Spokane leaders local Palestinian people need their support and they, too, have connections to lives lost overseas.
McGuckin is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. He said he helped organize the demonstration as a response to a recent resolution unanimously supported by the Spokane city council last week.
The resolution condemned the violent act of war against Israel and reaffirmed the state’s right to exist and defend itself.
McGuckin said the resolution doesn’t acknowledge the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.
"Obviously, everyone is horrified at what's happening and the loss of life, but people think this is a war that started a couple weeks ago, but this is a war that's been going on for decades," McGuckin explained. "The Israeli state invaded the state of Palestine and over time, has slowly encroached their borders and made the space Palestinians are allowed to occupy smaller and smaller."
"This isn't the start of a new war," McGuckin said. "This is a military occupation of Palestine that's been going on for quite some time."
That’s why he said the demonstration is a call to council to retract its resolution.
“We had a rally of a hundred people or so in Walla Walla of all places," McGuckin said. "Thousands mobilized in Seattle. The American people don’t want our government supporting genocide. We want our government supporting justice. We want a free Palestine.”
"We can't just be the witnesses of suffering, we have to work to end that suffering," McGuckin said. "That's why we say 'free Palestine' because the way we can have peace in the region, end suffering for the Palestinians, the indigenous people of the region, is by freeing them."
Rally attendee Daniel Radford said he taught English in Palestine for a month. In those 30 days, he saw the potential dangers his students faced.
"These little kids want to visit their grandparents' house that's 50 miles away but they can’t because they’ll be shot if they don’t go through the right check point or have the right paperwork," Radford said. "I've walked through these checkpoints in Jerusalem. I've walked from Bethlehem to Jerusalem and back. That's a walk Palestinians aren't able to make. I can make that walk because of the color of my skin.”
Councilman Jonathan Bingle sponsored Oct. 9’s resolution.
Monday, he told KREM2 the statement provided during the meeting is good and fair.
He said he spoke to Spokane Jewish leaders prior to writing the statement the morning of Oct. 9. Due to the timing of writing the statement, the resolution was not listed as an official agenda item during the Oct. 9 meeting.
He said during the meeting, part of the resolution included language similar to a previous Spokane city resolution that supported Ukraine at the beginning of its war.
Bingle said didn’t speak to Palestinian people in Spokane at the time he wrote it, but is open to hearing from them now. Still, he said he does not plan to retract the statement.
The demonstration comes on the heels of Israel saying an invasion of Gaza is coming.
DOWNLOAD THE KREM SMARTPHONE APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE KREM+ APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: Add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KREM in the Channel Store.
Fire TV: Search for "KREM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.
Apple TV: Search "Spokane News from KREM" in the Apple store or follow this link.
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email webspokane@krem.com.