"We have come to protest the atrocities being committed by the Israeli Zionists," said Basim Ism Ail, who came with several dozen other high school students active in the Arab Youth Leadership Academy of the Southwest Youth Collaborative.

A flier distributed by the Chicago chapter of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, explained that the event had been organized "to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and to demonstrate our solidarity with the Palestinian people’s inalienable human right to return to all of Palestine, from which they were, and continue to be, forcibly expelled by Israel."

Speakers represented Al Awda and other Palestinian and Islamic organizations from around the region, as well as groups acting in solidarity with Puerto Rican political prisoners and organizing against U.S. intervention in Colombia.

A small counterdemonstration, separated from the rally site by a cordon of Chicago cops, waved U.S. and Israeli flags and held signs in support of the Israeli government that accused Palestinians of "terrorism."

The solidarity march was preceded by a daylong conference at DePaul University sponsored by Al-Awda and the Students for Justice in Palestine, which is part of a national network of organizations on campuses demanding that their colleges divest from companies doing business in Israel.

Activists in such groups will be part of a national conference on Palestine titled "The Struggle for Freedom and the Road to Truth," to be held October 12-14 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The conference has come under attack by some opponents of the Palestinian national struggle, including two students who have applied for a legal injunction against it.

At the September 29 rally a member of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, a campus group that is helping to stage the event, assured the Militant that organizers are not backing down. "They push you, you just push back," she said.

Pattie Thompson is a sewing machine operator and member of UNITE.  
 
 
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