Amin Husain (right) speaking to activists in Zuccotti Park.
(Photo: AP/ Mark Lennihan)
The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality. The first Occupy protest to receive wide coverage was Occupy Wall Street in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, which began on September 17, 2011. It was noticed that many of the participants in the movement were pro-Palestinian, and took to the streets holding banners that read “Occupy Wall Street Not Palestine”. The movement received support and solidarity from The BDS National Committee and the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
The protests should not be interpreted in isolation from the entire context of the issue, in which Americans feel sick of their government’s policies of intervening in other countries’ affairs. A group of activists gathered to discuss the movement in relevance to Palestine at CPDS, a Gaza-based think-tank. Amin Husain, a Palestinian activist living in New York City and one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street talked by video link about the main goals of the movement and the context in which it was established.
Those who follow mass media in the US notice that the movement went unnoticed at the very beginning. “Mass media like CNN and Fox News is controlled by people whose interests are against the goals of the movement like Robert Murdoch”, said Husain. “They are the 1% who own wealth. We used social media and made visits to churches, mosques and synagogues to get our voices heard”, he added.
Known for its strength and influence in decision-making circles in the US, students wondered if the Zionist lobby played a major role in putting the movement down. Rawan Yaghi, a 18-year old English-Literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza asked about its role. “The movement was against lobbies whatsoever” replied Husain.
The lecturer invited the participants to make use of the movement to the serve the Palestinian cause. He added that a great number of Occupy Wall Street activists feel sick of their country paying Israel $3 billion dollars a year as Americans graduates from colleges and universities are not able to find jobs to make a living.
“As Palestinians, we should make use of the momentum it received to serve our issue and expose Israel’s violations of human rights and the occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Making use of non-violent means, which were used in the movement to protest occupation would be useful”, he added.
The movement, which was partially inspired by The Arab Spring adopted non-violent methods to get its goals achieved. Though, many tried to introduce violence to harm its image and serve their own ends.
“It’s important to keep the movement non-violent for many try to pull it to the circle of violence to defame its image and get it away from its goals”, said Iyad Al-tahrawi, a 22-year old IT student at Al-Azhar University.
This video link is the first in series of links, seminars and lectures to be held at CPDS to discuss global issues related to Palestine in the presence of Palestinians and Internationals to raise Palestinians’ awareness of global issues and causes taking place in the world, with the entire region in flux.
Is the video available?
It was in English, the most common used language at CPDS’s seminars. It was via Skype, so, it was not recorded, unfortunately.