Protesters Rally Against Israeli Airstrikes with Human Chain in Dearborn

posted on: Dec 30, 2008

Hundreds of people lined Warren Avenue for about a mile in a human chain Tuesday afternoon to protest Israel’s bombings of Gaza and what they consider inhuman treatment of Palestinians who live in the region.

The mostly Arab-American demonstrators were joined by religious leaders from other faiths, as well as members of the Green Party and other political groups in protesting the Bush Administration’s handling of the Middle East conflict and support of the state of Israel.

The protest, which ran from Chase Street to beyond Scaefer, was put on by the Congress of Arab American Organizations-Michigan. While local police say about 1,000 people attended the event, organizers pegged the turnout at about 5,000.

Many of the protesters waved the red, black, green and white flag of Palestine while holding large signs showing photographs of burned and maimed Palestinians injured in the air strikes against Hamas that have gone on for the last four days.

Iman Jafin, 48, of Dearborn, helped hold a sign saying “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza” and led the crowd in a chant of “Down, down, Israel. How many children you killed today.”

“I have two daughters in Palestine, one of them has three children — two girls and one boy — and all of them are there,” Jafin said. There is no medicine. I reached them on on the Internet two days ago. I’m crying every night. I don’t know what happened to them now.

Karen Bouffard
The Detroit News