Tom Facchine – Humanity STANDS with Palestine

			Bismillah Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala started the name of Allah Almighty, the Most Merciful
maker they have in the earth. All praise is due to Him. And we give peace and citations on the final
prophet Mohammed Ali. So to set up, first of all, thank you, everyone for coming out today. Thank
you to Utica Police Department for assisting us in this thank you for City Hall.
		

			All we really want is consistency. And all we really want is fairness. Right when we see in our own
city, the city of Utica, the city that loves refugees, and we know how many people we have in the
city of Utica, and the Mohawk Valley that are Palestinians, how many Palestinian refugees we have
some of them twice refugee refugee refugees once from Palestine, refugee twice from Iraq, hundreds
and hundreds in this community, if not 1000s. And then we see that the City Hall raises up the
Israeli flag. And then we hear that Palestinian students are getting suspended from school, because
they're upset that teachers in their school in the Utica City School District are flying the flag of
		

			Israel in the classrooms. We just want fairness, we just want equality. We want to have a fair a
fair share of the mic, a fair share of the representation, when we see in the news that the
demonstrations in support of Israel are well covered by the Sentinel and by the different sort of
news outlets. And we see that no matter how hard we try, we see that our efforts are minimized and
ignored. All we want is a fair shake. All we want is equality, because we believe firmly that we err
on the side of truth. And so we believe that if we were given a fair shake, if we were given
equality, if we were given the mic for an equal amount of time covered in the press or an equal
		

			amount of time, that we are confident that the truth would prevail, because this is not this is not
this is not an issue of Muslim versus Jew. That's a complete lie. It's not even an issue of out of
versus Israeli or anything like that. This is an issue of truth versus falsehood. This is an issue
of justice versus oppression. And that's why this is caused that every single person can get behind.
And you know, I saw one of the signs I saw I forget what who it was humanity stands with Palestine.
If you go across the world, you go to South America, you go to Asia, you go to Australia, you go to
Africa, you go all across the world, people understand intuitively. They understand intuitively,
		

			because we've seen this playbook before. The playbook of lies. The playbook of hate. That playbook
that tells us that tells us not to believe our eyes, tells us not to believe our ears tells us not
to believe things that we've that we know very well. Like, for example, we know that the Israeli
government lies they lie about when they bomb hospitals, they lie about when they bombed schools
they lie about when they target civilians. They know. Somebody said for example, it's like there's
there's an there's an enemy everywhere. Was there an enemy inside the child's skull when you sniped
them on the street?
		

			How can you you keep we're not dumb, we're not stupid. But they use the lies and they have a
platform and they put pressure, they put pressure on our politicians. They have a very strong
presence in Washington, they have a very strong presence in New York state, with the senators and
elsewhere, all we want is a fair shake. We bet on ourselves 100% of the time, if we had a fair
opportunity to speak, and a fair platform on which to show the world that we are 100% confident that
people come to the site of truth in the sight of justice. So this is all that we want. We don't want
we don't hate anybody. We just want justice. This is something that is we see on the on CNN and on
		

			Fox News. We see active Israeli military personnel shouting their genocidal intentions, being
extremely explicit with what they want to do. And people like the news anchors and pundits are
trying to actually cover for them. You can't cover for them anymore. They've gotten in front of the
camera, and they've told everyone exactly what they want to do. They blame the Gaza, for they
believe all of us, every man, woman and child in Nevada, they blame them. Every man, woman and child
in the West Bank, they want their land, and they are going to continue and continue to steal and
this possess and * and murder and kill if no one stops them, if no one stops them and for us in
		

			this community, first of all into the United States, which just passed a $14 billion military aid
package to Israel to the shame of every single good hearted person in this country. And across the
world. We feel a particular duty, and specifically in this community in Utica, in the Mohawk Valley,
where we have again, hundreds if not 1000s of Palestinian refugees. And I don't know maybe there are
but I've never met a single Israeli refugee. I've never met one. Maybe they exist. I'm not sure
maybe it's like Bigfoot. But if that doesn't show you the asymmetry of the conflict, the asymmetry
of the situation that I don't know what will
		

			we do not agree and we will not stand for the Congress, the United States become just a weapons
dealer.
		

			We will not stand to see our country captured by the interests of a foreign nation.
		

			We don't have any control over. Right? We refuse to allow our, our supposedly elected
representatives to hijack, to not be accountable to us, but to be more accountable to AIPAC and the
Israeli lobby and other sort of interests that are pushing genocide. Right, they're going to write
this history down. People are going to read this history one day, and we're going we have an immense
responsibility may we might be the most responsible people on Earth. The citizens of the United
States and the people living in this place might be the most responsible people on the earth when it
comes to ending this. So we have to we have to come together, we have to unite, we have to be clear
		

			about what this is about. And we have to strive for justice, we tell Congress and we tell the
government not a penny more, not 14 billion not we don't want it down to 13 billion, we don't want
it down to 12 billion, not a penny more, stop being an arms dealer. For foreign nations study in
Washington, George Washington, he said something that we cannot have such a thing as an ally, that's
a permanent ally that just gets blank checks. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. But look at what the
situation is. We have absolutely no accountability, I suppose that ally, which we spend more money
on four times more money, propping up the Israeli army, then we spend on food stamps in the United
		

			States, we don't have health care, we don't have adequate food. We don't have proper education,
everything's falling apart in this country. And yet, we prop up the Israeli military to kill and
achieve their genocidal aims. Tell me what is the sense of that, telling me that our government
isn't captured by foreign interests.
		

			So we're here today as just a small cell, part of a larger organism. And that organism is sweeping
across the world to fight for justice, to stand up and to be counted and to not be silenced. Because
we've seen how we've seen this movie before. We've seen the intimidation tactics, and the four
students that were suspended from the Utica City School District, this is one of the scare tactics,
to be quiet, to be silenced, to not speak up, we won't be quiet, we're not going to be silent. We're
not going to be intimidated. If some of us have to lose our jobs. Okay, well, we'll lose our jobs,
we'll take it. That's the price that we have to pay. Well lucky if that's the price that we have to
		

			pay to set to set Palestine free will pay it, no problem. If we have to be spat on, if we have to be
beat up. We remember not too long ago, this country had to go through this when it came to the
rights of African Americans. We saw the African Americans at the lunch counters and getting the
hoses turned on them and the dog sit on them and getting beat up by the police. If that has to be
asked, and we're ready. If we that that has to be us, then we'll do it. We'd rather not. But if we
have to do it, we will. If that's what it's going to take to stop the unaccountability and the blank
checks and the sponsoring of genocide and murder that will do it. And so we asked everybody to be
		

			brave. We asked everybody not to be intimidated. We asked everybody to come together. And to
understand that this is how community works. Every single person here face to face now and these are
people who live in the community. We could have walked here if we wanted to. We live right down the
street, everybody here, the police officer here, we're all part of the same community. And so we
have an accountability towards each other. It's not about the foreign interests that come from half
the world away that are paying lobbyists in Washington, DC to get Chuck Schumer or the other
representatives to do what they want. This is about community. And if we don't stand up for our
		

			community, nobody else will. And if we don't stand up to end this and to stop the state support of
terrorism, which is what the Israeli government is doing. It's terrorism and genocide, then no one
else will