San Jose community gathers to commemorate Palestinian Land Day with educational event

San Jose, CA – On March 28, community members gathered at the Arab American Cultural Center in San Jose for an evening of education and discussion on Land Day, the Palestinian day commemorating the 1976 deaths of six Palestinian protesters who were marching against Zionist seizure of Palestinian land.

First to speak was Cody Orouke, of the Good Shepherd Collective, a nonprofit that was formed in 2017 in response to the restrictive NGO system and its inability to meet the needs of the Palestinian people. Orouke encouraged the audience to continue to “have the audacity to believe that justice is still possible for the Palestinians” and to know “that the space that you’re creating helps create the hope that justice can happen.”

Hamza Mahmoud, representing Palestinian Youth Movement, then facilitated a conversation that touched on various topics including the environmental impact of the genocide, the indigeneity of Palestinians, the agricultural and environmental methods of colonization, greenwashing methods such as the use of plants to disguise the impact of the genocide, cutting off Palestinian access to land and agricultural resources, deprivation of water, and other ways the contradictions of the genocide of Palestinians by Zionists are expressed through environmental symptoms.

Reflecting on the conversation, Druzie Kazanova of San Jose Against War was struck by “how much the Zionists tell on themselves. It’s so obvious that they don’t have any connection to the land, they’re not trying to be stewards of the land – no indigenous group acts like the Zionists towards their land. It becomes so clear that they are on a mission to exterminate Palestinians, by any means necessary and no matter the consequences that it has on the land that they claim is their homeland.”

Next was a screening of the short film Yom al-Ard, a documentary on Land Day. In the film, director Monica Maurer described Land Day as “not a spontaneous uprising, but a long term struggle for Palestinian land.”

The gathering also included Iftar with pizza from a local Palestinian-owned restaurant, as the community socialized and discussed the educational content of the program.

The event was organized by San Jose Against War and the Arab American Cultural Center of Silicon Valley as part of the Anti-War Action Network’s week of action for Land Day.

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