Hundreds of people defied the rain this Sunday to shout that “from Porto to Rafah, Palestine will win”, in a demonstration that covered several arteries in the city center, despite having been shortened due to the weather conditions.
“This is a genocide, a humanitarian crime, it is something unacceptable, which cannot continue, with Israel acting with impunity, not only against the Palestinians, but at this moment against Lebanon, against Syria”, communist leader Ilda told Lusa Figueiredo, president of the national board of the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC), one of the entities organizing the demonstration.
Also called by the Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers – National Intersindical (CGTP-IN) and the Noise Project, the demonstration that started at Praça dos Poveiros ended up being shortened and ending at informally called ‘Square of Palestine’, at the intersection between the streets of Fernandes Tomás and Rua de Sá da Bandeira, next to Mercado do Bolhão.
For the CDU councilor in the Porto City Council, “the recognition of the two States (Palestine and Israel), of their right to live in freedom, independently, without Israeli occupation, is fundamental for there to be peace in the Middle East”.
“The last 75 years prove this,” he added, condemning what he calls the “total impunity” with which Israel has acted since the creation of the Jewish State in 1948.
According to the president of the CPPC, the situation continues “because Israel continues to have the full support of the United States of America, and that is the big issue”, also accusing European Union powers of having “a position that follows” the North American one.
Ilda Figueiredo considered the position of the Portuguese Government, which defends the existence of two States but has not yet recognized Palestine, to be hypocritical.
“The recognition of the State of Palestine is fundamental. Why don’t they do it? It’s something that we don’t understand. That’s why they have to do it as soon as possible, it’s one of the demands we have before the Portuguese Government”, he stressed.
One of the protesters, Carlos Milhazes, told Lusa that the Portuguese position “has been a completely cynical position of ‘pushing the problem in the bud'”.
In his opinion, Portugal should “rethink its position” and “support a diplomatic, academic and economic boycott against Israel to try to force, at least, the genocide to be stopped”, also speaking of “constant dehumanization of the Mediterranean Arab peoples “.
“We have to show our representatives that the Portuguese people do not agree with the national policies of perpetuating a unilateral friendship, which only serves the financial interests of large Portuguese companies and large Israeli groups”, he considered.
For Carlos Milhazes, the solution could be “in each of the European countries, mainly, to start putting pressure on the United States, to make the United States realize that they are isolated in this support for Israel” to “turn Israel into a pariah state, which deserves to be, when there are 70 who ‘spit’ on all declarations of human rights”.
Jorge Oliveira recalled that the problems did not begin “on October 7th of last year”, during the Hamas attacks in Israel, but have been going on “since 1948”.
“This problem of self-defense is a sophistry that (the Israelis) use to justify what has happened: the massacres and bombings”, he stressed, saying that the Israeli forces act as they do “because they have ‘hot backs'”.
The Palestinians “were robbed” of “the land that was theirs”, he summarized, also recalling the establishment of settlements in the West Bank, in which the Israelis “run people out of their homes and take care of them”.
“It’s brutal impunity. I have no words to describe the situation we have been experiencing”, he lamented.
Israel, the target of massacres by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on October 7 last year, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than two hundred kidnapped, has since been involved in a war against the Islamists in the Gaza Strip.
Source: www.cmjornal.pt
