Video: Free Gaza Protest

by A Monday, Jan. 12, 2009 at 1:59 PM

LOS ANGELES, January 10, 2009 – An estimated 2,000 plus people marched through Westwood to protest the continuing Israeli invasion of Gaza. Marchers were lead by organizers working with police on a pre arranged march route. Any deviation from the set march route was not allowed. Police and organizers kept a tight lock on the marchers and lead them around in a circle through Westwood village. Much like the siege of Gaza itself police and the organizers deployed outrageously disproportional show of forces.

QuickTime movie at 7.2 mebibytes

The march proceeded with the organizers truck and police motorcycle units at the head of the march, a full equestrian unit followed by at least 20 squad cars took up the rear of the march. Also flanking the march were police cycle units and yellow vested organizer monitors. Riot units with rubber bullets and other weapons also flanked the march. Unmarked police cars were observed in abundance. Undercover police were also seen amongst the marchers pretending to be protesters. In addition to the police helicopter a small low flying plane circled the area. Snipers of an unidentified agency were said to be on the rooftops of buildings along to march route.

The organizers collusion with the police and other government agencies was quite apparent. In addition to working with the authorities to tightly control the march a number of incidents stand out as clear examples of how the organizers collude with the authorities. First there is the manner in which the organizers sided with police in the situation with the Zionist counter protests. See the link, video: Zionists vs Gaza supports at protest

Then there was the incident with the man who hung a banner from a stoplight. The organizers did nothing to help this person or protect him from arrest. Instead they sided with police and discouraged the crowd protesting his arrest. The organizers physically blocked attempts to un-arrest the man. The organizers seemed more concerned that the arrest was delaying the start of march.

On the stage speakers made numerous calls for militant action to stop the slaughter in Gaza but in the streets not less than a block away they actively worked with the police to prevent any militant action from taking place. In all the day was disgraceful display of the hypocrisy of the organizers and how deeply the police state has infiltrated and controls even those organizations which claim to stand in opposition to the current government.