No Peace on Earth While Palestine Is Occupied; Disrupting the Christmas Tree Lighting of 2023
While the holiday is a celebration of genocide of the indigeous peoples of the Americas, I hope that everyone had a loving “Thanksgiving”. Obviously you should use the paid day off to pay indigenous people back for the land you whites steward. I myself celebrated “Friendsgiving” with some of my best friends, and enjoyed the excuse to drink and celebrate a day off from a world that is descending into chaos. To add, the turkey was truly delectable, alongside the deviled eggs.
The day after Thanksgiving, I worked downtown. We all rested and prepared the day before, as various groups discussed the possibility of a disruption on Black Friday. FreePeoplePDX ended up calling for a protest at the annual advent to the end of the year and the holidays. PSL canceled their rally and all of us wandered into the heart of downtown. The proposed plan was to “shut it down”.
The previous week, FreePeoplePDX held a video call about the protest. They directly explained the idea. They’d gather, starting at 4:30, with banners and signs. Then they’d rise into chants and screams like “From the River to the Sea” and “Ceasefire”. What should be noted is the level of criticism the initial posting recieved. Mainly they were given complaints about protesting a holiday event.
For context, the town of Bethlehem had canceled all Christmas ceremonies. Bethlehem is the historical town of the birth of Jesus Christ, and has thrived off tourists following in the footsteps of Christ. Due to the genocide in Gaza and the violence in the West Bank from the Israeli “Defense” Forces and settlers, celebrations were called off. Palestinians now tried to promote a protest against the ceremony in Portland and faced opposition. The outcry came from Christians who felt their holidays should commence without concern, as Palestinian Christians were also persecuted by the occupying Israelis.
Around 4 o’clock, a couple friends and I made our way to the Pioneer Courthouse Square. Already, hundreds of police officers and security guards patrolled, keeping an eye on the people spilling into the square. Ten years prior, the event nearly ended in bloodshed due to a 13 year-old attempting to ignite a bomb - multiple accounts expose how the young child was entrapped by the FBI to attempt to commit an act of terror. Regardless, every year, the Christmas Tree Lighting is one of the most heavily-surveilled events with a security army at the ready.
The first thing I noticed was the police presence. As cops walked by, I would yell “oink, oink, oink” over and over. Some would try to come up with a response like “oh you’re so funny”. I walked around the square and watched the security apparatus, as the Palestinians showed up.
On 5th Avenue, across the street from the Pioneer Courthouse, I found the Zionists. Lined up, next to the MAX line, they held aloft signs of the hostages held by Hamas. The strange signs served to try to get passerbys to consider the colonizers.
For weeks, these photos were controversial in the States, as most of us understood that they were a tool of Israeli propaganda, and that while 200 people were held hostage, this pales in comparison to the number of innocent children, women, and men held in Israeli jails for advocating against apartheid.
I went off and walked up. “You fucking genocidal maniacs huh? Yes, they take your hostages, and we should just bomb every kid in Gaza, am I right? Right? You want to kill all the Palestinians, I know.” They stayed silent and one woman yelled “study Anti-Semitism you’ll see you’re lost young man”. To which I responded “study the Holocaust and maybe you’ll learn something”.
I lost my train of thought and wandered to the corner of 5th and Yamhill, at the while muttering “genocidal motherfuckers”. A few minutes later, they walked away as the first protester posted up, waving a Palestinian flag.
By then, the organizers arrived. Their signs read “FREE PALESTINE” and “END THE OCCUPATION” and more. They held space at the same site previously occupied by the supporters of the state of Israel.
We stood at the back of the square and smoked weed, waiting for the protest to start. And then it started. At 4:30, the first flags rose. The red triangle, with a black and white and green stripe floated above the crowd. Then the chants started.
By 5, the hundreds had grown to thousands. Two groups had gathered independently, one on the steps of the ampitheather, the other, street level and close to the Christmas Tree. At one point, they urged everyone to walk in and fill the center of the square. I followed the crowd, as the two groups merged.
The crowd began to line up directly in front of the tree, and the banners were unfurled. I joined the press and photographers to capture the scene. Signs, flags, and banners were hoisted above the demonstration. A large banner read “NO PEACE ON EARTH WHILE PALESTINE IS OCCUPIED”.
At this point, the numbers grew to easily a thousand people chanting in a semi-circle. While the police presence was enormous, they stayed on the outskirts. The organizers corralled the crowd into a specific area, and refused to move close to block the stage. A portion of the protest spilled on to the steps. The same chants roared in the square, as the protesters tried to draw attention to the demand for a ceasefire.
While the show of solidarity was powerful, I realized that this event had become much like every other rally and march organized by FreePeoplePDX. Notably, the lack of action or confrontation to the issue at hand. The event was once again policed to a point that it had become meaningless. I watched the police stand uncomfortably at the back of the crowd, but they did little to attempt crowd control. In many ways, their work was already taken care of by the organizers.
Consider the lack of police presence at the protests in the last month. I watched an officer approach an organizer and discuss with them for a good amount of time. The police were obviously out of place, but they seemed calm in a crowd of thousands.
I discovered later on, that the organizers had directly turned a comrade over to the cops at the Christmas Tree Lighting. A confrontation occured between a comrade and a concertgoer. Rather than aid the demonstrator who showed up in solidarity, the men policing the protests stepped in, to allow the officers to arrest the activist.
The protest continued on, late into the night. Thousands more spilled into the square. Some more supporters, and other passersby arriving for the free concert and ceremony. As the chants carried over the carolers, the city tried to turn up the stereos, to overpower the screams. It didn’t work. I wandered around the square and listened to white liberals whisper their discontent. They’d mutter “why do they have to do this today? Can’t they take a night off for the holidays?”. And eventually they begrudgingly accepted the continued chants, and tried to ignore the thousands of people by listening to the soundstage.
The direct action was doing well to disrupt the event. However it did nothing to meet the goal of the action, which was to shut it down. Instead, our action irritated attendees at most, as the lineup played on. Sure the chants for a ceasefire could be heard all around, but so could the groups singing Christmas carols.
As a journalist, I too put together a video of the protest, as a piece of propaganda encouraging more protests for Palestine. The organizers filmed the crowd, but used the footage with every face visible, to grow their following. This isn't always a negative thing. We need inspiring documentation of the demonstrations. However, instagrammable moments for the camera, seems to be the only point of the rallies and matches held by FreePeoplePDX.
This event was called in the wake of constant calls to action for a ceasefire. Last week, protesters in the Bay Area, successfully blocked the Golden Gate Bridge. Biden visited San Francisco, to meet with the President of China, Xi Jinping. Only 50 or so participated in the blockade. Their commitment to the cause was commendable, considering how they threw their keys into the water. The cops not only had to respond, they also had to wait for locksmiths to make keys for the cars.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has also continued their campaign for a ceasefire through creative action. The same week that the Golden Gate Bridge was blocked for a day, NYC protesters shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. Here in Portland, JVP has held constant nights of ritual and Shabbat at the home of Representative Earl Bluemanuer. While an act of peaceful protest, prayers and worship at his home serves to highlight the genocide in Gaza.
Yet another FreePeoplePDX event ended in inaction. Any action that challenged the vision of the organizers was controlled. Even simple things like chanting certain curse words, or expressing your lack of trust in law enforcement. At the very least, FreePeoplePDX could study the tactics and strategies of the Palestinian protesters all over the country.
The last article I released challenged the strategy and tactics. Mainly, I mused on whether or not FreePeoplePDX was like the PSL, as in controlled opposition. The events of Black Friday left me with the burning feeling that they were indeed countering the insurgency.
A Cryptpad article, released publicly on the 29th of November, only confirmed my concerns. I discussed the level of peace-policing enforced by the men. It was then revealed that one of these men named Jad, openly admitted to coordinating with the cops at every event. Research conducted on this man revealed a litany of sexual assault charges stemming from Seattle. All of these charges were individually dismissed, which raises many questions. Considering that he works with the cops, their refusing to charge him for violent sexual assault raises a myriad of red flags.
The investigation was well-conducted and they came with receipts of the conversations that sparked the expose. The writers also admitted that the evidence overwhelmingly supported the theory that at least one of the men had to be a police informant. However, as all of us want to clarify, we are not the conclusive authorities. We are only writers that wish to warn our community. Outside of the possibility of their acting as controlled opposition, violent abusers are not welcome in Portland’s protest spaces.
Part of the concern I held, and discussed in depth throughout the Cryptpad, was the circle of organizers that were coming out of the woodwork. Mainly, we kept a close watch on certain people that had been pushed out of Portland protests in the past. Jad and Rick worked with Dre Miller, after he was revealed to be a violent abuser. Rose City Justice also returned, after having collapsed during the George Floyd Uprisings. All of these liberal groups were held to account for their acting as law enforcement, violence committed against fellow activists, and organizing with several violent sexual predators. Once again, we witnessed these men be welcomed back into the fold.
It is for this reason I write and reflect on the movement for a Free Palestine. As I stress, I am not the authority on these issues at hand. I do, however, speak from a place of having participated in uprisings, and wanting to aid the new wave of activists in achieving liberation for all.
It is to this end I use my words to warn our community. Violent sexual predators have no place in protest movements. Let alone predators that appear to be police informants. By their own account, they coordinate with the cops on every call to action posted publicly.
Consider the actions we have engaged in over the last month and a half. As an anarchist, I try to separate from what I view as ideological, as opposed to controlled, opposition. While the overall strategy has worked to stifle dissent, and discourage direct action; this alone does not prove their being agents of the state. However, the article that was released seemed to validate our shared concerns of controlled opposition. With the information now at our fingertips, we must force controlled opposition off of the platform, or at the very least refuse to follow violent peace police.
No gods, no masters.
ACAB means we don't police each other.
