On the hottest day in San Antonio, the Arab community protests U.S. /Israel Oppression

As a Chicana who's family lost their land in Texas after the U.S./Mexican War, I've always sympathized with the Palestinians whose land was taken from them in order to create the nation of Israel, as refugees of the holocaust after World War II. But I'd never understood how the Israeli government, with billions of dollars in U.S. funding and support, is at the "center" of the middle east crisis, the tragedy of the Palestinian people, and ultimately, the unraveling of anger, protest and resistance that is the prelude to terrorism.

The story of the middle east deserves to be understood if we are to understand why the U.S. government invaded Iraq, after embarking on its empire-loaded revenge against Afghanistan for 9/11.

In San Antonio, Texas, the media is not telling the true story of the middle east. Today, in the afternoon of the hottest day of the summer, 101 degrees, about 200 people, representing the diversity of the Arab-American community, protested the invasion of Lebanon by Israel at the city's Federal Building in the middle of the afternoon. Many of the Lebanese people are in fact originally from Palestine, having lost their homes after the 1948 creation of the state of Israel.

Photo Credit: Mia Kang, 15 years old, courtesy of the Esperanza Center

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Mary Alice, wife of Henry Cisneros, finds her voice in San Antonio as women battle for Free Speech in the Streets

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