By Joe Piette
April 19, 2024

After over six months of a horrific U.S.-armed genocide in Gaza, everywhere there is a sense in this unprecedented movement for Palestine that escalation has become necessary. There is a need to shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy.

An international effort to carry out an economic blockade on April 15 (tax day in the U.S.) in solidarity with Palestine led to blockades of Interstate 95 in both directions in Philadelphia before police arrested people. A separate group of Palestine supporters shut down the streets outside the busy 30th and Market streets intersection, site of the IRS complex. Altogether, 69 activists were arrested.

Yet another 100 activists met at City Hall before marching to Broad and Vine streets where they tied up the entrances to the I-676 Expressway for 30 minutes. They followed up with a march to the offices of Day & Zimmermann. That company provides M67 fragmentation grenades, new XM111 offensive grenades, training grenades and various types of fuzes (devices with explosive components designed to initiate a main charge), in a $300-million contract with Israel. (tinyurl.com/2c8v6ca4)

Demonstrators continued their march to the world headquarters of the Comcast media giant, broadcaster of Zionist propaganda, before returning to City Hall.

People in other cities and areas blocked and disrupted the circulation and production points of trade and commerce. In the U.S., this includes: Phoenix; Long Beach, Oakland, Orange County and San Diego in California; Miami, Tallahassee and Tampa, Florida; Chicago; Indianapolis; Western Massachusetts; Detroit; Minneapolis-St Paul; St Louis; New Jersey; New York City; San Antonio and Houston, Texas; Seattle; and Portland, Oregon.

Actions were held on April 15 in international cities and areas, including Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia; Vienna; Brussels; Bogota and Medellín in Colombia; Cyprus; London; Athens, Greece; Belfast and Dublin in Ireland; Genoa, Italy; Mexico City; Utrecht, Netherlands; Johannesburg; Seoul, South Korea; Catalonia in the Spanish state; Taipei, Taiwan; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Halifax, Montreal and Ottawa in Canada.

Organizers in those cities have agreed that if there is police repression in any location, other cities will extend their blockades in solidarity.

Fatima Muhammed of the Coordinated Economic Blockade to Free Palestine said: “We know that the global economy is complicit in genocide, and as Yemen is bombed to protect global trade and billions of dollars are sent to the Zionist project, we will target what hurts the war machine the most: major points of production and places where the most profit is made.” (a15action.com)

For more information and daily updates, visit a15action.com