Protesters marched from Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey F. Rosen’s Office to San José Mineta International Airport to protest against his past trip to Israel on Saturday afternoon.
Tamarahus Ary, a Palestinian resident from San José, said it was a cold afternoon and it was hard to be out protesting, but she sees the pro-Palestine movement as an important cause for all of humanity.
“We will stand on the behalf of any oppressed people and if you are against your people, then you do not deserve to be empowered,” Ary said. “It's as simple as that.”
Protesters marched down Hedding Street from the district attorney’s office around the corner through Coleman Avenue to temporarily block Airport Boulevard, the street next to San José Mineta International Airport.
Protesters chanted “Free, free, Palestine!” and waved the Palestinian flag before a car attempted to speed through the crowd on Coleman Avenue.
“It's important that we're out here and that we continue to stay out here and be as loud as we need to be,” Ary said. “Our aim is to keep everybody as safe as possible during these protests as well. That's our No. 1 rule.”
Ary said she was born and raised in Ramallah, a Palestinian city located in the West Bank.
She said her family comes from a lineage of displaced Palestinian relatives.
“My grandfather was forced from his home, in the Nakba and brought his 11 children here to try to sort it out,” Ary said.
Nakba means “catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians that happened during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, according to a webpage from the United Nations.
Ary said she came to the district attorney’s office to protest because she feels it is significant to be out educating the public about what is happening in Palestine.
On Oct. 7, Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, launched an assault to attack Israel with hundreds of gunmen infiltrating communities near the Gaza Strip, according to a Nov. 15 article from the BBC.
Around 1,200 people were killed, and 200 soldiers and civilians, including women and children, were taken to Gaza as hostages, according to the Israeli military in the same article.
In Gaza, 14,000 Palestinians have also been killed in air and artillery strikes carried out by the Israeli military in response to the assault, according to a Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza from in the same article.
“You have to understand something about Hamas,” Ary said. “What they did on October 7, of course, was absolutely non-justifiable. In no way shape or form was it understandable. Though, can we get to a place where we can understand why it happened?”
Before the Arab-Israeli war, the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two separate states, one Arab state, which is still called Palestine and one Jewish state, which is now Israel, according to a separate webpage from the United Nations.
After the war in 1948, Israel declared independence and took over 77% of land that was originally mandated to Palestine, leaving only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and forcing over half of the Palestinian Arab population to relocate, according to the same source.
Since the 1990s, the Israeli government has continued to construct and fund illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, according to the United Nations.
Ary said she does not believe that American tax money should be used to financially support the Israeli government, and believes the public has a say in what the government can do with American tax dollars.
“We know that it's not right for tax dollars -that we break our back for- to go towards genocide, to go (towards killing) my people,” Ary said.
At the beginning of November of 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation to send about $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel and to cut around the same amount of money from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), according to a Nov. 2 article from the Washington Post.
Ary said she considers Rosen to be a local symbol who represents openly supporting genocide against Palestinians, openly supporting an apartheid state and, “not calling them on their shit” because of his past travels to Israel.
Rosen took a trip to Tel Aviv in 2018 to talk to Israeli law enforcement officials to discuss how to combat human trafficking, according to a Jan. 9, 2018 article from the Jewish News of California.
Rosen and other local officials from Santa Clara County also welcomed the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to the Bay Area on Sept. 18 at San José Mineta International Airport, according to an Oct. 2 article from Haute Living San Francisco.
"My desire is that our community here (Santa Clara County) be a microclimate," Rosen said in a video recorded at the Evergreen Islamic Center. "I want our area to be a microclimate of peace, of diversity, of respect, and love for one another. Muslim, Jew, Christain, Hindu, Sikh."
Nora, a pharmacist from San José who asked to not have her last name included because out of concern she could be blacklisted by the Canary Mission, said she is Palestinian and has family in the West Bank.
Canary Mission is an Israeli blacklisting and doxxing operation that targets students and professors critical of Israeli policies and launches charges against them that are designed to damage their future employability, according to a Dec. 22 article from The Nation.
Nora said she doesn’t understand why Rosen appears to have connections to the Israeli government and does not believe local officials have any reason to use tax dollars to travel to Israel.
“It's crazy making, but what does a local (district attorney) have to do with Israel?” she said. “Why is he going to Israel? . . . Why are any of our local people (politicians) going to Israel? . . . What are they gaining? It's very suspicious.”
Nora said if she could speak to Rosen she would tell him that his community members do not support him traveling to Israel and are concerned with why he is not more invested in representing his community members.
She said what is happening in Gaza is immoral and funding Israel would be financially supporting a country while increasing poverty in another part of the world.
“You're the (district attorney), you have a responsibility and I do not feel you are fulfilling that.”
Sean Webby, the spokesperson for district attorney's office, said Rosen and the office has not spent a single dollar to support Israel.
Louise, an alumni from San José State who is not comfortable sharing her last name, said supporters for Palestine do not have to be Palestinian to get involved in the movement.
She said as someone who is going into the healthcare field, she naturally cares about people and their quality of life.
“People (have) the right to a decent, full life,” Louise said. “That shouldn’t exclude the people in Palestine, the people in Gaza.”
Louise said she is from Fremont and notices that the local representatives from her area are not calling for a ceasefire.
She said it is a big problem in the U.S. to see appointed leaders in the community not listen to their voters.
“They’re actually taking our hard earned money and sending it to places like Israel . . . through financial aid and that’s just not right,” Louise said.
Published Jan. 2, 2024 and updated on Jan. 4, 2024 1:23 p.m.
