by Adam Horowitz



Woman in a wheelchair tries to escape the tear gas the Oakland Police Department launched upon the protesters. (Photo: Occupy Together )

Last night police in Oakland, California cracked down on protesters in the Occupy Oakland movement in a possibly ominous sign of things to come. Mother Jones reports that law enforcement used rubber bullets, tear gas, and flash-bang grenades to attack the protesters. The tactical similarities to Israel’s treatment of nonviolent Palestinian protesters were obvious to many, but they go deeper than that. Max Blumenthal writes the Oakland police used many of the same weapons:

The police repression on display in Oakland reminded me of tactics I witnessed the Israeli army employ against Palestinian popular struggle demonstrations in occupied West Bank villages like Nabi Saleh, Ni’lin and Bilin. So I was not surprised when I learned that the same company that supplies the Israeli army with teargas rounds and other weapons of mass suppression is selling its dangerous wares to the Oakland police. The company is Defense Technology, a Casper, Wyoming based arms firm that claims to “specialize in less lethal technology” and other “crowd management products.” Defense Tech sells everything from rubber-coated teargas rounds that bounce in order to maximize gas dispersal to 40 millimeter “direct impact” sponge rounds to “specialty impact” 12 gauge rubber bullets. * *

Poet Amirah Mizrahi made a similar connection in a piece she wrote for the Occupy Writers series:

oakland, 25 october 2011

I. second person present

when you are there

nothing else

is real.

tear gas makes you calm

clear-headed

surprisingly

a warm comfortable room

is disorienting

the shaking you feel

is each cell rising up

to protest with you

each person marching

is a cell

in the blood stream

of resistance flowing

steadily

broadway

is a vein

II. first person past

today

i was wadi salib 1959

i was musrara 1971

i was palestine in oakland

like never before i was

all the places

in all the radical histories

i know and don’t know

i heard a trumpet in a marching band

play a tune i recognized

bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao

clapping hands marching feet i gave

away shirts as scarves

to shield faces

today i was a time

place comma date

that some day some one will be

when she is again marching

in the streets and

knowing history

holding it

making

it.

III. future perfect

there is a moment of realization

that a new world

is on the horizon we

work hard for her

slowly, painfully we

recognize

that there is still work

to be done tomorrow we

go home, wash

tear gas out

of our hair

clean our wounds

each other’s wounds

we remind each other:

love yourself

& build

for tomorrow.

How far will these connections resonate with the broader Occupy Together movement? Blumenthal ends: