UNM Israel Alliance

Some have expressed an interest in seeing the video of the pro-Hamas protest that was held in front of the UNM bookstore on Jan. 16, 2009. UNM Israel Alliance members were there holding a small pro-Israel rally in the morning before the pro-Hamas counter protest people arrived, and filmed the events. The large pro-Hamas crowd came from the mosque and over ran us after a brief hesitation.

The pro-Gaza counter-protest was sponsored by the Mosque, the Muslim Student Association, the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance, and the Stop the War machine. When the pro-Hamas counter protest over ran our position, the police had us retreat from where we had been, because of the potential for violence on the part some of the Palestinian Arabs in the crowd.

The proper and legal move would have been to have made the pro-Hamas people move back away from us, since we were there first by more than an hour. However, this has been the tendency across to the country, to give in to Arab intimidation and take the temporarily easier way out. This has also been the policy in Europe and South America, which have seen the Islamic movement in action for longer than we have, and we see the dangerous results for Jews and other citizens there. The same can be expected in the US, if the same policies are used here as were used there. This is not fear mongering, it is simple logic.