Listen to the interview:
This Saturday, March 16, 2024, on Por la Libre, Peninsula 360 Press's Rolling Community Radio, Manuel Ortiz spoke with Camilo Pérez Bustillo, executive director of the National Guild of Lawyers (National Lawyers Guild) in San Francisco, who reflected on the genocide conflict in the Gaza Strip, carried out by the State of Israel, as well as its impact in other latitudes, such as the Bay Area in San Francisco, California.
Manuel: We already have the link with Camilo Perez Bustillo, Camilo how are you, good afternoon
Camilo Perez Bustillo: Thank you very much, it was a pleasure to accompany you, thank you Manuel.
Manuel: Camilo, the protests to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and in general against the Palestinian people have continued here on our land, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Recently, on Wednesday, there was a blockade at the airport, we met there, we saw each other there. What can you tell us about this blockade where you were as an observer and what else is happening here in the San Francisco Bay Area around this bombing and these attacks by Israel against the Palestinian people?
Camilo Perez Bustillo: It is a really key issue, an urgent one. I think that what we have to think about is that, although it may seem very distant, very far away, what is happening in Gaza is reflected and has repercussions in our communities. There is a general uncertainty throughout the world and throughout the United States, and a concern that is manifested in these mobilizations and protests. There is, let's say, a permanent rejection that is expressed in various ways in the face of what it implies, what many of us have characterized as a genocide, where the United States plays a decisive role, and all of us who have roots in Latin America and who have arrived here for one reason or another have already experienced this. Let's say, we are a product of these same processes of militarism, of intervention, of repression that are expressed in various ways.
In the end, there is a lot in common between what the people of Gaza and Palestine in general are suffering in that specific scenario, and what we have experienced, are experiencing and what will come in Latin America, that militarism characteristic, sadly, of the role of the United States in the world which, honestly, has no better exemplary case than that of Israel, that is, the way in which the United States has served as a partner in terror in the Middle East through Israel and its policy towards the Palestinians and towards Gaza, specifically, and that also challenges us, let's say, it is an ethical, political and legal issue, because the issue of genocide implies a response, a responsibility, we are talking about United States authorities who are responsible for the massacre that is taking place there, the famine, the dispossession, etc.
Meanwhile, we know that there are these electoral processes, of course, which are also very important processes that we should reflect on and that we can influence, both in Mexico and in the United States. The coin is up in the air on both sides of the border, and the uncertainties come from there as well, because all of this is part of the electoral agenda.
We also have, of course, the very pressing situation on the border between Mexico and the United States, what is being experienced on the ground, all the processes of migrants in transit. Let us remember that the Palestinian people are also a pilgrim people, they are a migrant people, a people who have been massively displaced and forced into migration. There are thousands of migrants who die in the Mediterranean fleeing Palestine and Gaza, among other places, and they are migrants like many of us and many of us as well.
Manuel: There is a large Palestinian and refugee population in San Francisco as well.
Camilo Perez Bustillo: Exactly, and that is a key point, because there is a very organic local connection, because there is a lawsuit that we have been working on as the National Lawyers Guild, the organization that I represent here in San Francisco, that I lead. We are supporting this lawsuit before the federal courts of the United States here in the Northern District of California, which is how this entire region is defined. It is a lawsuit undertaken and promoted by families of Palestinian origin who have relatives currently in Gaza, who are suffering the ravages of this genocide, this violence and this terror, who have been forcibly displaced, in some cases three or four times in recent months, almost monthly, let's say, and who are also living in the most precarious conditions possible.
We know that there is this attempt to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, this Open Arms boat, which is a process of trying to alleviate that suffering. We also know that these communities here of Palestinian origin, from Gaza, Arabs, in the Northern California Bay Area, are communities that suffer discrimination, that suffer attacks also in the sense of racist, xenophobic violence, and stigma; this idea that, just as people often try to equate migrants with criminals, and we know how political campaigns work in this country, sadly, Trump, and everything we know, but we also know that it has to do with the idea that Arabs or people of Arab origin, or of Muslim faith, Islamic religions, are automatically terrorists, for this case it makes no difference. They are criminalizing us.
There are very valuable and courageous organizations that are working at ground level here, and that are concerned every day and at all times about what is happening to their relatives in Gaza, and it is a pressing reality.
This is the holy month, the one we are living, Ramadan in the Islamic religion; of course, those of us who share these traditions are preparing for Easter, in our countries, in our families, it is also a time of the most important Jewish religious festivities; all of these peoples agree this month of March, culminating in this Easter Sunday, at Passover, we agree that it is a time to reflect and to think about what our values are and what is happening in the world and how we can respond.
Manuel: Moreover, we are not only talking about the Palestinian communities, because it seems that the narrative is Palestine against Jews and here in the demonstrations what we have said is that Palestinians and Jews are, let's say, on the same side, calling for a ceasefire, a halt to genocide, they are holding hands. Here it is a matter of Zionists attacking the Palestinian people and also attacking the Jewish people, because, also, how many Jews have not been imprisoned for opposing a genocide at this time?
Camilo Perez Bustillo: This detail is very important. It is certainly not about what is sometimes defined as anti-Semitism, about pointing out Jewish people or religion, the Jewish faith, it is not about that, about that identity, it is about the policies of a State, which is the State of Israel, which sadly sees itself as a Jewish State, but which is deeply divided.
And, what you said, there are many people of Jewish origin who are taking a risk, who on the day of the blockade at the Airport (in San Francisco), organized through the organization called Jewish Voices for Peace, were there on the front line, defending the rights of the Palestinian people, and who identify with the Palestinian cause as Jews from their faith and from their identity.
Of course, there are very well-known public figures around the world, such as Noam Chomsky, and many more scholars on the subject of Gaza, such as Norman Finkelstein, there are many references, and they are available on the Internet, in Spanish and in many spaces, that are of Jewish origin, but from there they repudiate Israel's policies; so, let's not get carried away with the idea, with the feint, that this is a matter of religious conflict, it is not about that, nor a racial conflict, but rather it is about a position based on values, it is rather a matter of how we think about things and how we see the world and those who are in favor of human rights and those who sadly trample on and violate those rights.
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