by Edwin Cortés
Approximately, forty years ago, as a freshman at the University of Illinois Chicago, I became fully aware of two important struggles fighting for independence and against colonialism in Palestine and Puerto Rico. It is a crime against humanity that these two struggles remain unresolved today, particularly with the recent military incursions on July 8, 2014 of the Israeli military into the Gaza strip claiming more than 1,100 deaths, 4000 injuries, and destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, etc.
On July 20, in response to this crime, approximately twenty members and supporters of the National Boricua Human Rights Network including Luis Rosa, Felix Rosa and myself all former political prisoners joined 10,000 people in Chicago and millions across the world in condemnation of Israel military occupation of the Gaza strip and Palestine.
As the mass media attempts to justify this invasion, the peace and freedom loving peoples of the world followed by Puerto Rico’s alternative media such as Claridad which dedicated its entire newspaper to the Palestinian cause, fight to tell the truth.
On July 20, we also lost Dr. Steve Whitman, a true friend of the Palestinian and Puerto Rican people who actively participated for an end to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations.