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Aug. 12 protest will include Q-C

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By Thomas Geyer | Saturday, August 05, 2006 | 24 comment(s)

Davenport along with several other major Iowa cities will be part of a nationwide rally for peace and justice in the Middle East to be held Aug. 12.

“The main rally will be in Washington, D.C., which will start at noon there,” said John Dabeet of Muscatine, who is president of Americans and Palestinians for Peace, or AMPAL.

“Our rally will coincide with that one and will begin at 1 p.m. at the corner of Kimberly Road and Brady Street,” he added.

“It will be a peace rally in support of the Palestinians and Lebanese people,” he said. “It will be part of a nationwide effort.”

Rallies also will be held in Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Ames and Sioux City.

Israel attacked the ruling Palestinian faction Hamas in Gaza after the group captured Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit on June 25. The United States and Israel both say Hamas is a terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel.

On July 12, members of Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which is allegedly supported by Iran and Syria, staged a cross-border raid killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two others, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Israel has interpreted the acts of both Hamas and Hezbollah as acts of war and is continuing to retaliate militarily.

Dabeet said it is time the world stop marginalizing Arabs.

“There is a lobby that works very hard in the U.S. to portray Arabs and Palestinians as terrorists with not education, still riding camels and so on.

“We are well-educated peace-seekers,” he said. “We want to live in peace and live in freedom. But above all, there must be justice.”

The rallies in Iowa are being sponsored by AMPAL; Lebanese for Peace; Muslim American Society of Iowa Freedom Foundation; People for Justice in Palestine; Arab-American Institute; People for Sabeel. In Davenport, the sponsors also include Progressive Action for the Common Good of the Quad-Cities and Churches United.

Caryn Unsicker, of Silvis, Ill., representing Progressive Action for the Common Good, said she and her group will be at the rally not supporting one side or the other, but supporting peace.

“We don’t like the killing,” she said. “Both sides have their good sides and their faults. But what we’re calling for is peace. There has been enough killing. We want to see peace in that whole region.”

Thomas Geyer can be contacted at (563) 383-2328 or tgeyer@qctimes.com.