Final Preparations Underway for a Protest against Israel

Yasser Musa

On the eve of a protest in Belmopan, the artistic community, headed by Yasser Musa, is making a call to all Belizeans to join in and be heard on Tuesday. The group is taking a firm stand against a visit and training of the police department to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the state of Israel. Artists for Peace and Common Sense wants to send a clear message to the government of Belize that it is strongly objecting to the cozying up of relations with Israel, which has a special relationship with Guatemala, the country that has a territorial dispute with Belize. Since the announcement, over a hundred and seventy plus signatories have penned their names to a letter of protest that will be presented to the Office of the Prime Minister, the Office of the Foreign Minister and the National Assembly.

Yasser Musa, Organizer

“The Israeli Council in Belize is inviting the who’s who in the zoo—all the parliamentarians all the diplomats the glitterati—and that will happen tomorrow at four p.m. and guess where? Not in a fancy council or Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it is going to happen at the Police Academy training grounds celebrating seventy years of Israel’s independence so we are taking a side. The second thing which is the more egregious one is that they have announced, the Israelis, that on our soil and our police academy grounds, they—not we—they will inaugurate a training course called police and community and that is where the fire started with us because we know the history of Israel as it relates to what they have done to the Palestinian people.  I think that we have a far too cozy, too engaged, too hugging of a relationship with the state of Israel; that is not in our national interest. We are a country that is under a threat by another country. That country threatens others; so we for one that has to be an issue, but we would happily ask for other people to give us advice as to how we go about lobbying to deal with that issue.”