From New York, this is Democracy Now.

And what I felt was a tremendous weight.

I felt the obvious thing that I think all of us feel that our tax dollars are

effectively subsidizing apartheid or subsidizing a segregationist order, a Jim Crow regime. but I also felt that as an African American who was reared on the

fight against Jim Crow, against white supremacy, against apartheid.

I felt tremendous shame.

How could I not know?

But we must speak.

In this special broadcast, we hear the words of national book award winning author

Tanahasi Coates, civil rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander Columbia

Professor Rashid Hallady and others from an event organized by the

Palestine Festival of Literature in response to Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

This is part of a hundred years war on Palestine. It's not a war in Palestine. It's a war

to implant a settler-colonial presence at the expense of an indigenous people which is being pushed

out slowly but surely.

All that and more coming up. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.

The War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman.

Today, a special broadcast.

But we must speak on Palestine and the mandates of conscience.

That was the name of a November 1st event here in New York where leading writers and academics

came together to speak out against Israel's bombardment of Gaza. The event was held

...