In a speech to the crowd, Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called for an end to the "bombardment" of Gaza. He said residents have been denied food, water and other necessities. "Palestine must be given some hope of freedom from Israeli occupation," he said. The Rev. Charles Stovall, senior pastor of Munger Place United Methodist Church, also appealed for Israel to stop the strikes. "This is not a Muslim issue. This is not a Jewish issue," he said. "This is an issue of humanitarian rights." The crowd cheered at his words and chanted: "Occupation is a crime."
The Dallas protest, organized by the Muslim Legal Fund of America and the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, follows similar rallies around the world. "What's going on in the Gaza Strip is an atrocity and it needs to stop," said Noor Elashi, the daughter of Ghassan Elashi, one of five Holy Land Foundation defendants recently convicted of conspiring to send money to Hamas.
Local Muslims protest Gaza strikes - January 2, 2009 - "We need to tell the whole world, especially Austinites that your tax dollars nowadays are being used to buy F-16'S that will drop 2-thousand, 3-ton bombs on civilians in the Gaza Strip and that is absolutely unacceptable," says Mohammad Al Bedaiwi, a member of the Austin Network for Islamic Studies.