As the bells of San Fernando Cathedral chimed high noon across the street on Saturday, October 4, 2025, a young woman in keffiyeh lifted her bullhorn to start the chants among the roughly 80 attendees gathered at San Antonio’s City Hall. Soon these were accompanied by the rolling beat of a single snare drummer wearing a soccer jersey the watermelon colors of Palestinian freedom.
Every time the media lies / A neighborhood in Gaza dies! From Palestine to Mexico / All these walls have to go! From the river to the sea / Palestine will be free! From the sea to the river / Palestine with live forever!
From the streets came occasional honks of encouragement; an older Chicano in a tricked-out vintage pickup rolled by flashing a peace sign.
After the opening chants, the crowd reassembled itself on the steps of City Hall behind a succession of speakers representing local groups—San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Act 4 SA, Democratic Socialists of America (San Antonio), San Antonio Students for Peace, and the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel—working together as the newly formed San Antonio for Palestine Coalition (SAPC).
In that day’s press conference (announced as: ‘Power for Palestine in Military City, U.S.A.’) and in a vigil held days later on October 7, 2025, SAPC sought to mark two years of what leading human rights organizations around the world—Amnesty International, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Israel’s B’tselem, and the United Nations—agree is an ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people.
Bolstered by family members, voice shaking, Sara Masoud of San Antonio for Justice in Palestine read off some of the numbers that only scratch the surface of the violence inflicted on Gaza over the past two years:
Over 80,000 Palestinians killed.
Over 18,000 children killed.
19,000 children orphaned.
21,000 children missing.
95 percent of children felt death was imminent.
Half wished to die
4,000 children with amputated limbs.
A line of framed statements arranged in front of the speaker’s podium, black on red, added to the numbers of those killed:
Over 45 artists, writers, and creatives.
Over 700 health care workers.
Over 500 teachers and university professors.
273 journalists.
Slideshow One
“And here in San Antonio, what Palestine teaches us is this,” Masoud continued. “The struggle … is local.”
Beyond announcing the formation of new alliances, speakers sought to “connect the dots between San Antonio’s political economy and the destruction of Palestinians,” as the SAPJ press release stated, and to highlight new organizing efforts aimed what they described as local complicity.
“Valero fuels the jets that drop the bombs. Chevron profits off stolen gas. Cornerstone Church passes the donation plate blessing genocide as a stepping stone for prophecy, enlisting congregants in a settler colonial endtimes crusade. Every bomb dropped on Gaza, every home demolition in the West Bank with Caterpillar bulldozers, carries the fingerprints of this city,” Masoud said.
“So this coalition isn’t only about Palestine. It’s about what kind of city we live in. What kind of state we are. The same corporations and politicians underwriting the past two years of mass killing abroad are the ones denying housing, healthcare, and dignity but turning up repression at home. The lines connect. The fights are linked. The better world must be organized.”
But the takeaway here is not the numbers that limn the quantitative scale of genocide. It is the intimate grief of real human impacts—for the friends San Antonio residents are missing, the family members anguished over, killed or displaced or terrorized.
“I ask media here to think about that with special sensitivity,” SAJP’s Alex Birnel said, turning the lens onto those of us filming and snapping, recording and scribbling on the other side of the line of cameras.
He added:
“The spectacle of media, getting quotes and storywriting, can detach—make distant, objectify. These are your neighbors who are hurting because their people are being genocided.”
As Masoud put it:
“A world organized for life is on the line.”
As Judith Norman of Jewish Voice for Peace put it:
“So on this, the high holy days of my Judaism, I am here to say: Zionism is not my Judaism. My Judaism has another vision of safety. It looks like one free Palestine from the river to the sea, … a world where safety is guaranteed not by weapons but by relationships.”
As Juliette Therber of Act 4 SA put it:
“The same forces that try to legislate trans people out of existence are the ones justifying the bombing in Gaza. None of these struggles are separate. And none of us can be free until Palestine is free.”
As James Finley of San Antonio’s DSA chapter put it:
“We know that solidarity is survival…there is no other option. The whole world is at stake. Both because everyone in Palestine is a whole world, and because colonialism and capitalism are together destroying a livable future for all of us. … Solidarity is a practice, solidarity forever, free Palestine.”
Slideshow Two
As Claire Lewis of San Antonio Students for Peace put it:
“Our students’ compassion will not be boxed into specific timeframes or limited to a certain patch of grass on our campuses. We do not fear the power held lingering above our heads. You cannot suppress the passion for peace.”
As Luke Amphlett of the San Antonio Alliance for Teachers and Support Personnel put it:
“Palestine isn’t far away. It’s here. Present with us in our city, in our tax dollars, our silences, our actions, and our inaction. … Palestine is present in my classroom, as my students ask me why their families can’t afford medical care in the richest country in the world.”
As SAJP’s Alex Birnel put it, again addressing media directly:
“Members of your own profession are being targeted exactly because of your profession, being a source of power and of truth. You can best honor them and their lives by being a source of power and truth yourselves.”
“Nothing we do is enough,” he continued. “But everything we do is indispensable.”
In the weeks to come, Deceleration will continue to follow some of the organizing efforts emerging from the San Antonio for Palestine Coalition, in particular local boycotts planned for Chevron and Caterpillar.
Four Poems for Palestine
On October 7, 2025, community members reconvened at San Pedro Park for a Vigil for Gaza. At the conclusion of the event, attendees were invited to share a few words or poems. Here are four of these poems shared for Palestine.
