Boston Coalition for Palestine commemorates Nakba Day, demands ‘Sheba out of Massachusetts!’

Boston

Protestors rallied outside the Israeli Consulate in Boston on May 15 to demand the city of Boston end its ongoing complicity with the genocidal state. The Boston Coalition for Palestine (BCFP) called the action to observe the 78th anniversary of the Nakba (Catastrophe) when, from 1947 to 1948, Zionist militias demolished 500 villages, massacred over 15,000 Palestinians and drove 750,000 others from their homes.

The Palestinian lands stolen during the Nakba form the core territory claimed by the Zionist settler state. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, sneered then that dispossessed Palestinians would “forget” the atrocities they experienced.

As Zakaria Kawa, a Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) organizer and the action’s emcee observed, the hundreds of thousands of people who turn out worldwide to honor the martyrs of al-Nakba prove Ben-Gurion was wrong and show up the ultimate failure of the settler project he helped establish. “Our children are here in Boston and throughout the world, and they have not forgotten!” Kawa declared.

As Kawa and other speakers emphasized, the genocide set in motion by the Nakba continues to intensify — as does the resistance of the Palestinians and their allies across West Asia and the globe.

Another organizer from PYM, Farah, denounced Massachusetts’ partnership with Sheba Medical Center, the largest hospital network in the Zionist state, which has opened a “Sheba ARC Landing,” an artificial intelligence (AI) startup “accelerator” with the publicized support of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, both Democrats.

Sheba works hand-in-hand with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to whitewash genocidal apartheid by recruiting and training medical staff. As the organizer described, Sheba has shared information and data with weapons makers such as Elbit Systems, and its staff have repeatedly neglected medical care for Palestinians, whose torture, mutilation and starvation Israeli doctors routinely cover up. (shebaoutofma.com)

Israeli officials have hailed the ARC accelerator initiative, saying it will be a “soft-launching pad” for other investment partnerships in the U.S. It will serve as a means of laundering the Zionist state’s blood-soaked reputation as it continues the genocidal terror bombing of Gaza and Lebanon.

Sheba’s project in the U.S., the PYM organizer stressed, promises to refine the practices of surveillance and dehumanization Palestinians are experiencing. The use of AI technologies in healthcare that the Sheba project is funding promises to degrade conditions for both workers and patients and harvest their data, as part of a broader ruling-class project to wield AI to exploit and surveil the working class.

Speakers hit genocide, torture of prisoners, World Cup

Will Hodgkinson, a WWP Boston member, urged support for the campaign, originally called for by the Black Alliance for Peace and the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition, to move the FIFA World Cup out of Boston and boycott the U.S. in June. (workers.org/2026/05/92684)

Other speakers demanded the release of the thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese hostages, imprisoned, malnourished, tortured and sexually abused by Zionist authorities; called for solidarity to defend Iran from U.S.-Zionist aggression; and linked the struggle for Palestinian liberation to the Indigenous fights for LandBack and self-determination on Turtle Island.

From the consulate, demonstrators marched to the building at 60 State Street which houses the Sheba “accelerator,” along with other companies complicit in the Zionist genocide, including Bank of America.

As they picketed the entrance, activists chanted: “Evict Israeli war criminals Now!” “78 Years of stolen land, Israelis have blood on their hands!” and “Sheba falls, People rise! Boston stands with Palestine!”

To close the action, Kawa read a statement written by Omama, a Palestinian organizer, whose relatives survived the Nakba: “It is our job, our task on the 78th anniversary of the Nakba — it is our task to follow three simple words. We must have unity; we must have liberation; and because of that, we will return!”