Palestinian Doctors

We were standing, handcuffed, in the cavernous parking garage under the US Capitol, going through the process of being searched and having our property placed in oversized ziplocs, when we heard unfamiliar voices. Looking around, we spotted two people who had just been brought in, also cuffed. They were wearing white lab coats with the words "Doctors Against Genocide" on the back. We had seen members of their group upstairs, in the hall outside the hearing room where Marco Rubio was lying his ass off about programs that mean life or death to people all over the world. They were both speaking to the police in urgent tones. "I'm a pediatrician," said one. "It's my obligation to stand up for the babies dying in Gaza." The police, making no distinction between our message about the deadly consequences of AIDS cuts, and their message about deaths in Gaza, placed them next to us, and then loaded us all into the van together, still cuffed. Capitol police vans are about the size of a cargo van, with a solid metal partition down the center, and a bench running the length of the vehicle on each side. I was next to one of the doctors one one side, while David was with the other doctor on the other side. As we talked, it became clear that, unlike our intentional process with trainings, meetings, legal advice, and preparation such as ID and cash to pay our way out, the doctors had not expected to be arrested, had no idea what was going to happen, and did not have the cash with them. They had disrupted from the inside of the hearing room, but had no idea they would be arrested as a result. She peppered me with anxious questions, where were we going? what was going to happen next? Would they have a record? Would their hospitals find out? I answered them, and reassured her that our support people would make sure their fees were covered. Arriving at the Capitol police headquarters, we were waiting to be "processed", and swapping stories, with David telling us about his teen years in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Kendall, from Missouri, talked about seeing Michael Brown's dead body lying on the pavement and the protests that broke out after that, and Eric and I shared stories from decades ago in ACT UP. Finally, we were all released, with promises to stay in touch as we fight side by side.

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