OKLAHOMA CITY– By the time Game 1 of the Oklahoma City Thunder postseason tips off Sunday night, hundreds if not thousands of fans may have made their way through Scissortail Park. Situated right across the street from the Paycom Center, it was the perfect place for the team and city officials to set up their event center that will introduce fans to the Thunder and NBA playoffs.
However, Saturday evening, it also became the temporary command center for a group who used the venue to protest the war in Gaza and the treatment of the Palestine people.
Organized on social media by Itzel Valle, a small collective of young women and men carried signs and Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo flags through the intersections that cut between the arena and Omni Hotel.
Along with marching and holding their signs up to passing cars, the group wrote slogans and what they believe to be important information for the people who make their way to the game through the park.
“We’ve been here prior,” Valle said. “We’ve protested while they’re holding games. It’s more of, we’re trying to see when our community is there at one time to inform them because that’s what this here, There’s information on the ground.”
Valle said she and her group have met with resistance from passersby who yelled at them saying they were supporting Hamas, which has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States government. Hamas was responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in Israel which killed approximately 1,200 Israelis.
The Hamas attack led to Israel starting the war in Gaza, which has killed 34,000 Palestinians
“The thing is that the over 32,000 people were civilians. It is never about Hamas,” Valle said. “It’s about these people being eradicated, wiped off the face of Earth. And we’ve seen that in the way that they have tried to move them around and confuse them and still continue to bomb the safe areas. And you know what, I understand that Hamas is labeled a terrorist, but how can we blame a revolution or uprising when they’ve been silenced for 75 years? This did not start on October 7th. It started when the Israeli occupation started.”
Valle’s sentiment runs contradictory to those who support Israel and its right to defend itself and believe Hamas should be eliminated at all costs.
This is a debate that is not just taking place on a cold April night in Oklahoma City. Throughout the country, protests have erupted on college campuses, highways leading to airports and downtown plazas in the past week alone. That included more than 100 student protesters at Columbia University in New York being arrested Friday for posing a “clear and present danger.”
The protests at Scissortail Park didn’t rise to that level of drama. Outside of run-ins with park personnel, verbal insults and the occasional hard stares, the group was left to themselves
However, Valle was asked a few times to explain why they were there to onlookers who claimed they didn’t know anything about what was happening in Gaza.
Valle and her group said they plan to be back in the same spot before the Thunder playoff game against the New Orleans Pelicans to keep getting their message out to people.
“I just want them to put their eyes back on Palestine and Gaza because everything that’s going on around us are pure distractions,” Valle said. “I understand sports are a big thing here in Oklahoma and that’s a way that we all gather. (This) wasn’t even planned for this to be here. This just happened and good. It’s more for us, there’s more visibility, but that’s what we want. It’s visibility about this very important topic that should involve everyone.”
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