The horrific images of children starving in Gaza, due to Israel’s cruel, inhumane blockade of all humanitarian aid since early March, shocks the world’s conscience. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently announced plan to distribute aid, while forcing Gazans to move yet again, is a spurious cover for his and Trump’s ethnic cleansing scheme.
Yet concrete action to end this calamity is hard to organize. How does a genocide end? And specifically, how do people of conscience, acting with majority support of the US public, organize to end it?
The lack of true democracy in the United States, so evident in domestic policy on many issues, is even worse in terms of foreign policy, especially regarding the mostly ironclad support for Israel. However, cracks are showing, and they must be exploited quickly.
Earlier this week, US Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) brought his S. Res. 224, calling for an end to the humanitarian blockade on Gaza, to the Senate floor. The resolution had the support of all Democrats, except Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and the two Independents who caucus with the Democrats, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME).
The resolution was predictably blocked from getting a vote by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair James Risch (R-ID), but was significant as no other legislative measure in the year and half since the war on Gaza began has garnered such widespread, albeit partisan support (no Republicans supported it, nor have any called for a ceasefire or cutting off US weapons to Israel).
A companion resolution in the House of Representatives will be introduced very soon, and while both would be non-binding, they represent progress in the long struggle to exert pressure on Israel, and Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are keenly aware of US political developments. Additionally, the Senate will likely soon vote on Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs) to stop specific US weapons transfers to Israel. Sen. Sanders forced such votes twice since November, and while they failed, the upcoming votes should attract more support, and add to the pressure on the Israeli government, which of course is opposed by most Israelis.
Legislative initiatives are far from the only strategies and tactics being employed by peace and human rights activists. Other recent and upcoming events and opportunities include the following:
Activists led by Montgomery County, Maryland Peace Action showed up at new US Senator Angela Alsobrooks’ “Sick of It” rally protesting the Trump/Musk cuts to health programs, and had a strong showing about also being sick of the Gaza genocide, including confronting the senator. It may have had some impact, as she later signed onto Sen. Welch’s resolution, after having been largely silent on the genocide in Gaza, and voting against Sen. Sanders’ most recent JRDs.
The impressive anti-genocide commencement speech by George Washington University student Cecelia Culver has received significant media coverage. She is now shamefully being investigated by the university. Similarly, New York University student Logan Rozos condemned the Gaza genocide in his commencement speech, and the university is withholding his diploma. Both students, along with other students similarly persecuted for speaking out for an end to the horrors in Gaza, deserve support and solidarity.
Reprising and expanding an effort from last year, New Hampshire peace activist Bob Sanders is conducting a cross country bike ride to raise awareness of the dire situation in Gaza.
Veterans for Peace and other allies are supporting a 40 day fast for Peace in Gaza.
Groups in the Philadelphia will hold a People’s War Crimes Tribunal on May 31, building on the difficult but necessary advocacy aimed at Sen. Fetterman.
Lastly, Do Not Turn on Us is a new initiative calling on military and National Guard personnel to refuse unlawful, fascist orders. While more aimed at stopping fascism in the United States, it certainly is a contribution to the overall movement to establish peace, human rights and the rule of law, domestically and internationally.
Will any of these efforts, along with many others, overcome powerful political forces that perpetuate genocide, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid against the Palestinian people? No one can know for sure, but all are worthy of support and persistence. As Ms. Culver stated, none of us are free until Palestine is free.
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2 Comments
There is no so-called “genocide” in Gaza, despite what Hamas (and their useful idiots in the world’s leftist media) claim. It is, however, a war—Hamas poked the bear & now they’re rightfully feeling its full wrath.
To debate this is like debating well, anything obvious and certain – say, whether the sun is bigger than the moon…or whatever. Not too much point in doing that unless, I guess, one or the other participant can bend….. But I would like to ask you a question because I am sincerely interested in what your answer will be.
I will even ignore that when someone big and well armed and so on, has his foot on your neck for decades and is thus legislating your life, again, for decades, and hoping against reason that it will lead to a better situation you punch his foot, that isn’t well described as poking the bear…whatever that might mean.
So let’s assume that in this case there was no history of persistent grotesque Israeli violation of Palestinians (or vice versa, if you like), and suddenly Hamas did its attack. Now let’s suppose Israel wants to reply and presumably re-establish (the fictitious) prior just peace (though really re-establish total control. What does it do? Is anything too much? Would to bomb a school full of kids be something you would advocate in return for the attack on some concert goers, or even on a whole concert? A school of innocents for a concert of innocents? Is that your kind of calculus? I am really asking.
I am going to take a leap and assume your answer is yes, you would advocate such a step. What about a dozen schools? What about a hospital, or a dozen hospitals? How about starving the whole population after bombing the schools and hospitals and everything else you could target? Or let’s make it less embedded in the mideast. Suppose the Mafia is active in some city. For whatever reason, however self serving and vile, it launches an attack on a social gathering in the next door city. It so happens that the latter has a whole lot of munitions. So it demolishes the whole city that the Mafia is active in, and then it blocks food from reaching what’s left. Is that fair enough, in your calculus. And please don’t fudge the question–there is no point. No one denies what Israel has done, indeed, the Israel government brags openly about every element including the starvation aspect. So, okay, I await your answer.