Members of Congress— both Republicans and Democrats— are furiously beating the war drums against the Palestinian people on social media. There is no context and, as you would probably expect, no balance either. You get AIPAC puppets like Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and this kind of unrelenting propaganda from Ritchie Torres (D-NY):
Meanwhile, Republicans are just making up whatever they want to in order to blame the tragedy on Biden and to stoke the fires of rage. Career-long conspiracy-monger Marjorie Traitor Greene posted a blood-curdling video that purported to be Israeli infants in dog cages being held hostage by Hamas. Hamas is horrible and detestable enough, but that video was posted to TikTok 4 days before the Hamas attack... just more lies from Congress' most dishonest, least dependable member.
JVP is a national, grassroots organization working towards Palestinian freedom and Judaism beyond Zionism. It's the largest such organization in the world. They sent me this statement today:
Right now, Palestinians, Israelis and all of us with family on the ground are terrified for loved ones. We grieve the lives of those already lost and remain committed to a future where every life is precious, and all people live in freedom and safety.
Following 16 years of Israeli military blockade, Palestinian fighters from Gaza launched an unprecedented assault, in which hundreds of Israelis were killed and wounded, and civilians kidnapped. The Israeli government declared war, launching airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinians and wounding thousands, bombing residential buildings and threatening to commit war crimes against besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation— and United States complicity in that oppression— are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.
For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.
For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.
For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes and orchards and land that were in their family for generations.
The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The U.S. government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the U.S. enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime. Those who continue calling for “ironclad” U.S. support for the Israeli military are only paving the path to more violence.
From the U.S., there are no sidelines. We will uproot complicity where we are: we demand that the U.S. government immediately take steps to withdraw military funding to Israel and to hold the Israeli government accountable for its gross violations of human rights and war crimes against Palestinians. We commit to escalating our campaigns for boycott, divestment and sanctions to end the billions pouring into the Israeli war machine from corporations and private foundations.
Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek— and gain— their freedom. We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence, beginning with our own government’s complicity.
My heart is breaking for Palestine. The bombing of a hospital today. Hundreds killed. Of course the actions of. Hamas are despicable. That's a given. You can t keep your foot on the neck of people for generations without violence happening because apartheid is a violent action. Would that we had peacemakers in power. I m grateful I live in California .I didn t have to vote for Biden. He has always been a Hawk.
When Palestinians in peaceful protest approached the fence carrying banners and signs -they were slaughtered. That is policing in fascist Israel (which is as strange a phrase as I have ever written).
I recall an interview, many years after WWII, with the German commander tasked with annihilating the 70,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto - probably Stroop. He remained astonished that German officers under a white flag trying to negotiate removal of the injured had summarily been shot dead. He had never processed the thought that annihilating 70,000 men women and children was also a bit uncivilized.
It is 75 years since Israelis took 77% of Palestinian land in the Nakba and 56 years since the Naksa when they…
A nice testament. Too bad the audience is dumber than shit. If it weren't, it wouldn't have elected the corrupt aipac puppets they've elected without exception since the '60s.