ACTION ALERT: They Were Children:
Killed by US-backed Israeli Forces
CODEPINK
(August 9, 2022) — Alaa Abdallah Qadoum and Momen Mohammad al-Neerab were both five years old. Hazem Ali Salem was nine years old. Khalil Jameel Shobeer was ten. They were killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces during 48 hours of Israeli air strikes and rocket attacks on Gaza’s residential neighborhoods. We’re thinking about all the things they were looking forward to in life, and all the birthdays they will never celebrate — all extinguished by politically motivated executions funded by our tax dollars. The United States is the leading provider of weapons to Israel — enabling these murders is part of its foreign policy.
In fact, the US has committed nearly $40 billion over the next decade to fund the Israeli occupation, with some of our tax dollars paying for Israel’s purchase of F-35 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Join our global call to President Biden and the US Congress to end all military “aid” and weapons sales to the Israeli occupation forces!
ACTION: Add your name to join our global call to end US “aid” to Israel.
Alaa, Momen, Hazem and Khalil weren’t the only people killed in the most recent assault on Gaza. There’s Ahmad Mohammad al-Neerab (11), Muhammed Iyad Muhammed Hassouna (14), Fatma Aaed Abdulfattah (15), Ahmed Walid Ahmed al-Farram (16), and so many more. Three siblings Ahmed (9), Muhammed (12) and their sister Dalia (13) were killed by the occupation at the Burreji refugee camp. For them and the dozens of Palestinians killed by occupation forces this year, we need to demand a different reality.
Around election time in Israel, attacks on Gaza happen like clockwork. Palestinian lives are used as a political tool. The occupation argues they are “defending” themselves. The very nature of settler colonialism is offensive. There can be nothing “defensive” about attempting to maintain apartheid, occupation, and the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In Gaza, two million people struggle to survive with no access to safe drinking water, scarce medical care and limited fuel resulting from the Israeli occupation by air, sea and land egress and ingress. Even when the bombings stop, the occupation routinely kills Palestinians in Gaza through a deliberately cruel deprivation policy.
We cannot allow the US to continue arming and funding the Israeli occupation. Now more than ever, we must stand in solidarity with Palestinian-led groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Within Our Lifetime, and more. That can look like following them on social media to learn from them and showing up for their actions.
A free Palestine is possible — if we fight for it.
Ann, Danaka, Farida, Justina, Jodie, Kelly, Lola, Marcy, Mark, Medea, Michelle, Nancy, Olivia, Paki, Sam, Shea, Sophie, Samantha, Stefi, Suzie, Teri, and Tim
ACTION: Sign the following CODEPINK Petition.
No More Military “Aid” to Israel!
The Israeli Occupation Forces bombed Gaza last week. Join the global call on the US to stop funding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine!
THE LETTER
Dear President Biden Members of the US Congress,
The events that transpired in Gaza last week make one thing clear: US taxpayer dollars that go to Israel in the form of $3.8 billion in military “aid” are being used to further harm and kill Palestinians. We, the undersigned, are demanding that the United States stops funding Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses and halt all weapons sales to the occupation.
Your administration insists that it cares deeply about human rights around the globe, yet you refuse to hold Israeli occupation accountable for its daily human rights abuses.
The slaughter and daily assault on Palestinian human rights being carried out by Israel is an unacceptable use of US taxpayer dollars. We demand an end to US collaboration in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
US Members of Congress like Representatives Betty McCollum, Chuy Garcia, Marie Newman, Rashida Tlaib and several others have called for the conditioning of aid to Israel. The concept of revoking or halting aid is not new, and it is supported by many lawmakers and their constituents. We call on Congress to suspend all aid and block any weapons sale that gets announced to the occupation.
US taxpayers pay Israel over 10 million dollars a day, and Israel uses that money to inflict violence all over Palestine. We call you to halt this “aid” and demand that Israel stop its assault on Gaza, its evictions in East Jerusalem, and its attacks on Al-Aqsa. We demand that not one more taxpayer dollar gets sent to fund apartheid and anti-Palestinian violence. We look forward to seeing how you will carry out these demands.
Remember James Miller:
HBO Filmmaker Killed by Israeli Soldiers
On May 2, 2003 Israeli forces “consciously and deliberately targeted” James Miller and his crew while they were in Gaza making a documentary for HBO.
This British TV report from the time: “Dispatches: The Killing Zone,” covers the IDF’s killing of Rachel Corey, Tom Hurndall, James Miller, and numerous Gazan men, women, and children.
Stop Israeli Terror in Gaza!
Free Palestine!
United National Antiwar Coalition
(August 6, 2022) — The United National Antiwar Coalition stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine and strongly condemns the most recent violent attacks by Israel on the people of Gaza. At the time of this writing, 15 Palestinians (including a five-year-old girl) have been murdered by the latest acts of Israeli aggression, which targeted residential buildings and communities.
We oppose all US funding of and military support for Israel, without which Israel would be unable to continue to wage war against Gaza and illegally occupy Palestinian land.
For decades, the people of Palestine have been made to suffer through: constant bombings and military strikes in Gaza and the West Bank, the mass imprisonment of their children, the demolition and destruction of their homes by Israeli settlers and the IDF, and evictions from their historic homes in Jerusalem.
We denounce not only this most recent atrocity by Israel against the people of Gaza, but Israel’s illegal and immoral occupation Palestine, which has been ongoing for nearly 75 years now.
Those following the situation in the Middle East can easily see the connection between the timing of Israel’s aggression in Gaza and the resumption of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, the former happening 24 hours after the latter. Israel has long opposed any nuclear deal between the US and Iran, as it hopes to remain unchallenged in the region by keeping Iran militarily and economically weak.
The Israeli government will continue to use the tired excuse of, “preempting terrorist threats,” as it always does, to try and justify its most heinous crimes. It will continue to point fingers and claim self-defense.
We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and support their resistance to Israeli occupation.
We call on all antiwar, peace, and justice organizations to take to the streets and join the in global condemnation of Israeli aggression in whatever capacity they can.
We encourage participation in all local actions in support of the Palestinian people
STOP ISRAELI TERROR IN GAZA! FREE PALESTINE! NO US AID TO ISRAEL!
A Rabbi’s Poem for Gaza
The Fellowship of Reconciliation
(August 9, 2022) — We are grief-filled and outraged at the senseless slaughter of at least 44 Palestinians, including 16 children in Gaza this past weekend. Even with a ceasefire now in effect, which we are grateful for, the situation facing the people of Gaza is dire.
While the US continues, for the most part, to ignore it’s homeless population (and healthcare isn’t considered a human right), $3.8 billion a year is gifted to Israel to impose its system of apartheid in Gaza, which includes periodic massacres of the Palestinian people.
As we pledge to act to end racism and inequality at home, we know that our actions can reverberate worldwide. We offer the following Lamentation for Gaza from Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago.
A Lamentation for Gaza
Gaza weeps alone.
Bombs falling without end
her cheeks wet with tears.
A widow abandoned
imprisoned on all sides
with none willing to save her.
We who once knew oppression
have become the oppressors.
Those who have been pursued
are now the pursuers.
We have uprooted families
from their homes, we have
driven them deep into
this desolate place,
this narrow strip of exile.
All along the roads there is mourning.
The teeming marketplaces
have been bombed into emptiness.
The only sounds we hear
are cries of pain
sirens blaring
drones buzzing
bitterness echoing
into the black vacuum
of homes destroyed
and dreams denied.
We have become Gaza’s master
leveling neighborhoods
with the mere touch of a button
for her transgression of resistance.
Her children are born into captivity
they know us only as occupiers
enemies to be feared
and hated.
We have lost all
that once was precious to us.
This fatal attachment to our own might
has become our downfall.
This idolatrous veneration of the land
has sent us wandering into
a wilderness of our own making.
We have robbed Gaza of
her deepest dignity
plunged her into sorrow and darkness.
Her people crowd into refugee camps
held captive by fences and buffer zones
gunboats, mortar rounds
and Apache missles.
We sing of Jerusalem,
to “a free people in their own land”
but our song has become a mockery.
How can we sing a song of freedom
imprisoned inside behind walls we have built
with our own fear and dread?
Here we sit clinging to our illusions
of comfort and security
while we unleash hell on earth
on the other side of the border.
We sit on hillsides and cheer
as our explosions light up the sky
while far below, whole neighborhoods
are reduced to rubble.
For these things I weep:
for the toxic fear we have unleashed
from the dark place of our hearts
for the endless grief
we are inflicting
on the people of Gaza.
