ACTION ALERT: Cease Fire Now: This Is Genocide.

October 16th, 2023 - by ACTION ALERT: Cease Fire Now: This Is Genocide.

ACTION ALERT:
Cease Fire Now: This Is Genocide.
Loan Tran / The Rising Majority

Yesterday we posted an urgent appeal: take action to stop the genocide of Palestinians. Over 1 million Palestinians were ordered to evacuate the Gaza strip in advance of a ground invasion by Israel. Palestinians in Gaza are now currently without water or electricity. Palestinian journalists are not able to communicate what is happening on the ground. And all people of conscience are being met with a deliberate campaign by the US State Department to censor calls for cease-fire, de-escalation, and an end to violence.

In the past few days, we have shared our solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, across Historic Palestine, and in the US You can see that full statement here, where it has garnered the endorsement of over 100+ individuals and organizations across the United States. However, we are still fighting an uphill battle to communicate the gravity of this moment.

Can you take a moment to amplify our collective message? Post to social media, share with your friends: the US Left and US Justice Organizations demand an immediate cease fire and to stop genocide! The Biden administration is entirely capable of putting this to a halt. 

There are graphics at the end of this email that you can re-post immediately, with a link to the full statement endorsed by 100+ individuals and organizations.

In solidarity,
Rising Majority

US Justice Organizations to Biden:
Ceasefire Now: Stop the Genocide

We join the thousands1 who have been in the streets across the world to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who are facing the worst bombardment in their history. We are outraged by this violence and condemn the Israeli apartheid state that is currently doubling down on collective punishment of the Palestinians and tightening its nearly 17-year siege of Gaza.

This includes the prevention of any electricity, food, water and fuel to enter Gaza. And over the past few days, in addition to physical violence and attacks, we have witnessed the racist denigration of Palestinians as “barbaric” and “human animals” (in the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant). We will continue to strengthen our efforts for a Free Palestine and the pursuit of liberation, justice, and freedom for all oppressed people everywhere. 

The developments of recent days must be placed in the context of Israel’s colonization of Palestine, which began in 1948. For 75 years, the military occupation and apartheid regime has only intensified2: violently displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Palestinians and replacing them with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and launching large-scale military offensives against the predominantly refugee population in Gaza who are trapped in an open-air prison with no means of escape.

It is critical in this moment to bring attention to US government’s role in aiding apartheid and war crimes, with Israel as its largest recipient of foreign assistance at $3.8 Billion a year and totals more than $260 Billion3. With this aid, Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian Territory (West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza) are living under military occupation with profound restrictions on freedom of movement. In Gaza, Israel has subjected 2 million Palestinians to a brutal siege for over 16 years, where Israel can deny all access to basic necessities like food and clean water, and has created an uninhabitable situation4.

Across historic Palestine, Palestinians, including women, children, and the elderly, live as second and third class citizens in an apartheid regime These are taxpayer dollars going to occupation, apartheid, war crimes, and genocide. On October 10, President Biden promised to send even more weapons and military funding to Israel.

This course of action by the US should be alarming to any of us who are concerned about the growing threats of authoritarianism and fascism in the US and around the world, as the actions of the Israeli apartheid state bolster these efforts to target oppressed people with impunity. Support for Israeli apartheid and genocide against Palestinians is a threat to all of our struggles for multi-racial democracy. 

What We Can Do

For people of conscience and progressive movements in the United States, we see many similarities between the resistance movement of Palestinians to military occupation and the movements we are part of here to end racist policing, incarceration, occupation of Indigenous territories, and white supremacist, Christian fundamentalism targeting Black people, people of color, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, and the poor and working class.

We see our struggles for a true, working class democracy and an economy that functions for the many and not the few reflected in the struggles of the Palestinians to determine their own future, control their own destinies, and to work, play, learn, and have families without the constant threats of displacement, dispossession, and death.

We remember the solidarity expressed by the Palestinians during the uprisings after the police killing of Mike Brown: instructions on how to deal with tear gas, the weapon produced by the same manufacturer and deployed in Ferguson and Palestine. We call each other to action because our struggles are inextricably linked. 

The deaths of at least 2,500 Palestinians and Israelis since October 8, is an unnecessary demonstration that Israel’s military occupation of Palestine does not protect human life. It does not protect the interests or lives of all peace and justice loving people, whether in Palestine or the world over. We hope that it can be recognized now that the only way for anyone of any ethnic or religious background living Occupied Palestine to be free is for the end of the Israeli apartheid state. 

Our organizations below, representing broad sectors of movement and society, have endorsed this letter and call to action because of our belief not only in the right of oppressed people to resist but because of our belief that a different world is possible. A world in which the values of love, justice, dignity, solidarity, and care are central to our society, democracies, and economies. A world in which all human life is truly sacred.

ENDORSED ORGANIZATIONS/INDIVIDUALS:
Individual and organizational sign ons can be added here. This list will be updated daily.

Additional resources to learn about what is happening: