Can't we just get used to ethnic cleansing if we try hard enough? There is Trump to divert our attention with his endless greed and corruption. There are these billion dollar wars spreading around the globe. And yet, just when we think we can forget about genocide, there is the news of 2,200 Israeli settlement attacks on Palestinian villages in July.
These violent and racist settlers, backed by the Israeli Defense Force, do more than burn buildings and destroy olive trees. They shoot reporters, doctors and children, the same as Israel did in Gaza. According to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, "The IDF also rapes and tortures its prisoners, one of Israel’s standard operating procedures and a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.” (NYT May 11, 2026) Then there are these 4,300 recent civilian deaths in Israel's bloody attack on Lebanon. Can't we just change the channel?
Part of the problem is that we are paying for all this carnage. We pour our tax dollars into Israel for each hideous war crime it commits. In turn, the Israel Lobby contaminates our elections by saturating each race with millions in donations. Pro-Israel groups spent at least 100 million recently on federal primary and general election races. We have let Israel turn our electoral system into a pay to play sham.
Get our bombs and missiles out of Palestine. Stop sending billions to a genocidal state. And get Israel out of our elections.
Fred Nagel
Getting Used to Ethnic Cleansing
More than Josh Riley
Although it’s way past time for Pat Ryan to vote against continuing to enable Israel’s continued killing of Palestinian civilians, he at least is doing more than Josh Riley.
The number one contributor to Josh Riley’s 2025-2026 campaign committee, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is certainly getting its money’s worth with Josh Riley, member of Congress. More than $218,000 worth. In fact. Riley is so beholden to the Israel Lobby that since his advent to Congress, he hasn’t raised the slightest objection to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. He doesn’t even care if American citizens of Palestinian descent are murdered while visiting family in the West Bank, or if his fellow congressional members are held at gunpoint by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
I think Riley’s constituents deserve to know how much more money Riley expects to get for his continued silence and complicity.
— Marcy
Guts? Or Opportunism?
After two years and ten months of Israeli genocide, Pat Ryan--who repeatedly said nothing would ever stop him from supporting Israel--voted to block sending $3.3 billion to Israel as part of a military authorization package. But don't get too excited. His constituents have been calling and pressuring him to find a way to break with the Israel lobby, and its money, for nearly three years, while he refused to meet with us, refused to acknowledge that Israel was carrying out a genocide against Palestinians, refused to speak or vote against a single bomb or dollar going to aid that genocide.
Only now, when pro-Israel Democrats are being unseated everywhere did Pat Ryan suddenly see the light.
I'm glad for every vote against U.S. funding of the Israeli military. But I have to ask myself: Guts? Or opportunism?
Naomi Allen
Overthrowing the Tyrant
The right wing element of our country is as close to power as it has ever been. We have have survived racists like Woodrow Wilson. We have suffered under absolute liars like Tricky Dick Nixon. Our worst military defeat, the invasion of Vietnam, was built on false war propaganda. Through all of this, we have persevered, and so has our Constitutional democracy. That era looks to be over.
The current gap between the rich and the poor is at a level that is historically unprecedented. The billionaires have captured our government, forcing cuts for the working class and tax breaks for the already filthy rich. The nation's president has become unglued; he is a completely self absorbed narcissist presiding over the most corrupt administration we have ever experienced.
Like most tyrants, Trump wants to control everything that we the people think. He has opened the door to junk science, attacked free speech on campuses, and created his own fascist organization that shoots first and asks questions later. His billionaire supporters have purchased most of the mainstream media, from the newspapers to the TV programming. That way we can't listen to Stewart, Fallon, or Colbert. We can't watch "60 Minutes," which often revealed governmental wrongdoing.
If that were not threatening enough, Trump is pushing for endless wars. We had our chance to stop this madman when he conspired to overthrow the 2020 election. But like the Germans after the Beer Hall Putsch, we didn't stop the tyrant when we could have.
Fred Nagel
Guts? Or Opportunism?
After two years and ten months of Israeli genocide, Pat Ryan--who repeatedly said nothing would ever stop him from supporting Israel--voted to block sending $3.3 billion to Israel as part of a military authorization package. But don't get too excited. His constituents have been calling and pressuring him to find a way to break with the Israel lobby, and its money, for nearly three years, while he refused to meet with us, refused to acknowledge that Israel was carrying out a genocide against Palestinians, refused to speak or vote against a single bomb or dollar going to aid that genocide.
Only now, when pro-Israel Democrats are being unseated everywhere did Pat Ryan suddenly see the light.
I'm glad for every vote against U.S. funding of the Israeli military. But I have to ask myself: Guts? Or opportunism?
Naomi
Ceasing To Be a State
People have a right to exist, but the countries they live in do not. Should a country betray all measures of law or humanity, why their leaders should be arrested and all its institutional structures erased.
We have the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials as a template. At the end of the Second World War, the victors decided to remake Germany and Japan by locking up their former leaders and shredding their social structures. These weren't perfect trials, but they did create an expectation that such horrendous war crimes would never be allowed again.
Two million people are being starved to death in Gaza. There are no hospitals, schools, or residential buildings left. There is no water that is fit to drink, nor sewage systems to keep the population safe. There is nothing left but the bombs, missiles and drones that eat up everyone's families. And the killing goes on, night and day. At least the Nazis tried to keep their mass slaughter secret, something that doesn't seem to worry the Israeli Defense Force. The pro Israel Lobby has spent tens of millions bribing Congress and the president to look the other way.
So when Israel falls because the rest of the world finally cuts it off, we know who should go to jail and what societal structures should be destroyed. Racial apartheid must come to an end, as should all the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land. Israel, that failed colony of Western imperialism and racism, must cease to be a state.
Fred Nagel