14 November 2012
As we meet today the state of Israel, funded to the tune of $3 billion U.S. tax dollars worth of military equipment and aid per year, is engaging in a military assault on Gaza City, Palestine, a civilian city with almost a million residents. At the time we penned this statement, at least 15 people had been killed as a result of the assault, including a one-‐month old toddler and a seven-‐year-‐old girl, and over a 100 people had been wounded. The number of dead and wounded is expected to rise if this war is allowed to continue.
Like the racist system of mass incarceration here in the United States, the U.S.-‐Israeli war on the Palestinian city of Gaza is an example of the gross contradiction between the priorities of the vast majority of humanity who want to live peaceful, dignified lives and the misuse of societal resources by elites that should be used to meet human needs but are instead used for war, bank bailouts, police brutality, and mass incarceration.
The End the New Jim Crow! Action Network (E.N.J.A.N.) stands with the Palestinian people in their struggle against war and occupation, and makes the connection between the struggle of the people in Gaza which M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky called the “world’s largest open air prison” during his recent trip there and the struggle of people in the United States fighting the world’s largest prison system.
The U.S. system of mass incarceration directly restricts the movement and liberty of over 2 million people, including over a million African Americans, just as Israel’s occupation restricts the movement and liberty of all Palestinians. It is the same racist system that harasses people of color on the streets of U.S. cities, and whose police and racist vigilantes murdered at least 120 Black people in the first six months of this year. As a network we oppose all forms of racism, including anti-‐Black racism, Islamophobia, and anti-‐Semitism, and we make common cause with all those around the world who do the same.
As an organization we demand societal resources be shifted towards jobs, housing, healthcare, and education, both at home and abroad, and away from prisons, war, and
occupation. End the U.S.-‐Israeli War on Gaza! Free Palestine! End the New Jim Crow Now!
The End the New Jim Crow! Action Network (E.N.J.A.N.) Campaign Against Mass Incarceration http://endthenewjimcrow.blogspot.com/
845-‐475-‐8781
Meetings are on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month at the Sadie Peterson Delaney African Roots Library, on the second floor, in the Family Partnership Center, 29 North Hamilton St, Suite 218, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601