After 22 months of brutal Israeli attacks and atrocities, we are finally witnessing a sea change in world opinion—instead of denial and extemporizing, the world has begun to acknowledge these horrors.
Here at home, there was a vote in the Senate put forward by Bernie Sanders to stop weapons from being sent to Israel. The bill did not pass, but a majority of Democrats voted for it for the first time. (However, disappointingly and perhaps as expected our own senators voted against it. This is an outrage!!!!) The pictures of starving people looking like WWII concentration camp victims could no longer be excused. Palestinians being shot like fish in a barrel while struggling to get food for their starving children could no longer be blamed on Hamas. Even in Israel, there are demonstrations against the genocide taking place.
This change has given me hope that our efforts have not been for naught. Yet, we in the movement are left wondering what took so long. Where was the moral imperative to revolt against crimes against humanity 22 months ago? Those of us who bravely stood up and were received with hatred and scorn, knew that no matter what, we were on the right side of history. Will those senators who voted to keep Israel armed with weapons and money still be able to look at themselves in the mirror and accept their greedy and criminal behavior when the tide has totally turned, and Israel is revealed completely as a monster state, committing the same crimes against the Palestinians that Jews were once victims of at the hands of the Nazis?
Yet our work continues. No settlement is in sight. The total blockade of food and fuel that started in March remains, and Israeli forces continue to mow down Palestinians seeking food, or just trying to survive. The death toll is rising, now more than 60,000 with many more unaccounted for. Big parts of the Israeli government have declared their intention to take over Gaza permanently, removing the remaining Palestinians by force. And a big part of the Israeli population still supports its government’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians.
What keeps me going are all my sisters and brothers who have taken up the cause and are following what is in their hearts. Justice, respect, kindness and love lead the way. Solidarity against crimes committed on those whose rights have been denied. We will stand for as long as it takes to free Palestine.
Some positive developments:
(1) The University of Maryland has to pay $100,000 to its Students for Justice in Palestine for attempting to silence Palestinian voices on campus.
(2) More Jewish Israelis are speaking out against the genocide by their government. Israeli novelist and Israel Prize recipient David Grossman publicly stated that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
(3) Hundreds of thousands of Australians marched in Sydney, joined by an unprecedented number of trade unions, community organizations, and individuals.
(4) The Chinese government officially announced that they support the rights of the Palestinian state and the recovery of all its occupied territories.
(5) The Reform Jewish movement in the United States—by far the largest current of American Jewry--issued a statement denouncing the Netanyahu government’s blockade and starvation of Gaza.
We might ask ourselves why these actions took so long—but we should welcome them as a precursor of things to come—the total isolation of Israel in the world community, and the liberation of Gaza from suffering and oppression.
FREE. FREE PALESTINE!