Member of Jewish Voice for Peace

I am a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and have mentored young writers in Gaza as part of We Are Not Numbers (WANN). These groups were founded to counter the insidious propaganda that upholds Israel’s apartheid state and to bring an end to its occupation of Palestine. They were founded by Jews who said “not in our name” will this ongoing tragedy continue. 

 

As we read and hear the latest news, I urge Americans to look behind the headlines at the history of Israeli violence against Palestinians and the role of the US in funding it. It is our responsibility to de-escalate this crisis and work towards addressing the root causes, the well-documented injustices of Israeli occupation, and the relentless bombing of Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2022. How many bombs will it take until Americans see that our government is complicit in a cycle of war crimes against an innocent people? Right now I am grieving the death of one of the young writers I tutored, who didn’t deserve to die. All Yousef wanted was the chance to live a peaceful life in a secure community- what so many of us take for granted.
Lisa Mullenneaux

West Bank Update

Report from the West Bank

This update is sent by Sa'ed Zboun, Arabic teacher at Bethlehem University and one of the founders of the Aida Youth Center, located in a refugee camp in the West Bank. Sa'ed was a guest on Activist Radio on May 25, 2023.

Updates from Palestine
Mon, Oct 16, 2023, at 2:25 PM

The situation here gets worst and worst! We are under a complete lockdown in the West Bank. There is lack of food, the internet keeps cutting off! Above all settlers are attacking us. 

I always thought that our Nakba that happened in 1948 because people back then were not educated and didn’t know the term humanity. Now, we witness another Nakba but in front of the whole world!
Israel now is committing a genocide in Gaza where they told more than 1.1 million to evacuate which is impossible because of the size of Gaza. Yet once they started fleeing, they bombed them in the streets! They deprived 2.1 million people of water, food, medicine, and electricity. What is happening now is not a war against Hamas, it’s a war against Palestinians but they are using Hamas as an excuse. 

The media is not covering anything about the real situation in Palestine!

If you want the truth, you should always go to the source! You have to watch out for biased news! Fake information is filling the whole internet! Because they are controlling the whole media! We are trying so hard to fight them, but our voice is not heard. They said that women were raped, and kids were beheaded in the beginning without one evidence. Then they all admitted that it is not true, and it’s all lies to make the Palestinians look savages!

We wonder, how can people trust the narrative of country that its leaders lied to the whole world, and these lies reached to a wide audience? On Platform X these lies reached 44 million and still are not deleted!

We need your voice now more than ever. You have to remember: We are fighting for our justice and a humanitarian cause.

Those who struggled against discrimination, segregation, and occupation in many parts of the world were never honored with red carpets and thunderous applause. They were instead murdered, imprisoned, and banished. Yet their legacy is still felt today. Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela are just two examples!

Following the correct path through history has never been simple, and that has been the case from the very beginning.

The path of the oppressed is long and arduous, so most people would rather side with the powerful (oppressor) than the weak (oppressed). We are not surprised by the side of the politicians in Europe and the USA. Those are the same people who saw our suffering and ignored us for more than 75 years.

We lived in this hell through all our life! It’s not something new to us, unfortunately! Of course, now it is more difficult than before! It’s true that we have mixed feelings of anxiety and confusion, but we have nothing to lose!
What we will lose from all of this is our tents and chains!

We have nothing to fear from our oppressors, who will soon be forgotten. We are not scared of them or their collective punishments and aggression, no matter how severe they are.

Among all this tragedy, we hope for a future of peace, liberty and dignity that awaits the Palestinians! If not, then death is better than living under the mercy of the oppressor because leaving is not an option for us!

Much love and respect. Your voice matters.
Saed Zboun
Aida Refugee Camp
Bethelem

Dear Editor:

Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians to “evacuate” the northern half of the occupied Gaza Strip, prompting UN officials to warn of an impending and unprecedented catastrophe, with the full backing, funding and arming of the U.S. and Europe. Israel's collective punishment of civilians is a war crime.

Addressing the recent crisis, its underlying causes, and the absolute need for the occupying power as well as all resistance groups of the occupied community to respect international law and to respect the prohibition against harming civilians is important. Killing children because children were killed will never prove that killing children is wrong. Israeli state violence needs to be called out, named and sanctioned.  

The top priority now for anyone who cares about human rights and upholding international law is to pressure our electeds and the UN to impose a ceasefire, to provide protection for civilians, and to compel Israel, the occupying power, to allow urgent humanitarian aid, including food, water and electricity, in to the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the Israeli-occupied and besieged Gaza Strip.

For over 7 days the Palestinians in Gaza have been under the most intense and indiscriminate Israeli bombardment ever, targeting homes, markets, schools and universities, hospitals, healthworkers, journalists, and the entire civilian infrastructure. The Israeli occupation forces are implementing their “Dahiya Doctrine,” which precisely calls for “disproportionate force” to maximize damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure. Israel has bombed Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. We need to stop its raging war machine.  

We need to act now, with urgency. Palestinian lives depend on it.
 

John Francis Mulligan

Dear Senator Gillibrand

Dear Senator Gillibrand,

As my representative I hope you will also stand with the Paestinians who live in peace and under the oppressive apartheid that Israel has become. I urge you not to support the government of Netanyahu and his band of thugs and help the people of Israel forge a path to peace. I am not in support of Hamas any more than I support the militaristic regime of the Zionists. Each wants to eliminate the other on land that was given to the Jews by nations that had no right to give anything to anyone. There is not a path to peace until the United States stops its unending stream of weapons and political support to the radical government of Israel. I would like a response regarding your stance on the points I am addressing.

Sincerely,
Cary Kittner

Israel has been using terror and ethnic cleansing ever since

It is easy to criticize violence and bloodshed, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, or Palestine. There are always women and children being killed. There are always thousands more buried alive in the rubble. And the barbarism always feeds upon itself. As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."

That doesn't mean that there is no one to blame. Most of these conflicts are proxy wars, with the major powers (China, Russia, and the United States) confronting one another by laying waste some Third World country. The United States is the worst of the three, with 800 military bases around the globe. Of course, our country talks about freedom and human rights, but these wars aren't really about that at all.

England and the US created Israel as a colony in the Middle East. At the end of the WW I, Jews made up just 8% of the population in Palestine. The Second World War changed all that, with a huge influx of Jewish settlers. In 1948, Jewish militias used terrorist tactics to clear 750,000 Arabs from the land they had lived on for centuries. Britain and the US looked the other way.

Israel has been using terror and ethnic cleansing ever since. There are now about 5 million Jews and 5 million Palestinians in the Holy Land. England and the US must undo their colony's apartheid and make peace, like England finally did in South Africa and Northern Ireland. The blood is on our hands; we must free the Palestinian people.

Fred Nagel

The "remarkably spiritual and educational experience" that apartheid had on him

Pat Ryan and Marc Molinaro have a lot in common. They are relatively young men who went off to Washington talking about human rights and justice. Both claim a type of amorphous patriotism; Ryan risked his life in one of American's ill chosen wars in the Middle East, and Molinaro loves helping the surviving veterans of US military adventures. Youth, service, and moral righteousness are hard to beat, and these two have even found it hard to beat one another.

And yet, both stand tall for Israel. According to OpenSecrets.com, Pat Ryan got $28,850 from the Israel Lobby in 2022, plus a free trip to see just how this apartheid state operates. Molinaro hasn't been in Congress long enough to have a record on OpenSecrets, but he has taken a trip to Israel as well, funded by a local Jewish Federation. He came back talking about the "remarkably spiritual and educational experience" that apartheid had on him.  

Both Ryan and Molinaro voted for (H Con Res 57) last July, asserting that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state.” Very recently, both Ryan and Molinaro stood together in support of Israel when Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha called for an end to Israeli occupation.

Both Congressmen supported Israel despite what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said recently: "I ordered a full siege on the Gaza Strip. No power, no food, no gas, everything is closed. We are fighting HUMAN ANIMALS and we act accordingly."

So both of our upstanding Congressional representatives support the cutting off of all food and power for 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza? Somehow their boyish enthusiasm for human rights and justice seems to have gone astray. Do they really think that Palestinians are human animals, not fit for life? Isn't that what Nazi leaders used to say?

Fred Nagel

Letter to the editor

To the Editor:

Once again the Palestinians have committed hari-kari. I'll say it again: of course they have a right to resist with armed force, but it's a bad strategy, especially when it involves attacking civilians. It just feeds the Zionist entity-U.S. propaganda machine, with ever more dire consequences for the Palestinians. The Palestinians appear to say, "Butt out - we'll figure it out!"  Well, after 75 years, they're not figuring it out, it's only getting worse. Meanwhile we're expected to shell out more money to staunch their bleeding.    

Dale Carnegie of How to Win Friends and Influence People fame wrote, "Do not do the impulsive thing - it is always wrong." In this case, impulsive, indiscriminate violence was the wrong strategy. What's a better strategy? Perhaps a Palestinian has answered that: Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. But will they hear, much less heed, his advice?

Meanwhile this magazine, despite its general excellence, continues to use some of the euphemistic red herring terms of the Zionist entity such as "Israel Defense Forces" (October 2023 issue, P. 18) and "the Land of Israel." As you otherwise document so well, the Zionist entity's armed forces are wolves in sheep's clothing. They're not about "defense." They're all about aggression, occupation, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, murder and apartheid. And Palestine isn't "the Land of Israel" (Israel's land). Using the language of the criminal validates the criminal. Please cut it out or count me out.

Gregory DeSylva