As Biden pledges military assistance to Israel and anti-Palestine rhetoric intensifies on Capitol Hill, Jewish Voice for Peace is calling on Americans to pressure lawmakers to help end the air strikes on Gaza.
Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance adamaged by an Israeli airstrike, Oct. 7. (Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
The human rights group Jewish Voice for Peace has issued an urgent call to the U.S. public, calling on Americans to pressure members of Congress to help end the ongoing airstrikes in Gaza, which have now killed at least 1,100 people and injured nearly 5,200.
The Biden administration on Tuesday pledged to deploy military assets for Israel to use in its assault on Gaza — which analysts say could involve even deadlier ground attacks in the coming days — and U.S. President Joe Biden said he would soon ask Congress “to take urgent action to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners.”
To counter that, said Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Americans who oppose the killing of Palestinian civilians in retaliation for Hamas’ surprise attack over the weekend must make their voices heard by Congress as well.
“The U.S. must work to immediately de-escalate to prevent the further loss of life, and not fuel and exacerbate the violence by sending more weapons to Israel,” said JVP. “There is only one way to end violence: to address its root cause, 75 years of Israeli military occupation and apartheid. We must end U.S. complicity in this systemic oppression.”
The White House illuminated in the blue and white colors of the Israeli flag on Tuesday. (White House, Adam Schultz)
The group provided supporters with call scripts to contact their U.S. House members and senators, asking them to tell their representatives in Congress to oppose “any attempts to send further weapons to the Israeli government and military as it wreaks havoc on the Gaza Strip.”
JVP noted that a forthcoming resolution proposed by Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY), which would affirm the U.S. stands “with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas,” would ultimately “dehumanize Palestinians and fuel violence.”
The group’s call to action came as anti-Palestinian rhetoric on Capitol Hill intensified, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) calling for Israel to “level” the blockaded enclave of Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million people, approximately half of whom are children.
JVP Action — JVP’s sister advocacy group — highlighted an account of the destruction from Al Jazeera English reporter Maram Humaid, who said “a huge bombing” had hit close to her home, forcing her to flee with her 2-month-old baby.
“Biden and Congress, this is what you are supporting when you rush to ship the Israeli government more bombs and warplanes as it turns Palestinian apartment buildings to rubble,” said JVP Action. “Deescalate NOW.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, …ultimately the Palestinians must have independence or citizenship otherwise they’re left with an untenable apartheid state.
What Olmert failed to state or understand was that future Israeli politicians would not choose Palestinian independence, citizenship or apatheid. Israel would choose, as clearly stated by its first leaders in 1947, that the original theft of a portion of ancestral Palestinian land in 1947 was a only a mere foothold and more land would be taken thereafter. The expansion has never stopped, village by village, inch by inch through terrorism, violence and killing. Israel is now experiencing violent blowback. It is not a surprise. It had to come.
The Europeans established a similiar foothold along the Atlantic coast of North America and never stopped the theft of indigenous land, village by village, inch by inch, terrorism, violence killing. That theft was acknowledged by the invaders when George Washington, the then slaveholder, surveyor and land speculator, acquired the popular nickname of “Destroyer of Villages.” The final solution to secure the the remaining land all the way to the Pacific Ocean was to kill all the buffalo, to starve and defeat the indigious peoples who were fighting for their ancestrial homeland. Israel is currently now engaged in ‘killing the buffalo’. A genocidal policy.
Senator Lindsay Graham, he could be Heinrich Himmlers reincarnation. A nasty racist piece of scum
The least we can do is blow up the phones at Congress. Call your Congress-people nonstop and tell them they are hypocrites for supporting slow-genocide. Something, anything. Let it be known somehow that you cannot and will not support this. We have to do more, have to start somewhere. We cannot sit idly by and go about our lives as if we are powerless.
Let’s not forget the corporate state propagandists AKA the media. They are totally complicit in the braying for Palestinian blood. They are a party to genocide and need to be reminded of that. If we had a mainstream media that did real journalism like CN, congress and the pretender in the White House couldn’t get away with their one sided portrayal of events. Let them know you see through their state controlled lies.
ISRAEL: Murdering Palestinians since 1948..
75 years later—and nothing has changed for the Palestinians. Sadly we have a mentally deficient president who not only helped to fund the horror of what is going on in Ukraine—but Biden’s other horror is wanting to start a war with Russia. Plus Biden seems to want one in Palestine too.
Death, Death, Death—-for so many, but sadly Biden–America is now fatally wounded.So we are left with” What hath Biden wrought?
Unless they plan on killing all two million people in Gaza they have to know their actions are going to create so much more hatred and desperation that there will be far more killing of Israeli citizens in the future than if they take a non-violent response. If Israel sat back and just played the victim, and did not start massacring children, the world might actually have some sympathy for them in this.
The updated colonialist project continues its centuries old rampage across the planet. Whomever happens to be in its way gets regime changed or eliminated. For indigenous, it’s always elimination. That’s what the neoliberal globalist project is. Same ol’ same ol’ dressed up in different language with more deadly weapons to make the elimination of inconvenient life more efficient. All for the profit and and ego boost of psychopaths.
Haven’t we had enough of this? How is it we are rendered helpless in the face of yet more genocide? “Never again” they said. I guess they meant never again except when we do it.
JVP is a great organization and is worth supporting.
I am deeply ashamed of the Biden criminal government policies and congress, and the American public. They must know better, yet the hysterical hate against the Palestinians is getting even louder, being stoked by government officials. All have blood on their hands. In Gaza, pilots are war criminals, they knowingly are killing Palestinian civilians like fish in a bowl.
Congress? STOP a war? Geddowdahea
That was my immediate reaction too, Joe. They are fueling the carnage by sending weapons and ammunition.
+1