In an open letter, Veterans For Peaces asks the vice president to call for a permanent ceasefire and emergency food and medical aid now, while she is campaigning for president.
Vice President Kamala Harris in January 2024. (White House/ Lawrence Jackson)
The national organization Veterans For Peace has written an open letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, asking her to push for an immediate end to the siege of Gaza.
The letter begins:
“Dear Vice President Harris, we are reaching out to you as military veterans who have fought in multiple U.S. wars, and who continue to uphold the U.S. Constitution and international law, to organize for justice and equality in our home communities, and to advocate for a peaceful foreign policy.”
It continues:
“We are appalled by the ongoing Israeli slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children and by the maiming of tens of thousands more. We are outraged by the systematic blocking of food, leading to malnutrition, starvation, disease and the deaths of many more, particularly babies and young children. These are unbearable and unacceptable crimes that will go down in the history books as a terrible genocide – a holocaust.”
The veterans’ letter reminds Harris of her own words after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent….
It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination… So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.”
Today, I had a frank and constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu about a wide range of issues, including my commitment to Israel’s security, the importance of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the urgent need to get the ceasefire and hostage deal done. pic.twitter.com/tgiSTPQJdL
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 26, 2024
Growing Danger of Nuclear War
Veterans For Peace also reminded Harris of the growing danger of nuclear war:
“As you must know, Vice President Harris, continued U.S. support for Israel amid the Gaza genocide also risks further regional and global escalation, with potentially irreversible consequences, even the unthinkable horror of nuclear war. We urge you to demonstrate the kind of leadership for which so many people are waiting — for which we are hoping and praying. Please use all your influence to end the unfathomable suffering in Gaza.”
Signed by Veterans For Peace President Susan Schnall, the letter encourages the U.S. vice president to take immediate action:
“Don’t wait until January. Do the right thing NOW, even as you are campaigning for president. Please urge President Biden to change course in Gaza, to support an immediate, permanent ceasefire, the opening of Gaza’s borders for massive humanitarian and medical aid, and to stop sending weapons to Israel as long as this massacre continues.”
Veterans For Peace sent the letter to Harris on Tuesday. It can be read in its entirety here.
Gerry Condon is a Vietnam-era veteran and former president of Veterans For Peace.
This article is from Antiwar.com.
Tell Joe Biden to pick up the phone, tell Netanyahu Leave Gaza alone.
The Democrat Party coup of Genocide Joe Biden was just sad and pathetic.
The Democratic Party and the DNC is a lost cause. Warmongers by any other name.
1. Probably nothing will work to put down Israel’s rabid racism until money is out of politics and the AIPAC can no longer buy our Congress.
2. Why on earth would anyone care about Israel’s safety, when the leaders there via the IDF are committing genocide?
3. Don’t Palestinians have a right to self-defense?
I’ll never understand people who think AIPAC owns American politicians. They are small potatoes compared to other donors.
OpenSecrets ranks them as the 23rd largest PAC in terms of total contributions. #1 ACTBlue is 80X larger. Israel’s money is a small drop in a very large bucket full of political cash, particularly on the Democratic side.
Hakeem Jeffries ranks 3rd on the list of AIPAC donations at $674K, but that only accounts for about 4% of his total haul. I’d say the other 96% hold more sway over Mr Jeffries than AIPAC’s punt 4% buys them.
hxxps://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/top-pacs/2024
hxxps://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?toprecipcycle=2024&contribcycle=2024&lobcycle=2024&outspendcycle=2022&id=D000046963&topnumcycle=2024
Which lobbies dole out more money and buy more influence on Middle East policy?
Your naivete and ignorance are staggering. Just saying.
“…the political scientist Robert H. Trice described the pro-Israel lobby as ‘comprised of at least 75 separate organizations-mostly Jewish-that actively support most of the actions and policy positions of the Israeli government.'”
-John J. Mearsheimer and Stephan M. Walt
The Israel Lobby
“The lobby’s effectiveness also reflects the basic dynamics of interest group politics in a pluralistic society. In a democracy, even relatively small groups can exercise considerable influence if they are strongly committed to a particular issue and the rest of the population are relatively indifferent. Even if the group’s absolute numbers are small, policy makers-and especially members of Congress-will tend to accommodate them, because they can be confident the rest of the population will not penalize them for doing so.”
-Ibid p.140
Then you have to throw in the dispensationalist christian zionists and the neoconservatives. The neoconservatives being the ones who have this country circling the drain right now with their foreign policy.
Kamala will do what her predecessors have done. Obey her owners. Not us of course, but her donor owners.
Israel wants all out war to gain as much territory as it can and it’s killing leaders and others from Lebanon, Iran and Syria to drag us all into a global cataclysm. If they continue to do this without any interference from Washington, Russia is going to get involved.
The Brits bear majority responsibility for creating this monster with the Balfour Declaration. The UN is also culpable for voting to approve the creation of Israel. Clearly, a fateful error of Biblical proportions. We are in so much trouble. Who will step forward and stop this trajectory before it’s too late?
Israel was only created as wealthy German Jews assured British politicians in 1916 they’d get America into WW1, on Britains side. Sure enough despite America being more pro-German in 1916 that’s what happened. Britain hadn’t even beaten the ottomans by then but if and when they did handing over a bit of the old Ottoman empire to maybe assure victory over the Germans was worth it to them.
The German Jews urge was to create there own state, and of course they chose Palestine out of two other places Britain offered to them. (One being the Kenyan highlands the other Patagonia) where they could continue there criminal activities hidden behind there new country which was yet to be legitimized by Harry Truman in 1948. These Jews also wanted to teach the German leadership a lesson for not beating the hated Tsar and taking over Russia. So there’s more than just the British urge to beat Germany to blame, there was also Hoover and his idealism and Truman’s greed but ultimately Jewish deviousness. And here we are.
This tale can all be documented, the creation of this abomination called Israel had a lot of actors and WW1 ended with an armistice not victory, anyway.
It’s good that the request be made now so that Harris’ probably silent refusal will be apparent before November.
What is “Veterans for Peaces”?
While the plea for the end of this latest murderous genocidal chapter of the decades long Israeli colonializing apartheid in the region is, in deed, a moral and long overdue demand to posit; however, not considering the fact of the current rabid public political ignorance and indifference regarding this matter before making such an otherwise viable request takes on the aroma of shallow political activism. As one who actually would prefer a Harris victory over the Trumpster, such well-intententioned efforts take on the probability of political errors.
We need every vote we can muster folks, putting our only viable candidate in the crosshairs of this complicated international disaster doesn’t seem to me to be an informed move.
As Usual,
EA
Are you actually saying that opposing a genocide is politically a bad move? Seriously? If your “only viable candidate” can’t come out and say “Genocide is wrong and as your president I will have nothing to do with facilitating it” then your candidate doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote.
Exactly so. It shows the the deep moral degradation and cynicism of the political class and it’s supporters.
What is “Veterans for Peaces”? Seriously, you don’t know?
For starters it is “Veterans for Peace”! As a vet, one who was drafted I take great umbrage to your lack of command to you subject.
For the sake of Dog! What is “Thom Williams aka EA.”
Ever hear of Carlo M Cipolla?
The reason I ask is because your message seems to drip with condescension and ignorance. Besides being disjointed and cryptic.
You might wish to educate yourself about Mr. Cipolla and his work. Google him. Otherwise I will assume your ignorance stems from your stupidity. Or maybe you are simply being disingenuous.
Your message infers that VP Harris might be some sort of a solution to quench the strangle hold the corporate owned leadership has on the country.
All this said Harris is what do they call, the lesser of the two evils.
The smirks on the faces of the two of them in the photo tells it all.
It’s reality TeeVee…without the TeeVee
The nation or person finally bringing israel under control hasn’t been created yet. :-( USrael will keep ‘flipping the bird’ at us and we’ll just keep looking the other way. Asesinos!!! With our silence we are partners in crime.
…”I will not be silent…. It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination… So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.”
Then, DO SOMETHING Kamala Harris!
Not going to happen. Zionists just killed Hamas leader in Tehran
And one day…hopefully soon…Zionists will pay for all these heinous actions.
The Hamas leader in charge of the peace negotiations no less. Doesn’t sound like “peace” is on the Israeli agenda any time soon.
I was going to mention that. They murdered the chief negotiator! Maybe this “message” will sink in, finally, with people who think they can get through to Dem Party hacks like Harris or imagine Israel’s intentions are anything other than the extermination of Palestinians and a wider war I the mid east.
They should be calling for the release of Palestinian hostages, including children, who are being held in Israeli prisons (torture chambers) without charge or justification, where, unlike Israeli hostages who are being treated humanely by Palestinians, they’re subjected to the most appalling treatment, some murdered.
And of course Palestinians have been held in these conditions for decades, not months.
A couple of my fond memories include visiting and living in countries being smothered under hypocrisy and authoritarianism at the time, with a people’s resistance rejected and even punished. The Philippines, for example, in 1986 under Ferdinand Marcos, fully supported by the US. But then came the day of such anger and unrest that when Marcos called out the militias to put it down these official law enforcement bodies rebelled and wouldn’t do it. Marcos had to flee, saved by Reagan and removed to Hawaii where he stayed until his death. I hope to see our own military and police follow this example and as modeled by this appeal in standing for ideals of decency and doing the right thing.
In the memory of, and at the will of military personnel like Aaron Bushnell.
Safety’s off, and then back on after the person or persons issuing the orders to fire on citizens is acquired.
Thank you for this reminder of Aaron Bushnell.