Four-Minute Statement In Favor of a "Cease-Fire in Gaza" Resolution 

I gave the little statement below to the Carbondale, Illinois City Council on

Feb 27, 2024. The Council voted not to pass the resolution.

The Statement:

I urge this Council to pass a Resolution calling for a Ceasefire in the Middle East. 

The U.S., as you may know, GIVES – not LOANS, but GIVES -- Israel 3 to 4 billion dollars a year, year after year. There are conditions, of course, on this.  The biggest is that Israel must use the cash to purchase bombs, tanks, machine guns, and war planes from U.S. manufacturers. As one observer recently said, “the object is not so much to win wars, but to have them never end.”

Regarding Gaza specifically, the Jewish-American writer, Tom Englehardt, recently asked this:

QUOTE:

“I mean, honestly, given the historic suffering of Jews, who the hell kills untold thousands of children in a 25-mile-strip of land; attacks every hospital in sight; … cuts off food, fuel, and water to more than two million people; causes massive deaths …; destroys more than half of that area’s housing; and leaves untold thousands of Gazan civilians starving to death and with untreated illnesses of all sorts 

— and, after all of that, still isn’t faintly done? Somehow — yes, call it the hidden Jew in me — I take offense at that.” CLOSE QUOTE

The current Israeli war crimes are said to be in response to a terrorist action by Hamas last October 7, in which around 1200 innocent Israelis were killed. That action was by definition also criminal. But much more significantly, it was one hundred percent predictable.  You cannot treat any group of people as the Palestinians have been treated for 70 years and not expect violent blowback. 

 

The current destruction of the Gaza strip is really just an intensified continuation of Israeli actions since 1948, when three-quarters of a million Palestinians were violently driven from their homes by Israeli militias.  

And, just yesterday,  Israel announced plans to move ahead with 30,000 Israeli-only so-called settlements on land in the West Bank of the Jordan River, where Palestinians have only just recently had – or soon will have --their homes bulldozed, their olive groves burned, their citizens imprisoned by the thousands without charge and with no guaranteed due process.

But we are not even asking anyone to take a side. Just stop sponsoring this insanity before it gets even worse.