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The Gaza War [1]

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Date: 2023-10-15  

Don't stand with Israel. Don't stand with Palestine. Stand for peace.

Since the inexcusable massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas, many thousands are suffering and dying on both sides. More suffering is sure to follow. Israel has trapped more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza strip, where Hamas uses them as human shields. Any attack on Hamas leadership is going to kill civilians. Israel seems determined to deprive that population of food, water, and electricity. Neither Israel nor Egypt has given them a way out of the trap so far.

Both sides have terrible governments, which care only about their own power and not about their people, or justice, or democracy. Horrors have been committed by both sides for decades while the rest of the world has only added fuel to the fire. Both sides have rejected nonviolent solutions. Both sides have killed leaders who worked toward peace.

Americans must push our own far-from-adequate government to send food, water, and medicine

to Gaza; establish escape routes; and use our substantial leverage with Israel to effect a ceasefire and begin peace negotiations with Palestinians who abhor the terrorist strategy of Hamas. No lasting peace can come without justice for the dispossessed.

There is much more at stake here than the fate of the Middle East. I believe human survival depends on nonviolent resistance to war. War not only ruins lives, communities, and environments, it sucks up the attention and resources we need to curb climate change.

If the US had not set a terrible precedent by occupying Iraq in an unprovoked war, or if NATO had not been so aggressive in its recent expansion, perhaps we could have prevented the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If the world had encouraged the nonviolent Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement protesting the Israeli theft of Palestinian land instead of dismissing it as anti-Semitism, perhaps we could have undermined the fury that supports Hamas.

Vigils, petitions, letters to Congress, and marches for peace and justice might not seem to have much effect. But they hearten participants, create alliances, educate, and with luck might change a vote or two. At the very least they serve to target our real enemy, which is the war machine that has made our country the world’s largest arms merchant, and continues to enrich a few while destroying the planet for the rest of us.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/15/2199587/-The-Gaza-War?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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