{"id":49100,"date":"2024-08-29T13:33:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T21:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=49100"},"modified":"2024-08-29T14:45:43","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T22:45:43","slug":"hanging-on-with-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/29\/hanging-on-with-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanging On with Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared on World Beyond War<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

During a week of action focused on UN potential to end Israel\u2019s genocidal attacks, I was part of a coalition that met with twelve different permanent missions to the United Nations. We urged that if countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions stop trading with Israel as international law demands, (cf. the July 19th<\/sup> advisory opinion<\/a> of the International Court of Justice), the genocide will end quickly.<\/p>\n

In each encounter at a Permanent Mission to the UN, its staff asked if we, as U.S. citizens, have addressed our government\u2019s unwavering support for the genocide against the earth\u2019s most desperate people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was a deeply meaningful moment when the Irish Ambassador to the United Nations showed our delegation a miniature replica of John Behan\u2019s poignant statue depicting<\/a> the Irish exodus \u2013 it showed weary, hungry people disembarking from a boat after a stormy ocean voyage.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to see each one of these as a human being,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

My mother was an Irish indentured servant first in Ireland and then in England. As things go, she was among the more fortunate. She never endured being chained day and night in the Middle Passage of a slave ship carrying captives here, or in a human trafficker\u2019s overcrowded, lethally airless truck container. Nor did she have to cling to the remains of an overcrowded ship to keep from drowning after it capsized in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Life in Gaza is a desperate moment-to-moment ordeal of clinging to such wreckage, trying to stay above water, to stay alive, while both major U.S. political parties struggle to push you under.<\/p>\n

In an article published by The Guardian<\/em>, Israeli-American Omer Bartov, an eminent Holocaust historian and expert on genocide, lamented<\/a> the unwillingness of many Israelis \u2013 some of whom are his friends, neighbors, colleagues, and even former students \u2013 to see Palestinians as human beings. He comments: \u201cMany of my friends\u2026feel that in the struggle between justice and existence, existence must win out\u2026 it is our own cause that must be triumphant, no matter the price\u2026 This feeling did not appear suddenly on 7 October.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it futile to ask Israelis to reconsider this vengeance \u2013 avenging hundreds of civilians with several hundred thousand, half of them children \u2013 while the U.S. continues to arm Israel for the task?<\/p>\n

Bartov continues: \u201cBy the time I travelled to Israel, I had become convinced that\u2026 Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions\u2026 the ultimate goal of this entire undertaking from the very beginning had been to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable, and to debilitate its population to such a degree that it would either die out or seek all possible options to flee the territory. In other words, \u2026 as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention puts it, \u2026 Israel was acting \u2018with intent to destroy, in whole or in part\u2019, the Palestinian population in Gaza, \u2018as such, by killing, causing serious harm\u2026 inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group\u2019s destruction\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

How can United States citizens cope in a nation not just gone mad on war, but gone mad on genocide? We do not have to cope with lingering, state-enforced starvation or the memory of our lifeless children pulled from under rubble. But we must cope with our complicity.<\/p>\n

When we can, we must act.<\/p>\n

We cannot say we did not know. The United Nations member states watch the entire edifice of international law crumble as a genocide is broadcast across our screens. Israeli military forces may have killed<\/a> close to 200,000 Gazans although only 40,000 bodies have been recovered for counting. The Israeli government\u2019s siege is starving<\/a> Palestinian children and has brought Gaza to the brink of a full-blown famine. Meanwhile, polio has made a return<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From September 10 \u2013 September 30, World BEYOND War, Code Pink, Veterans for Peace and other coalition partners will leaflet, demonstrate, and nonviolently act to expose and oppose Israeli and U.S. actions which flout international law. We will gather before both the United States\u2019 U.N. Mission and the Israeli consulate demanding both nations desist from further massacres, forcible displacement, and the use of starvation and disease as weapons.<\/p>\n

We will remind people that Israel possesses<\/a> thermonuclear weapons but refuses to acknowledge this fact and thereby avoids any assessment or safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Association and any involvement in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n

We will express earnest concern both for Hamas\u2019 prisoners and the more than a thousand Palestinians incarcerated without charge<\/a> by Israel, many of them women and children.<\/p>\n

Currently, the United States and Israel have effectively decided on death for the remaining hostages rather than a settlement that would free Palestinian women and children. In a reckless bid to spark a U.S.-Iran war, Israel recently assassinated, in Tehran, the chief Hamas negotiator for a hostage release.<\/p>\n

And still the U.S.\u2019 arms flow continues.<\/p>\n

Last week, the world watched as the Democratic Party leadership, at its convention, squelched voices of the uncommitted delegates. DNC speakers repeated the lie that their party was seeking a ceasefire, while flatly refusing to stop replacing the guns and missiles Israel has used to shed blood, murder people, and destroy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

We all should rely on the covenant virtues of traditional Judaism, those virtues celebrated as essential for survival: truth, justice, and forgiving love. We should appeal to secular and faith-based people across the United States as we face a precarious future for all children.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government is complicit in genocide, and we, in whose name it is acting, are also complicit if we remain silent.<\/p>\n

It is time for the United Nations to liberate itself from the five permanent, nuclear-armed members of the Security Council who have a vise-like grip on the world\u2019s ability to counter the scourge of war and genocide. We must join with the call of the brave South African government to uphold international law. We must clamor for the General Assembly to enact the \u201cuniting for peace\u201d resolution.<\/p>\n

As the forthright Jewish delegate at last week\u2019s DNC, after he and two others unfurled a banner \u201cSTOP ARMING ISRAEL\u201d, said, \u201cNever again means never again!\u201d<\/p>\n

We invite you to join us.<\/p>\n

Kathy Kelly (<\/em>kathy.vcnv@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>) is board president of <\/em>World BEYOND War<\/em><\/a>;\u00a0 she co-coordinates the <\/em>Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared on World Beyond War. During a week of action focused on UN potential to end Israel\u2019s genocidal attacks, I was part of a coalition that met with twelve different permanent missions to the United Nations. We urged that if countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions stop trading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-49100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49100"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49109,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49100\/revisions\/49109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49100"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}