{"id":53312,"date":"2025-05-29T19:08:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T03:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=53312"},"modified":"2025-05-30T04:55:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T12:55:23","slug":"why-are-veterans-and-allies-fasting-for-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/29\/why-are-veterans-and-allies-fasting-for-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Veterans and Allies Fasting for Gaza?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday, May 22, a coalition named Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza<\/em><\/a> kicked off a 40-day fast outside the United Nations in Manhattan in protest against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Military veterans and allies pledged to fast for 40 days on only 250 calories per day, the amount recently reported as what the residents of Gaza are enduring.<\/p>\n

The fasters are demanding:<\/u><\/p>\n

1) Full humanitarian aid to Gaza under UN authority, <\/strong>and<\/p>\n

2) No more U.S. weapons to Israel.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seven people are fasting from May 22 to June 30 outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where they are present from 9:30 am to 3 pm, Mondays to Fridays. Many others are fasting around the U.S. and beyond for as many days as they can. The fast is organized by Veterans For Peace<\/a> along with over 40 co-sponsoring organizations.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, over 600 people have registered to join the fast.\u00a0<\/strong>Friends of Sabeel, NA<\/a>\u00a0is maintaining the list of fasters.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Who will stop the genocide in Palestine, if not us<\/strong>? That is the question that the fasters and many others are asking. The U.S. government is shamelessly complicit in Israel\u2019s genocide, and to a lesser extent the same is true for the European governments.\u00a0 The silence and inaction of most Middle Eastern countries is resounding.\u00a0 Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, the only countries to come to Palestine\u2019s aid, have been bombed by Israel and the U.S., with the threat of more to come. Syria, another country that stood with Palestine, has been \u201cregime changed\u201d and handed over to former al-Qaeda \/ ISIS extremists.<\/p>\n

On the positive side, some governments are making their voices heard. South Africa and Nicaragua have taken Israel and Germany, respectively, to the International Court of Justice \u2013 Israel for its genocide, Germany for providing weapons to Israel. \u00a0And millions of regular people around the globe have protested loudly and continue to do so.<\/p>\n

Here in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace<\/a> has provided crucial leadership, pushing back against the phony charges of \u201canti-semitism\u201d that are thrown at the student protesters whose courageous resistance has spoken for so many.\u00a0 University administrators have been all too quick to crack down on the students, violating their right to freedom of speech, but even these universities have come under attack from the repressive, anti-democratic Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Peace-loving people are frustrated and angry. <\/strong>Some are worried they will be detained or deported. And many of us are suffering from Moral Injury, concerned about our own complicity. How are we supposed to act as we watch U.S. bombs obliterate Gaza\u2019s hospitals, mosques, churches and universities?\u00a0 What are we supposed to do when we see Palestinian children being starving to death, systematically and live-streamed.<\/p>\n

Because our movement is nonviolent, we do not want to follow the example of the young man who shot and killed two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC.\u00a0 But we understand his frustration and how he was driven to take forceful action.\u00a0 We take courage from the supreme sacrifice of U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy, asking \u201cwhat would you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Student protesters at several universities around the country have initiated \u201chunger strikes,\u201d often considered a protest of last resort. Now they have been joined by military veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching hundreds of people maimed, burned, and killed every day just tears at my insides,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>said Mike Ferner, former Executive Director of Veterans For Peace and one of the fasters.\u00a0 \u201cToo much like when I nursed hundreds of\u00a0wounded from our war in Viet Nam,\u201d <\/em>said the former Navy corpsman. \u201cThis madness will only stop when enough Americans demand it stops.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Rev. Addie Domske, National Field Organizer for\u00a0<\/strong>Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)<\/a>, said, \u201cThis month I celebrated my third Mother\u2019s Day with a renewed commitment to parent my kid toward a free Palestine.<\/em> As a mother, I am responsible for feeding my child. I also believe, as a mother, I must be responsive when other children are starving.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kathy Kelly, board president of\u00a0<\/strong>World BEYOND War<\/a>, also in NY for the fast, said, \u201cIrish Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire, at age 81, recently fasted for forty days, saying \u2018As the children of Gaza are hungry and injured with bombs by official Israeli policy, I have decided that I, too, must go hungry with them, as I in good conscience can do no other.\u2019 Now, Israel intensifies its efforts to eradicate Gaza through bombing, forcible displacement, and siege. We must follow Mairead\u2019s lead, hungering acutely for an end to all weapon shipments to Israel. We must ask, \u2018who are the criminals?\u2019 as war crimes multiply and political leaders fail to stop them.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another faster is Joy Metzler: 23,<\/strong> Cocoa FL., a 2023 graduate of the Air Force Academy who became a Conscientious Objector and left the Air Force, citing US aggression in the Middle East and the continued ethnic cleansing in all of Palestine. Joy is a now a member of Veterans For Peace and a co-founder of\u00a0Servicemembers For Ceasefire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am watching as our government unconditionally supports the very violations of international law that the Air Force trained me to recognize,\u201d <\/em>said Joy Metzler. \u201cI was trained to uphold the values of justice, and that is why I am speaking out and condemning our government\u2019s complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I spoke with VFP leader Mike Ferner on Day 7 of his Fast. <\/strong>The NYPD had just told him and the other fasters that they could no longer sit down in front of the US Mission to the UN on the little stools they had brought. But Mike Ferner was not complaining. He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go home every night to a safe bed and we can drink clean water. We are not watching our children starve to death before us. <\/em><\/strong>Our sacrifice is a small one. We are taking a stand for humanity and we encourage others to do what they can.\u00a0 Demand full humanitarian relief in Gaza under UN authority, and an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel. This is how we can stop the genocide.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

More information about how you can participate or support the fasters is available at Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To arrange interviews with the fasters, contact Mike Ferner at 314-940-2316.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday, May 22, a coalition named Veterans and Allies Fast for Gaza kicked off a 40-day fast outside the United Nations in Manhattan in protest against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Military veterans and allies pledged to fast for 40 days on only 250 calories per day, the amount recently reported as what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":376,"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":[764],"class_list":["post-53312","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\/53312","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\/376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53318,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53312\/revisions\/53318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53312"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=53312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}