Why focus on Palestine?

There are many situations of injustice in the world, but this is the one we as Americans are paying for and directly supporting. Israel is the largest recipient of US financial and military aid, and we prevent it from being held to international standards of conduct with our veto power at the United Nations. Our country's global reputation has suffered from association with Israel's oppression of Palestinians. This endangers our citizens at home and abroad.

​Some of our members have traveled to the region and have witnessed this oppression first hand. We have discovered a reality long hidden from most Americans by the failure of our media to cover Israel's actions as it would those of another country.

Media coverage of Russia's 2022 assault on Ukraine has engendered sympathy around the world. Yet we know that similar atrocities have been carried out by the Israeli military in Gaza against an imprisoned population with nowhere to escape. As we watch Ukrainians flee, we know that many people in the West Bank and Israel are also being forced to leave their homes. More than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza and hundreds in the West Bank have been killed through Israel’s bombings, starvation and attacks. Over 80,000 more have been injured. 90% of Gaza’s population, or about 1.9 million people, have been displaced from their homes. Before the war, there were already 7 million Palestinian refugees who had fled in the face of what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has called ethnic cleansing. More than 5 million remain, living under a brutal system of apartheid that major human rights organizations have documented. 

​It is long past time for the world to acknowledge the humanity and human rights of the Palestinian people. As Americans who have been funding oppression with our tax dollars, we cannot be silent.