Kate Gould, Legislative Program Assistant for Foreign Policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, writes:
Tell Congress to Stop the Killing in Gaza and Spread the Word!
Multiple staffers from Congress have called my office asking for us to generate more letters to Congress—this has never happened to me before. Usually they ask us to stop sending messages—this time they are wondering why it is that peace groups aren’t deluging their office like the groups supporting continued attacks on Gaza. They need avalanches of emails and phone calls to convince their bosses to speak out against Israel’s massive bombing campaign. Even though Americans are almost evenly split about supporting Israel's bombardment on Gaza, extremists who support even greater attacks on Gaza have generated far more contact with Congress. Members of Congress need to hear they have support from their voters—or they will keep passing resolutions that are licenses to kill.
It takes 5 minutes for you to tell the people that are supposed to represent you (if you're an American voter) to support an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access to Gaza, as endorsed by the UN Security Council unanimously (while the U.S. abstained). Just click here, put in your zip code, and a letter will appear automatically. When you click 'send' it will go to your senators, rep, Bush, and Obama as soon as he takes office. It’s best if you can personalize the letter with info about yourself, but the main point is to send it and spread the word with our “tell a friend” system. We will keep the link updated.
Everybody—American or not—should sign the global Avaaz petition to the UN, US, European Union, and the Arab League calling for an immediate ceasefire and lifting the blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza. The petition, with the number of signatories, will be published in the Washington Post—one of the most powerful media institutions in the world.
This is not just an Israeli invasion and forced regime change of Gaza--it's an American one. With American F-16's, Hellfire missiles, "bunker buster bombs" meant to penetrate 1 m of steel reinforced concrete, and it couldn't have happened without an American decision.
"Gaza's unending misery":
In the perversely disproportionate mathematics of this conflict, 13 Israelis have been killed – four of them by militant rockets. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, the overall death toll now exceeds 800, more than a third of them children."How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe:"
This brief review of Israel's record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders".Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army, but has sense renounced his faith in the legitimacy of the Israeli state and condemned its remorseless assault on Gaza.
Rashid Khalidi: "What You Don't Know About Gaza"
NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.
Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East."
-mr
No comments:
Post a Comment