We are now one month into Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of Gaza. Over 10,000 Palestinians are dead. More are missing under the rubble. Nearly half of them are children. More children have been killed in Gaza than the number killed in all armed conflicts globally over an entire year – for the last three years.

And it’s happening on our watch. With our tax dollars.

I know that some of you may have differing opinions or feelings about what’s happening in Gaza right now. I’m going to speak from my decades of experience organizing for peace, studying global conflict, and working in solidarity with liberation movements.

We are witnessing a genocide play out on Twitter and TikTok with the full, unconditional support of the United States government.

I could talk about how this all began 75 years ago with the Palestine War and the Nakba (“the disaster”) when 700,000 Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands to form the nation now known as Israel.

I could talk about how the Western world, led by the United States, has empowered an increasingly fascistic, right-wing government in Israel to force 2.2 million Palestinians – half of them children – into an open-air prison the world knows as the Gaza Strip for the last 18 years.

I could talk about how Israel is, by every single academic and legal definition, acting as an apartheid state. Or how Netanyahu’s government has clearly stated they are intentionally engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide with the current bombing campaign.

But what I most want to say is this: It’s not complicated.

For years we have been conditioned by Western politicians and mainstream media to believe that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is “complicated”. That it’s “nuanced”. That it’s been going on for “thousands of years”. All of that is a lie.

There is nothing nuanced about genocide. You are either against genocide, or you are not. And if you are waffling in the gray area, your actions are supporting genocide. It really is that simple.

The rhetoric of nuance is designed to turn our gaze away from the reality of what is happening now – that a child has been murdered every 10 minutes for the past month in Gaza.

THIS is who we are bombing, and yes I say WE because America is supplying the military aid and international credibility that enables this:

In my 30+ years as an anti-war activist, I have never been as horrified or enraged as I have been in the last month.

But in a strange way, I have also found a renewed source of hope. Because millions of people across the US and the world are horrified, too. And we are rising up to demand a ceasefire.

We cannot allow these war crimes to continue. You and I have a duty right now to make our representatives hear us and demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s occupation.

Rep. Cori Bush introduced a resolution nearly three weeks ago demanding an immediate ceasefire. There are 18 co-sponsors – only one of them is here in Washington state.

Hundreds of Congressional staffers have signed a letter urging their bosses to support a ceasefire. Hundreds of former campaign staffers for both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden’s presidential races have done the same.

A prominent member of the State Department has resigned in protest of the Administration’s current posture on Israel and refusal to back a ceasefire. Hundreds more are joining in documenting their dissent with internal cables designed to sound the alarm.

Incredibly courageous Jewish Americans are standing up to defend the people of Gaza and demand a ceasefire.

We are not alone. This is an inflection point for the world. History will be the judge someday, but we don’t have to wait for history to know what we have to do.

Nothing...absolutely nothing...can be said that will justify the horrors of what the Israeli government is perpetuating in Gaza right now. It has to end. We have to make it end.

If you are able, I encourage you to join a protest in your area. You need to know that there are many who feel the weight of this horror just as you do. You need to add your voice to the call.

I also ask that you join me in making a contribution to Doctors Without Borders and UNICEF, two organizations on the front lines in Gaza right now that urgently need our support.

Donate to Doctors Without Borders

Donate to UNICEF

History will judge those who enabled this genocide, but the people of Palestine don’t have the luxury of waiting for that verdict. In the time it has taken you to read this email, another child has already been killed in Gaza.

We can stop this. We have to stop this. As a lifelong anti-war activist, ending this genocide is my only priority right now. And we will not stop until Palestine is free.

Solidarity forever,
Jason

Jason Call is a former public school teacher and lifelong climate activist running for Congress in WA-02. If elected, he will be the first member of the Green Party to serve in federal office. Learn more at callforcongress.com!

Photograph by Mahmud Hamsonit Hamsonit
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