In 1989, while a high school social studies teacher, I went to Palestine, and what I learned completely transformed my point of view. As a teenager in the 1960s, I had absorbed the Leon Uris Exodus narrative, starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint, that romanticized the settler occupation of Palestine.
Twenty years later, I learned firsthand that Palestinians are the victims of Israeli violence, not vice versa as I had been taught, and I committed to standing for Palestinian self-determination.
Today, we can all see the true face of Israeli nationalism and Zionism—intent on decimating Palestinian children and their families and all the Palestinian institutions of Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry and Government Media office have updated the death toll to at least 61,709, with thousands missing under the rubble presumed dead.
The six-week ceasefire didn’t even reach Phase 2 before Israel resumed its siege of Gaza (which has lasted more than 16 years). Instead of pulling out of the Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian border, Israel is blockading all goods into Gaza, including humanitarian aid and fuel, and cutting off electricity to Gaza’s only operating desalination plant.
Israel is continuing to deliberately impose conditions of life that appear calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people. Still, two million Palestinians persist on their land in Gaza and will not be moved.
Taking Action on Gaza
Below are some activities that you can take to educate the community on what is happening in Gaza and influence policy makers to stop the genocide.
- Educate friends and family to reject the media hype about Israel, the PR narrative that makes Israel the victim in their settler story.
- Promote alternative news sources, such as Democracy Now, Al Jazeera and even (sometimes) NPR and PBS, that tell the real story about Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinian people, the story that is continuing every day with more and more violent displacement of Palestinians by the Israeli army and settlers.
- Contact our foreign policy makers. Demand that Israel end the blockade of Gaza, restore electricity and implement Phase 2 of the ceasefire. Collective actions are being organized by groups such as the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (uscpraction.org) and Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org).
- Contact your member of Congress to demand the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student activist and mediator, from ICE detention. Khalil, a permanent resident and green card holder, was abducted from his apartment in front of his pregnant wife, who is a U.S. citizen. He is being targeted by the Trump regime for his political speech and activism in support of Palestinian freedom and for ending the Israeli genocide in Gaza and faces immediate deportation authorized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla 202-224-3553
U.S. Senator Adam Schiff 202-224-3841
Rep. Tom McClintock (District 5) 202-225-2511
Rep. Adam Gray (District 12) 202-225-1947
Rep. Vince Fong (District 20) 202-225-2915
Rep. Jim Costa (District 21) 202-225-3341
Rep. David Valadao (District 22) 202-225-4695
