Dear John,

The last week has witnessed a still unfolding horror show in Palestine, where Israeli state violence—backed by a bipartisan consensus in Washington—has reduced much of Gaza City to rubble and left hundreds dead, including scores of Palestinian children.

We can not look away.

As citizens of the empire whose resources enable Israeli human rights abuses, we must acknowledge both the underlying reality, and our own culpability as a state sponsor of Israel’s actions.

Congressman Ro Khanna from San Jose captured the outrage that many of us feel in his appearance on MSNBC, when he noted that:

"This is not the time for platitudes. Children are dying, and Netanyahu—who is desperate to cling to power—is...saying he is doing this with the United States’ support. The President needs to make it very clear: No, you are not."

As he often does, comedian John Oliver did the job that too many journalists have failed to do, by highlighting the vast disproportionally between losses on the two sides, and reporting on the classification of Israel as an apartheid state by human rights non-profits both in Israel and around the world.

Oliver also addressed the danger of accepting language that sanitizes brutally unacceptable behavior. For instance, “evictions” suggest a legal process that, in fact, has been entirely absent in the forced expulsions from Sheikh Jarrah—and too many other communities across Palestine. We recently criticized the recurring use of such euphemisms, recalling when “enhanced interrogation” was used to downplay concerns about international human rights violations in the form of torture in U.S. military and intelligence facilities.

While the corporate press has repeated its pattern of equivocating between Israeli and Palestinian concerns, independent journalists have increasingly called attention to the gaps in corporate coverage. For instance, journalists Rania Khalek and Eugene Puryear covered the “ongoing massive assault” on Gaza, including “the unbelievable brutality of the Israeli forces” that have targeted civilians including journalists and children.

Similarly, Bay Area native Abby Martin explained to Al-Jazeera that “These atrocities are unfolding with audacious silence from our entire political establishment….with the US standing in the way of international accountability.”

Joined by voices from journalists and advocates to athletes and grassroots organizers, we’ve particularly highlighted three aspects of the Israeli occupation that often escape attention.

First, many Americans falsely think the occupation reflects only racial & religious oppression, when in fact many Jews & Muslims share the same race, and even though Christian Palestinians have endured settler and state violence alongside their Muslim neighbors. The occupation reflects the same pattern of indiscriminate resource plunder that pervaded earlier forms of colonialism.

Second, Americans have increasingly come to understand how the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have supported the militarization of police across the U.S. through paramilitary and counter-insurgency training. Years before the current uprising, or the murders of George Floyd & Breonna Taylor, I wrote & recorded a song “to connect seemingly separate dots internationally” and expose how “all humanity shares the same interest in restraining” state violence “from Ferguson to Jerusalem.”

Third, while we in the Bay Area enjoy a consensus favoring international human rights and global peace & justice, our voices in Washington have consistently undermined it—and continue to do so. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi repeated last week that “Israel has a right to defend herself against this assault,” ignoring the gross disproportionally between Israeli and Palestinian casualties, and international legal violations implicit in Israeli’s choice to target civilians, including journalists and children.

This mounting dissent against Biden’s acceptance of Israeli war crimes has stretched beyond the Internet and into the streets. Last weekend, we were grateful to join a solidarity protest in San Francisco’s Mission District alongside 10,000 supporters of peace & justice from across the bay area. Today, we occupied the street outside the Israeli Consulate at rush hour to again raise our demand that Israel—and Washington—respect human rights.

As citizens of the empire whose resources enable Israeli human rights abuses, we wield immense privilege. Each of us can either defer to systems of apartheid that implicate our own resources, or we can raise our voices and stand in defense of human dignity, peace & justice, and our own country’s commitments to human rights.

We stand in solidarity with people confronting state violence everywhere.

Thank you for standing with us.

Yours,

Shahid