I want to start by thanking Daisy Cutter for the excellent diary post yesterday. for those of you who were offended by that diary ... tough cookies. Don't bother reading this one. Go to ... um... another diary entry, or read the Sunday comics, or whatever. This will just upset you.
After reading the diary entry, i joined the Bay Area Women in Black(mostly but not entirely Jewish, not all women, and not always dressed in Black) who were doing their weekly vigil in Oakland. It was helpful to have the real human interaction with people who care about peace.
Now, for those of you who see the basic injustice of the Israeli massacre of men, women and children in Gaza,we have our work cut out for us. we must remember that the Israeli military used US-supplied F-16 fighter planes to carry out the war crimes, and we have a special responsibility to act and make our voices heard. Israel has promised/threatened that what we saw yesterday is "just the beginning". So what i would like to do here is present concrete ways we can stand with the people of Gaza in solidarity and work for a just peace all can enjoy and share.
A few suggestions for action, and you can supply others in the comments.
1. Stay informed.
An increasingly invaluable resource is The Electronic Intifada. Listen to Palestinian voices and solidarity activists who are on the ground in Gaza.
Listen to listener sponsored radio, like KPFA. Flashpoints has excellent interviews with people on the ground. You will not hear much from the military generals , for that you have CNN.
2. Donate so that the people of Gaza may live
Israel's starvation "diet" is causing a humanitarian catastrophe, and may actually cause more casualties, in a quiet way, than the US-supplied bombs that fall in city centers in Gaza. Children are especially vulnerable. There is also a dire situation of lack of medical supplies, as Israel restricts the amount of aid allowed into Gaza. Now with thousands of massacre casualties, i can't imagine what this can be like. You can make a difference. Join the Middle East Children's Alliance in sending much needed medical aid to Gaza. It would be cool to let them know Daily Kos sent you.
3. Advocate for a new US policy in the Middle East
Our political work must not end on election nights. Politicians, with few exceptions, will do nothing for human rights unless they are pushed, prodded, and forced to do so. When Congressman Ron Dellums was first elected to Congress, he offered at every congressional session a bill to impose sanctions on the Apartheid system in South Africa. For many years, only a handful of congresspeople joined him. All that changed when a strong movement started on the street demanding change. How much more so is our work needed now for a change in US policy.
South African Trade Unionist Willy Madisha issued a white-hot condemnation of Israel's apartheid policies at a London conference on Saturday. (from March 2006)
Addressing the Palestine Solidarity Campaign's trade union conference at TUC Congress House, the COSATU president declared that South Africa's apartheid policies had been 'a Sunday picnic' compared to the state of Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians.
'Apartheid was characterised by killings, hangings, disappearances, arrests, exile, confiscations, inferior education, rapes and the creation of bantusans.
'All this was a Sunday picnic compared to what is happening to the Palestinians. I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state' said Mr Madisha.
We brought down South Africa apartheid, despite the deep ties and interest of the US corporate elite to preserve that system (and it was a strong ally of Israel, incidentally) because of people-power. Politicians may pander now to pro-War/Occupation lobbies but they will not always be able to, not if our collective voice keeps raising and demanding change. Join with an advocacy group in your area. There is a coalition of groups organized under the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. I heartily recommend that to you. It has a list of local groups, and there is likely to be one near you that fits your interest.
4. Get on the streets in Protest. NOW!
The US Campaign to End the Occupation also has a list of protests that will take place in the next few days. Please attend one or more. If the streets erupt in protest, we may be able to add an unacceptable high political cost to Israel's insane policy of attempting to bomb the people of Gaza into submission.
This is a time to stand with the people of Gaza, to stand with humanity against barbaric policies that we have seen used over and over. When Nixon bombed the cities of Vietnam, we (or our elders) went to the streets. When George the First bombed Baghdad, we went to the streets. We did it again with George the Second, in fact, before he dropped the bombs the world spoke on February 15th 2003 in numbers never before seen. It is imperative that we again take to the streets.
in protest we will be joining with our sisters and brothers, Arab-American, Jewish American, Other American, and we will be joining with people around the world, from Tel Aviv to Ramallah, from Italy to New Zealand, from San Francisco to Concord, New Hampshire.
We speak for human rights for all, we speak for peace based on justice and international law. We reject the notion that this conflict is simply about ethnicity, it is about ending an injustice of oppression and military occupation. It is about saving humanity from self-destruction. It is all about us... all of us.
Irony Alert!: I have to acknowledge that for those of us who are not subscribers here at Daily Kos, we are being bombarded (if i can use that term) in this diary and others with ads from the Aerospace Industries Association. Among the goals of this War Lobby group is to increase the sale of US aerospace products abroad, undoubtedly including F-16 fighters, like the ones that are filling the hospitals and the morgues of Gaza. in a later diary, i will speak of this in more detail, but for now, i just wanted to point out the irony.