The on-going crisis in Gaza and West bank makes life unbearable for a group of people for no fault of their own – Palestinian Muslims, Christians and Jews who lived there for centuries are being displaced to make room for European Jews who never lived there in the first place. 2m people in Gaza are on the brink, if not already, in mass starvation and a man-made disaster. Not to mention more than 34,000 have already been killed, half of them underage children. They have nowhere to go and those who are staying behind in northern part of Gaza are continually under brutal occupation of IDF. Those who have left their homes and loved ones and came south are squeezed into an enclave and are under constant threat of violence, starvation and loss of human rights and dignity, even after a UN resolution that calls for immediate ceasefire. Israeli miliary has no oversight from anyone other than the far-right extreme fringe of Israeli political elements and settlers who have stated aim to make Gaza and West Bank their own without any regards for human rights and moral clarity. Even Jewish scholars have written extensively how the situation in Gaza is a text book case of genocide.
At the same time our government enable such brutality with unconditional support, constant vetoing on UN resolutions and unsolicited aid to a regime that the UN court of justice has expressed reasonable doubt regarding probable genocide and intentional harming of 2 million people, not to mention the continual ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian Muslims and Christians since 1948.
At the same time we also see the uncontrolled power given to American Businesses to suppress first amendment rights extended to citizens – employees in a democracy by companies like Google which had fired several dozen people already this week and continues to intimidate and harass employees and deny them right to work, right to livelihood because they expressed their anxiety and disapproval of Google enabling miliary apparatus and intelligence gathering with AI and other tools on innocent civilians in Israel and occupied territories.
As if these are not enough, the use of combative police force to harass, arrest and even expel students who are protesting the on-going conflicts in Gaza on US college campuses, notably at Columbia University ,where even the Chief of Police at NYPD has attested that these were peaceful protestors, is alarming, unconscionable and a naked demonstration of double standard against Muslim, Christian and Jewish students who have expressed their anger at the investment and other complicity by University Endowment and Administration afraid of angering large Jewish donors.
This confluence of bad public policy, unbridled exploit of employees by US businesses and moral bankruptcy at major US academic institutions are causes for alarm for citizens of this country and our democratic institutions. Each one of us should side with “Truth and Justice” which is also the major pillar of our newsletter. Please communicate with your Senators and Congresspersons and raise your voice in the public square to reshape our collective stance in our government, in our businesses and in our academic institutions.
