Open letter to US Citizens

My first open letter was addressed to the people of Gaza  

My second open letter was addressed to Jews and Israelis who support the Israeli government

My third public letter was addressed to global activists

My fourth public letter herein is addressed to US citizens

Netanyahu once was caught on video saying the US is easily manipulated. Thus 121 countries voted for a ceasefire at the UN General assembly. The US, Israel and 12 other countries (most tiny ones dependent on US largess like Micronesia, Tonga, and Marshal Islands but also Paraguay and Austria) voted no to cease fire.  These minority (14 to 121) countries voted for continuing genocide and potentially voted for start of a regional and perhaps a global war. But they also are now partner in the crime of genocide (see ongaza.org for links). The US is the biggest because it arms Israel and funnels more federal money to Israel on a per capita basis than to US citizens! Congress is now to act on President Biden’s request to give Israel $14.8 billion more of US taxpayer money in weapons (he also sent weapons, US ships to start more wars, and US Delta forces to help Israel without public approval).

Netanyahu once was caught on video saying the US is easily manipulated.121 countries voted for a ceasefire at the UN General assembly. The US, Israel and 12 other countries (most tiny ones dependent on US largess like Micronesia, Tonga, and Marshal Islands) voted no to cease fire. These minority countries (14 to 121) voted for continuing genocide and potentially voted for start of a regional and perhaps a global war. But they also are now partner in the crime of genocide (see http://ongaza.org for links). The US is the biggest because it arms Israel and funnels more federal money to Israel on a per capita basis than to US citizens! 

As a US citizen myself (lived in the US for over 25 years before returning to my country of birth in 2008), I am ashamed of the genocidal executive and legislative branches of the US government. 70,000 daycare facilities go without funding. The US healthcare system is bloated and dysfunctional. US infrastructure is falling apart. Hardly any decent public transport systems. So many homeless in the streets of all major US cities. Drug addictions and political corruption. The list goes on. All of these could have been fixed with the cost of even 1/10th of one US led wars.  The Israel-pushed Iraq war (also based on government lies like this war) cost us taxpayers $3 trillion. The Israel lobby including its agents within the US administration like Secretary Blinken (who emphasized his “Jewishness” as cause of his support to apartheid Israel) drive many of these wars. So do interests of companies like Raytheon and General Dynamics whose stock prices went up 15-20% since 7 October! 

According to surveys, most US Voters have a different opinion than their government which is blindly supporting the rogue apartheid racist state of Israel and endless wars

US Delta force members are participating actively with Israelis in Gaza (there are even unconfirmed reports of casualties among them). The US is expanding its “secret” military facility in the Negev . And the US administration had the temerity to call Qatar to tell them that AlJazeera coverage (https://www.aljazeera.com/live) should be dialed down!

But US citizens of all backgrounds will be marching in Washington DC Nov. 4th to challenge the dictatorship of the minority that forces the US to be a partner in genocide and you can join them https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/we-are-millions-we-are-billions-we-are-all-palestinians-stand-with-palestine-in-dc-on-november-4th/

They have already engaged in civil disobedience actions. Here are just three important ones

Directly Confronting Blinken & Austin over Gaza Genocide

https://youtu.be/m2vvY7WfUXI?si=CAQ0LB-LhP71FF77

Closing Grand Central Station https://www.alquds.com/en/posts/98312 https://youtu.be/NWo5t6KQCjc 

Hundreds arrested at US Capitol protest https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-capitol-protest

Note that young US Jews are more likely to stand up for human rights than their parents. Jewish Voice for Peace that led many of the demonstrations is the largest growing US Jewish organization. Being anti-Zionist is not being anti-Jewish. This truism is becoming clearer thanks to the massacres being committed daily by the apartheid state of Israel. Under this public pressure the US claims to  be “working to allow humanitarian aid to Gaza”,  but the UN and human rights organizations say aid that was allowed in is symbolic (mostly for public relations) and is a drop in the ocean of what is needed: immediate halt to bombing and a minimum of 100-200 trucks per day including the fuel needed to operate the emergency generators at the hospitals. Thus Israel was given the green light by the US to continue bombing civilians in Gaza using American weapons including white phosphorous. Two massacres of whole families in the past 24 hours killed hundreds using these weapons (see one here https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/hiroshima-buildings-civilians.html ). Nearly 2000 civilians (mostly dead, some living) under the rubble that cannot be removed due to lack of equipment and fuels. Thousands of cancer patients will die for lack of electricity and medicines. Hundreds of newborns in incubators and hundreds of dialysis patients will soon die due to lack of fuel to operate hospital electric generators. The health care system is totally collapsed in Gaza. Several countries (Bolivia, Columbia, Chile, Brazil, Jordan) suspended diplomatic ties with Israel (recalling ambassadors).  Militarily it is amazing that the fifth strongest army in the world supported directly by the first military power in the world can’t handle a ramshackle resistance movement in Gaza and can only resort to large scale carpet bombing destroying whole neighborhoods and killing now over 10,000 civilians (42% of them children) [also incidentally killing some of their own captives]. Maybe they don’t care about the captives. Israel was a;lso given US Greenlight to imprison nearly 3 million Palestinians in some 10 concentration camps in the West Bank (where I am in Bethlehem is one of them) and to torture us as it pleases while the media is focused on Gaza. Here is just one example: https://twitter.com/Issaamro/status/1719332892608753828

US citizens need to wake up to understand how this government ignored the Israeli killing of US citizens (Crew of the USS Liberty; Shireen Aby Aqleh, Rahel Corrie, 78 year old Oman Assad and countless others). But more urgently that your tax money is being used to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity and sink us into endless wars. Our government needs to be challenged for representing special interests and listening to lunatic fascist right wing apartheid governments like Israel and start listening to logic and to taxpayers. We ALL must demand it. You can make a difference  Putting US public interests first would start by removing the military aid (now 3.8 billion/year and additional supplemental this month of 14.8 billion which is more than what we give latin America and Africa combined. Note that this aid actually violates its own law which prohibits aid to foreign countries that persistently violate human rights (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy_Law ). I urge you as fellow US citizens to get involved and act on knowledge (see ongaza.org and http://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/ )