Central Coast Antiwar Coalition Statement Calling for a Halt to US-Israeli Genocide in Gaza
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On Thursday, Oct. 19, 6 PM, corner of. State and Las Positas, members of the Central Coast Antiwar Coalition will participate in a STOP GENOCIDE IN GAZA street vigil. The vigil has been endorsed by the Central Coast Antiwar Coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace-SB, DSA-SB and CODEPINK.
The Santa Barbara chapter of the Central Coast Antiwar Coalition demands the Biden administration and Congress immediately call for a ceasefire in Gaza to end Israel’s collective punishment of two million Palestinians, half of them children trapped inside Gaza without water, food, medicine or fuel.
In retaliation for Hamas’ attacks inside Israel, the Israeli government–which controls both ingress and egress into occupied Gaza–has cut off all access to fuel, water, food and electricity before launching a relentless bombing campaign–including air strikes on the Rafah Crossing, the only escape route through Egypt, where truckloads of humanitarian aid are unable to deliver food and medicine, resulting in massive death and destruction.
As thousands of people march across the United States–in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, Dearborn and Washington DC–to stop the genocide in Gaza, we turn to our congressional representatives–House Rep. Salud Carbjal and US Senators Alex Padilla and Laphonza Butler–to demand an end to this barbarism and the establishment of humanitarian corridors.
Israel has told residents of northern Gaza to seek refuge in the south before Israel obliterates
Gaza, though fleeing residents have been killed when Israel bombed escape routes. Those who survived trudge south without food or water, starving children in tow. The forced march is reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba–the Palestinian term for catastrophe–when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland–their villages massacred, burned to the ground or otherwise destroyed– to establish the State of Israel.
As US taxpayers and people of conscience, we have a right and responsibility to demand an end to Israel’s imposition of collective punishment, a violation of international law.
The United States currently spends nearly $4-billion a year to fund the occupation of Palestine and imprisonment of Gaza. Under a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by Israel and the United States on October 1, 2018, Israel is to receive $38 billion in advanced weaponry to kill and maim Palestinians, as well as a missile defense system to shield Israel from Palestinian retaliation for the decades-long Israeli occupation.
While we mourn the loss of civilian life–both in Israel and occupied Palestine–we know there is no military solution that will end the violence or ensure safety and security. The solution is to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine–its apartheid roads and walls, settlements, home demolitions and indefinite detentions– and support equal rights for all in a land that rests not on ethnic or religious supremacy but on respect and dignity for human life.
In the immediacy of the moment, however, as we witness the onset of genocide in Gaza, we ask Santa Barbarans far and wide to join us in our demands for a ceasefire, humanitarian corridor and end to US funding of the Israeli occupation.
