October 30, 2023 —
Wave upon wave of Israeli aircraft and missiles have been battering the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. This violence — the most brutal for decades — has already expended more firepower than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and has already taken more lives of civilians in a week than have died in Ukraine. It is as if the Israeli government — backed fully by the United States — wants to turn Gaza into a ruin so as to remove the Palestinians in another act of ethnic cleansing, mimicking the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.
The United States government vetoed UN resolutions to allow for a humanitarian ceasefire; the US president has joined the Israelis in an information war about the numbers of war dead; the US military has moved a massive naval strike group into the Eastern Mediterranean; and the US defense establishment — in contravention of the Leahy Law (1999) that proscribes arming militaries that are committing gross human rights violations — has sent military aid to Israel.
Both the Israeli and the US governments have violated humanitarian law, and the government of Israel has committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians.
We call upon the government of Brazil, which holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, to table either an emergency resolution or to release a president’s statement calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza. The Egyptian air force, billeted nearby at Abu Suweir Air Base, can enforce a ‘no-fly zone’ to prevent continued bombing of Gaza and allow the UN and other aid agencies to bring humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians.
The U.S. Peace Council calls upon all people to stand up against this violent crime against humanity. Join the November 4th national mobilizations against this genocide by Israel, and against the US role in this war.
