{"id":1322129,"date":"2023-11-10T07:01:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T07:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=304195"},"modified":"2023-11-10T07:01:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T07:01:14","slug":"americans-want-a-ceasefire-its-our-politicians-who-are-out-of-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/10\/americans-want-a-ceasefire-its-our-politicians-who-are-out-of-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Want a Ceasefire; It\u2019s Our Politicians Who Are Out of Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair<\/p><\/div>\n

Two years ago, filmmaker Mohannad Abu Rizk asked children in Gaza about their dreams. One young girl\u00a0responded<\/a>, \u201cMy dream is for us to stay alive and to live in peace. We have a right to stay alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She\u2019s one of the 2.2 million Palestinians living in the densely populated Gaza Strip under a 56-year Israeli occupation \u2014 and a 16-year\u00a0blockade<\/a>\u00a0that deprives them of food, water, electricity, and freedom of movement. International rights groups now classify it as an\u00a0apartheid system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also one of the Palestinians Israeli officials called\u00a0\u201chuman animals\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cchildren of darkness\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as bombs fell on Gaza. It\u2019s unclear if this girl with the big, soulful brown eyes is still alive, but about half of the\u00a0over 10,000 Gazans killed<\/a>\u00a0by the Israeli military are children.<\/p>\n

All human lives are precious. The murder of over a thousand Israelis by Hamas on October 7 was a heinous crime. Israeli families deserve justice and the safe return of their loved ones held hostage. But indiscriminately bombing and\u00a0collectively punishing<\/a>\u00a0Palestinian civilians \u2014 who are neither synonymous with Hamas nor responsible for their crimes \u2014 accomplishes neither.<\/p>\n

For most Americans, that\u2019s not a controversial opinion. In a recent survey,\u00a066 percent of Americans<\/a>\u00a0supported an immediate ceasefire as a step toward peace and justice for both Palestinians and Israelis.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, our elected officials aren\u2019t listening \u2014 yet.<\/p>\n

Instead of backing a ceasefire, President Biden requested\u00a0$14.3 billion<\/a>\u00a0in military assistance to Israel above the $3.8 billion taxpayers already send each year. And when a few House Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), called for a\u00a0ceasefire<\/a>\u00a0in October, the White House press secretary\u00a0didn\u2019t hold back<\/a>: \u201cWe believe they\u2019re repugnant and we believe they\u2019re disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GOP rhetoric has been even more repulsive. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL)\u00a0compared<\/a>\u00a0\u201cinnocent Palestinians\u201d to \u201cinnocent Nazis\u201d while Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) called for Gaza to be \u201ceviscerated\u201d and \u201cturned into a parking lot<\/a>.\u201d Instead of working for peace, House Republicans have focused their energies on a bad faith\u00a0censure<\/a>\u00a0of Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress.<\/p>\n

This dehumanizing and dangerous rhetoric fuels hate crimes that have escalated against Arab and Muslim Americans since October 7 \u2014 including the murder of 6-year-old Palestinian American\u00a0Wadea Al-Fayoume<\/a>\u00a0and the attempted murder of his mother in Illinois. Recently, a\u00a0Muslim student at Stanford<\/a>\u00a0was hospitalized after being struck by a car in a suspected hate crime.<\/p>\n

The war\u2019s reverberations can also be felt in the\u00a0chilling climate<\/a>\u00a0of fear and repression that painfully reminds Arab Americans and Muslims like myself of the days following the 9\/11 attacks. College students have faced\u00a0doxxing<\/a>\u00a0and harassment for signing statements supporting Palestinians or criticizing the Israeli government. Others have\u00a0lost job offers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But despite efforts to smear and silence them, people are standing up for basic human dignity.\u00a0Tens of thousands of Americans<\/a>\u00a0marched in Washington, D.C. on November 4 to support a ceasefire. The movement for a ceasefire continues to grow around the country.<\/p>\n

Veteran State Department official Josh Paul resigned in protest on October 17,\u00a0calling<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. rush to supply Israel with more arms \u201cshortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.\u201d And\u00a0over 400 congressional staffers<\/a>\u00a0signed a statement demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Gaza is facing a\u00a0humanitarian catastrophe<\/a>. There is no food, water, or safety. Many experts have\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0that a likely\u00a0genocide<\/a>\u00a0is underway. The U.S. must stop funding this assault, which will only lead to the loss of more Palestinian and Israeli lives \u2014 and exacerbate the rising Islamophobia and\u00a0anti-semitism<\/a>\u00a0that have no place in our society.<\/p>\n

Our elected officials must listen to the majority of American people who are demanding peace so that Palestinians can live freely, instead of dreaming about it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The post Americans Want a Ceasefire; It\u2019s Our Politicians Who Are Out of Touch<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Instead of backing a ceasefire, President Biden requested\u00a0$14.3 billion\u00a0in military assistance to Israel above the $3.8 billion taxpayers already send each year. And when a few House Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), called for a\u00a0ceasefire\u00a0in October, the White House press secretary\u00a0didn\u2019t hold back: \u201cWe believe they\u2019re repugnant and we believe they\u2019re disgraceful.\u201d More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Americans Want a Ceasefire; It\u2019s Our Politicians Who Are Out of Touch<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1322129"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327112,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322129\/revisions\/1327112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1322129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1322129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1322129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}