Against Genocide in Gaza
A statement from Cleveland DSA’s Steering Committee
The Steering Committee of Cleveland DSA joins Jewish Voice For Peace in calling on all people of conscience to oppose genocide in Gaza. We grieve the loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives this past week. At the same time we know that the war on Gaza did not begin last weekend. The only path to safety for all is an end to the occupation and apartheid.
The apartheid state of Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the world’s largest open-air prison, routinely humiliating, assaulting, and killing Palestinians, on both an individual and mass scale. A blockade such as that Gaza has suffered for 16 years is an act of war under international law. Since Saturday’s attack by Hamas and other factions, the Israeli government has cut off all water, food, and electricity to 2 million people in Gaza, half of them children, while carrying out indiscriminate bombing of homes and medical facilities, including the use of white phosphorus.
Over the last century, countless families have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine. Many of these refugees and their descendants live in Gaza today, others are with us here in Cleveland. Palestinians across the world are mourning families they have in many cases been forbidden from visiting by the Israeli government. Governments are seeking to further criminalize their movements as they have already with the fundamentally nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign of which DSA is a part. DSA is in a unique position to resist these attacks.
We encourage our sister chapters and our elected representatives not to be intimidated by death threats, legal attacks, slander, or misinformation. DSA must not, and will not surrender our principles. We will never stop organizing for Palestinian liberation, and for political and social equality from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
We implore our membership to donate to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund at our upcoming General Meeting, and lay plans for practical solidarity work with the Palestinian community in the months and years to come. We encourage you to attend rallies, vigils, and fundraisers organized by the Palestinian community in Cleveland. Do not allow hatred and misinformation to dilute your solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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From the River to the Sea!
After the events of October 7th, 2023, the Israeli occupying force wasted little time in launching an indiscriminate bombing campaign against the 2.1 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza as a collective punishment, targeting ambulances1, apartments, schools, mosques, hospitals, and media outlets, turning the existing blockade into an active and deadly siege. Israel has cut off all water, power, fuel, and food supply to Gaza, a further crime against humanity, and the specter of starvation and genocide looms. Telegraphing further escalation, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip2; only a day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinian civilians in Gaza to “leave now.”3 Leave to go where exactly?
At the time of this writing, thousands of people have already been killed inside and near the Gaza Strip. International law is clear on the legitimacy of occupied peoples to liberate themselves from “colonial domination, apartheid, and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”4 International law is also clear on the prohibition of punishing a civilian for an offense he or she has not personally committed and the prohibition of reprisals against protected persons and their property.5 But since the beginning of 2023, the Israeli police, military, and armed settlers have killed, on average, one Palestinian a day. Since Israel imposed the blockade on the Gaza Strip, the occupying force has bombed Gaza a total of seven times: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023 — and Palestinians have never been able to leave for safety.
However, Netanyahu’s faux-humanitarian warning to Palestinians, “leave now,” touches the roots of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” In 1948, Zionist paramilitary groups ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine and established the state of Israel, a historic event known as al-Nakba in Palestinian collective memory6. It is the reason why nearly 67% of Palestinians in Gaza are descendants of families that were ethnically cleansed from the villages where Israeli kibbutzim and cities stand today. It is the reason why Israel is a military garrison state that maintains an apartheid system today, where Palestinians are harassed, robbed, and murdered by Israeli soldiers and settlers every day, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.7 It is the reason why, despite Zionist attempts to deny their existence, Palestinians have continued to resist, persevere, and yearn for Return.
Now is not the time for supposedly balanced, measured statements that obfuscate the truth of the conflict. The failure of international bodies and leaders to hold Israel accountable to international law and to apply UN Resolution 194, the right of Palestinians to return to their ancestral homes, has resulted in what we are now bearing witness to. This has been the status quo for Palestinians for 75 years, and it must end.
Israel is able to maintain this barbaric status quo because of the diplomatic, military, and financial support of the United States since 1967. The United States uses this alliance to project its military power into the Middle East, as it seeks to do in all geostrategically important areas of the globe.
As American socialists, we understand the fight for socialism is international, and we understand the unique role the United States plays in administering a global capitalist empire. To assist Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination, our primary role is to pressure the US for a change in its foreign policy. To this end, we unequivocally support the BDS movement and call on American civil society to join the targeted boycott of Israeli goods, companies, and institutions.
The response of the Biden administration to these events still unfolding has been to supply Israel with more money and weapons.8 9The United States must end its policy of arming the apartheid, settler-colonial ethnostate of Israel. We fully condemn the capitalist Republican and Democratic parties, who are largely culpable for the continuation of violence and dispossession perpetrated upon Palestinians. America’s expanding military-industrial complex continues to act as a force of destabilization and oppression throughout the world, and major arms and military technology manufacturers like Raytheon make billions of dollars in profits from exploitation and war.
As socialists living in the heart of a global capitalist empire, we stand in opposition to the imperialism of the American ruling class, and we stand in solidarity with all oppressed people.
Palestine will be free — from the river to the sea.
In solidarity,
Central New Jersey DSA
- https://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-without-borders-hospitals-ambulances-targets-israel-hamas-gaza-2023-10 ↩︎
- https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza ↩︎
- https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/israel-palestine-conflict-more-than-530-killed-after-hamas-launched-unprecedented-attack-on-israel-netanyahu-retaliates-declares-war-1.1696670798153 ↩︎
- https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-184195/ ↩︎
- https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-33 ↩︎
- https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ethnic-Cleansing-of-Palestine/Ilan-Pappe/9781851685554 ↩︎
- https://jacobin.com/2023/10/west-bank-apartheid-israel-idf-oslo-accords ↩︎
- https://themessenger.com/politics/biden-administration-discussing-military-aid-package-to-israel-after-hamas-attack ↩︎
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67049196 ↩︎
Denver DSA stands with Palestine
Denver DSA unequivocally stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their fight for liberation from the apartheid regime of Israel. Palestinians have endured 75 years of dispossession, colonization, desecration, torture, and confinement at the hands of the Israeli government, enabled financially, politically, and culturally by the United States. The path to liberation must include ceasing all U.S. aid to Israel, lifting the blockade of Gaza, ending Zionist settler-colonialism, and ensuring the right for Palestinians to return to their homeland.
Yesterday, a wealthy and well-funded nuclear power with the financial, political, and cultural support of the United States began forcibly evacuating 1.1 million civilians from Gaza City during an ongoing indiscriminate carpet-bombing campaign which has already killed thousands of civilians, injured tens of thousands, and displaced hundreds of thousands. Israel has cut off food, water, fuel, electricity, and medical care from Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens, half of whom are children. These civilians have been deemed “human animals” by the Israeli Defense Minister overseeing these attacks, who committed to “treat them accordingly” – an open declaration of genocide. Yet even now, the American war machine readies itself to ship more weapons and send more military funding to support Israel’s extermination of the Palestinian people for daring to resist their brutal, unlivable conditions.
Border walls, military checkpoints, crippling sanctions, restricted water and electricity, food scarcity, impoverishment, denial of medical care, and routine bombings are the material conditions that Palestinians have been forced to live under for over 75 years. Backed by the US, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) brutally murder Palestinians with impunity, over 8,000 since 2000 and thousands since October 7. The IOF detains 600 Palestinian children every year and keeps over 5,000 Palestinians imprisoned, a quarter of whom are held without charges or trial. For 16 years, Gaza has been transformed into an open-air prison, wherein the IOF concentrates 2.3 million people in an area smaller than Denver and bombs them in politically-motivated campaigns they sadistically term “mowing the grass.”
Bloodshed is a universal tragedy. But under apartheid and occupation, some lives are deemed more precious than others. The negative blowback of apartheid should come as no shock; people who are oppressed will perpetually seek ways to free themselves from that oppression. The murder of Palestinians has been a systemically invisibilized occurrence for decades. When Palestinians quietly suffer the daily violence inflicted on them, the West calls that “peace”. Denver DSA recognizes that the only true and lasting peace must be predicated on liberation from occupation, and it is towards that goal that we resolve ourselves today.
We call on all DSA members and endorsed DSA electeds to stand unequivocally in support of Palestinian people’s right to resist. We encourage all DSA chapters to stand with the people of Palestine and organize turn-out to local demonstrations.
May Palestine be free, from the river to the sea.
No Money for Massacres
We demand that no money be spent on massacres.
The Israeli government has openly called for the forced displacement of 1.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza. The defense minister has referred to Palestinians as “animals.” This is the language of genocide.
In the face of the imminent ethnic cleansing of over a million people, the US State Department has actively rejected calls for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. This is more than just complicity. The Biden administration is actively supporting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. As democratic socialists, we demand that no money be given to fuel a massacre.
We call on every member of Congress to demand an immediate ceasefire and to vote against providing military aid to the Israeli state. Silence is not an option. Elected officials have a choice. You can stand on the right side of history in favor of peace and against apartheid. Or you can cheerlead a massacre.
History will remember which you choose.
The post No Money for Massacres appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Stop Genocide in Gaza
The situation in the Middle East has been deteriorating very rapidly. So many families across the arbitrary border dividing Israel-Palestine have been sobbing and mourning the loss of loved ones. We are witnessing an unprecedented loss of life.
In the wake of terrifying attacks on a music festival in Israel and the bombing of civilian infrastructure and dense residential areas in Gaza -- including apartment blocks and refugee camps -- Gaza is under a complete siege as Israel prepares for what looks like an imminent ground invasion of the enclave, while Palestinians in the West Bank face settler paramilitary forces.
DSA members across the country are mobilizing right now by attending and hosting protests, writing letters and calling members of Congress. In PDSA we are going to be having phonebanking and letter writing calls this weekend from 4 PM - 6:30 PM this Saturday and Sunday, pressuring our elected officials to support immediate deescalation and defunding of Israel’s war on Gaza, filling their inboxes with opposition to this unconscionable war. Sign up for our PDSA phonebank here. We call for peace for all people and stand against reprisals and violence against all innocent civilians. We echo the national statement of DSA on October 8th and encourage all to read it.
Make no mistake, an invasion of Gaza would be catastrophic. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the entire world. Israel has however issued an impossible demand: 1.1 million people in northern Gaza are being told to flee south from Gaza City to the southern end of the Gaza Strip. It's not clear whether they would ever let Gazans return to their homes, and it's even less clear how they could flee to begin with when civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. It seems we are watching the groundwork for a genocide being laid before our eyes. Thousands of people would die if Israel invaded, we need to stop this now.
We will not be demoralized, there are things we can do. Please come to at least one of our emergency phonebanks this weekend. And for things you can do right now, if you can spare a few dollars, please donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. This organization is providing crucial on the ground aid immediately after airstrikes in Gaza which are displacing thousands of people -- mostly children. Here's a link to their homepage.
Secondly, please call your representatives and urge them to stop American support for genocide. The US funds Israel with billions in war aid despite it being illegal to do so under US law. 2 million people are trapped in Gaza right now, with electricity, water, and food supplies cut off by Israel which is imposing a complete blockade of the densely populated region. The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has a dialer up to help us call our representatives. Please call your representatives. Here's a link to the dialer.
Another tool, from NYC-DSA, No Money for Massacres: Palestine Solidarity, their letter writing tool. Here's a link to it. This will let you send a letter to your representatives. Right now Florida politicians like Marco Rubio are actively calling for genocide of Palestinians. We must stop them. We also need to pressure our elected DSA members in Congress in the Squad to lead and stop these warhawks. Representatives like Rashida Tlaib are under intense pressure and we need to have their backs.
And finally, while we are still as a chapter figuring out what to do, we've put together a participation form to share with our members and even folks outside of DSA to get together to stop atrocities. We are living through extremely difficult times and we think we need to be together in person collaborating together although for now we are meeting on Zoom as mentioned above. If you can help connect us to an in-person location please let us know immediately. If you can join in such efforts, please fill out our participation form – and share it with your friends – and we can text you very soon about more ways to get involved.
Friends, it is so easy to fall into despair and demobilization. But I must tell you: we can stop genocide. Not only that, we must. 2 million Gazans are being persecuted after a generation of grueling oppression and occupation. While it's hard for us in the States to witness this, it's a life and death situation in Gaza. We don't have all the answers right now, but these are just a few things we can do right now to move the needle towards justice. If you have more ideas on what we can do, please submit to the participation form above, and attend one of our phonebanks.
In solidarity,
PDSA Outreach Team
Chicago DSA Condemns City Council Resolution On Israel
We reject a resolution passed today by the City Council which unequivocally supports the actions of the Israeli state without any recognition of the humanity and oppression of the Palestinian people, especially as Israel stands poised to destroy Gaza and indiscriminately kill Gaza residents in an unprecedented ground invasion. There is no justification for violence against civilians, and there is no justification for collective punishment and apartheid.
In this moment, we must be bold in our calls for peace and the deescalation of an already horrific crisis. We thank DSA members Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez and Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez for their brave floor speeches against the resolution.
In solidarity,
Co-Chairs of Chicago DSA
The post Chicago DSA Condemns City Council Resolution On Israel appeared first on Midwest Socialist.
Statement In Support Of Palestinian Liberation
In the face of over 75 years of settler-colonial violence and genocide, the will and spirit of the Palestinian resistance burns brighter than ever. The state of Israel has ethnically […]
The post Statement In Support Of Palestinian Liberation appeared first on Houston DSA.
River Valley DSA Condemns the Tax Cuts
General Meeting - Saturday
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Power to the Tenants
Table 1.25 of the Los Angeles Housing Element, published by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.
DSA-LA’s “Power to the Tenants ” Priority Campaign
Campaign Summary + Demands
Housing is one of our most fundamental needs and should not be a commodity. The rising cost of housing in Los Angeles leads to displacement, makes it harder for workers to live close to where they work, and reduces the political power of workers.
Our campaign is fighting back. We seek to help tenants organize themselves, encouraging participation in tenants unions just as workers participate in labor unions. Only through their own organized self-defense can tenants prevent displacement, provide political education, build a base for legislation that empowers themselves and their organizations, and push for that legislation.
Our campaign has three key goals:
1. Provide political education about housing and tenants’ issues
2. Provide direct support for tenant organizing projects
3. Build a base for legislation that advances the interests of renters
Renters make up the majority population in Los Angeles, and together we can change the landscape of living and working in this county.