During the almost-three years of Israel’s genocidal killing in Gaza and the West Bank, where more than 70,000 people have been killed by bombs, guns, and starvation — what have you been seeing, what have you been feeling? I see pictures from people in Gaza — pictures of starving children, parents weeping while holding their dead children, victims of torture who have lost parts of their body. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the so-called “ceasefire” that Israel, the fascist state, is not abiding to.
Local Palestinians tell me stories of their family and friends who are trying to survive but don’t have access to basic human rights like water, food and safety. There are videos of kids pleading with the world, saying they just want to go to school and play like all other children. I went to a talk with two local Jewish residents who spent months in the West Bank as witnesses to the everyday violence that Palestinians experience there: violent mob settlers acting a lot like pogromists, acting a lot like ICE — murdering Palestinians and demolishing their homes. I sobbed when I heard the details of this. My Jewish ancestors fled Russia because of horrific pogroms and now Jewish settlers are enacting this same violence upon Palestinians.
To the people who are against Northampton’s decision to divest from companies supporting human rights violations, I ask you, if you had loved ones living in Gaza, starving and being killed, how would you want your local community to respond to this? If you lived one day in Gaza you would understand the emergency that it is, and you would support divestment and defunding Israel.
During the Holocaust good people didn’t know, good people denied what was happening, good people did nothing. And now, every day, some good people in Northampton are denying that Israel is committing a genocide and are fighting the divestment decision. I plead with you — look at what is happening. Listen to Democracy Now!, read the Guardian. See the horror. Feel the horror. Let your heart break.
Mare Berger
Northampton