As Philadelphia Jews, we demand an immediate end to the genocide of Palestinians in Palestine, and we demand safety for our partners in the Philly Palestine Coalition.
Israeli officials have called Palestinians in Gaza animals. Some in the US have supported these officials without question, joining calls for the violent elimination of Gaza. Their words move bombs. Their words deploy white phosphorus that burns through flesh down to the bone. Their words tear Palestinian children from parents and limbs from bodies. Their words turn homes to rubble on top of entire families trapped inside.
As we hold our Jewish loved ones everywhere in our broken hearts, we know that public pronouncements of support for the Israeli state or its military will feed into one central, material consequence: cutting Palestinian families off from water and electricity and all communication with the outside world, commanding them to leave their homes, and then bombing them as they flee.
When Palestinian activists speak of resisting this horror to a willfully oblivious media establishment, those who choose to send harm their way show no concern for life, only rank hypocrisy. The Israeli state’s supporters call for genocide and cheer on a criminal military without censure. They cannot fathom the daily realities of Palestinian life. Palestinians and their supporters must be able to speak freely without censorship, without harassment, without loss of employment or education.
What does the ongoing genocide in Gaza actually demand of us in the United States? It demands a halt to the flow of weapons and funds for the Israeli military. It demands deescalation and an end to bloodshed. It demands laser focus on the root causes of the death and destruction that has rent our communities, our families, and our souls this week. There is no peace without an end to the colonial project that has forced Palestinians from their homes for 75 years, an ongoing genocide that humanity cannot tolerate. There is no prosperity without an end to the apartheid system that robs Palestinians of the chance at political or economic self-sustenance, and leaves Jewish Israelis without a humane existence. There is no freedom without an end to the sixteen-year blockade of Gaza that holds two million Palestinians hostage every day and continues to generate annual bloody wars no matter the outcome of Israeli invasions. An end to apartheid is the only way forward that treasures human life.
And treasure it we must, as we grieve endlessly for our Palestinian and Israeli friends and family who have been killed, maimed, or kidnapped. We know what we owe our fellow Jews for peace, like Hayim Katsman z”l and Vivian Silver: full dedication to the sanctity of life, and to the future they have fought for, with freedom for all between the river and the sea.
In 2018, the Great March of Return stood for this future with thousands-strong protests. Palestinians walking toward their stolen homes were met with Israeli bullets. Until 2022, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh z”l stood for this future with her commitment to truth, and then an Israeli sniper shot her in the back of the head. Israeli teenagers refusing the draft, Palestinian and Israeli activists crossing the government’s walls together, all stand for this future despite the ridicule and repression of the Israeli state. Supporters of the Israeli state have attempted to hide each of these facts—all while stifling the global civil society movement for nonviolent boycotts of Israeli apartheid.
Our Palestinian neighbors are not facing a massacre of thousands: they are facing the ongoing genocide of millions and the permanent loss of their homeland. They are facing Pennsylvania and federal politicians—people with power over their lives—who eagerly direct billions of dollars to the slaughter of their families. They are facing a media landscape that manufactures consent for this slaughter and cares nothing for their grief. We support the incontrovertible right of Palestinian organizers in Philadelphia, our fellow members of the Philly Palestine Coalition, to speak out against this horror.