If we do nothing, we are complicit

Regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, we must put pressure on our elected officials to end the support of Israel, demanding an immediate cease-fire and an end to the current war. The U.S. must stop the financial support of a state that practices apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza territories.

History did not begin on October 7, as horrific and barbaric as the events of October 7 were, they do not justify what Israel is doing in retaliation. You don’t combat terrorism by becoming a terrorist, unless you are willing to lose your legitimacy as a state that follows the rule of law.

How can Israel call itself the “only democracy in the Middle East” when it does not allow the occupied five million indigenous people in Gaza and the West Bank to vote?

Israel can’t be allowed to annihilate a people, break international law and engage in ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s original sin has never been dealt with, the region has been plagued by constant violence since its inception, land was stolen, and the native people have been treated as second-class humans for more than 70 years.

I have visited Israel on numerous occasions, I have Israeli coworkers and friends, I understand the situation and its complexity, but nothing justifies the indiscriminate murdering of civilians. Half of Gaza’s buildings lay in ruins. Four out of five people in Gaza are displaced from their homes.

Half of Gaza’s population is under 18. To my knowledge, there has not been a conflict since records are kept where so many children died in only a few weeks. We, the U.S. taxpayers, are subsidizing the indiscriminate murder of children.

If we do nothing, we are complicit.

— Susana Hernansanz, Superior