PJALS Condemns Ongoing Violence in Palestine/Israel as 1 year anniversary passes
One year ago, PJALS released a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire and a just peace in Palestine and Israel. Our hearts heavy with grief, we again use our voices to condemn the vast human cost that 1 year of violence, war, and genocide has wrought.
One year of war and violence has ruthlessly taken 42,612 lives in Gaza alone since October 6, 2023. Over 10,000 people remain missing, nearly 100,000 people have been wounded, and millions have been forcibly displaced. Over half of the homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, along with 50% of hospitals, 80% of commercial facilities, 87% of school buildings, 68% of cropland, 68% of road networks.
We amplify the words from our friends at Jewish Voices for Peace:
We believe that every life is precious. Every life taken, every parent, child, grandchild killed this past year was someone else’s entire world… But we cannot only mourn, with millions under current threat — we must fight like hell for the living. Today, we recommit ourselves to that fight: for an end to U.S. bombs and funding to the Israeli military, for a ceasefire and the release of 100 Israeli and 10,000 Palestinian hostages, and for an end to Israeli genocide and apartheid. To a future of liberation for all.
We believe all people deserve to live in peace. PJALS has opposed militarism and imperialism since our founding in 1975. As an organization committed to a nonviolence analysis, we recognize that violence and war often inflict gendered and sexualized harms on women and queer, trans and non-binary people. We will not stay silent or look awaycannot look away while this violence destroys people’s lives.
Here is what we know:
We know the impacts of the war on Gaza extend around the world.
Islamophobia and antisemitism rhetoric and violence has surged across the world since last October. In our Spokane community, we have seen this poisonous hate and discrimination in our own communities. According to the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA):
In April of 2024, CAIR-WA surveyed 684 Muslims over the age of 13 living in Washington state, receiving 542 complete responses… The findings in this report provide a wealth of information about the identities, experiences, and needs of Washington’s Muslim community, including that a staggering 91.7% of respondents had experienced discrimination, and 82.5% had experienced discrimination within the past year.
Activist, justice-seeker, and movement-builder Angela Davis reminds us that our collective liberation is intertwined:
The emotional turbulence so many of us have experienced for the past five months as we’ve witnessed the unprecedented damage the Israeli military has inflicted reminds me just how central the Palestinian quest for justice is to liberation struggles here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world, as well as to my own sense of self in our extremely complicated political world… The collective mourning elicited by the racist violence that claimed the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others galvanized demonstrations aimed at the systems, structures, and histories that enabled such racist state violence. And those demonstrations were implicitly directed at the global imperialism that furthers the proliferation of racial capitalist strategies.
We know this is not a conflict between equally-resourced sides, nor is it “a fight between children of light and children of darkness.”
Since October 7, 2023, our United States government has spent $22.76 Billion in military aid to Israel and regional operations, with $17.9 Billion going directly to Israel in the form of bombs, missiles, and other deadly weapons of mass destruction. PJALS condemns the ongoing and persistent U.S. government’s support for Israel’s apartheid regime and its massive financial and military support for the continuing violence, oppression, and human rights violations inflicted on Palestinians.
We know Christian zionists and white nationalists are also accountable for this violence.
They perpetuate anti-Muslim hatred and drive support for Israel’s military occupation, while perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes and using Jewish people as “a means to an end with the ultimate goal being Christian salvation” according to Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.
Christian Zionist groups are both antisemitic and anti-Muslim, while pushing a reactionary political agenda in the U.S. Collectively moving people—particularly white people—away from all forms of white supremacy is our work. This includes Christian Nationalism, which hatefully targets Muslims and Jewish people with seemingly benevolent bigotry, with the ultimate goal of dominating or eliminating both communities. Thank you to Showing Up for Racial Justice for this framing.
We know the violence will only get worse if left unstopped.
As the violence in Gaza and the West Bank continues, the Israeli government continues to expand the scope of their attacks on the region. At the end of last month, they detonated charged pagers and walkie talkies across southern Lebanon, killing 70 people and injuring thousands more. Since September, continued airstrikes have been carried out by the Israeli government against southern Lebanon and the capital Beirut, killing thousands and displacing millions more innocent civilians.
We cannot stay silent. This violence must stop.
We call on the U.S. government to cease all military aid to Israel immediately, to demand a permanent ceasefire in the region, and to work with other international organizations to de-escalate the violence and provide humanitarian support. We call on the US to give truly peace-building attention to this region on an ongoing basis and not only react to violence. We view these as necessary first steps, designed to prevent the loss of more lives and to lay the groundwork for comprehensive negotiations aimed at ending Israel’s apartheid regime and illegal occupation and recognizing Palestinians’ right to self-determination.