Let’s Keep Mobilizing to Stop Genocide: If Not Now, When?
Non-stop for almost two weeks now, Israel has been bombing homes, whole neighbourhoods, hospitals, schools, mosques and churches in Gaza, while cutting off electricity, fuel, water, medicine and food supplies to the 2.3 million Palestinians there. Three days ago, the US veto effectively blocked life-saving aid from reaching Gaza. At least 3,785 Palestinians have been murdered, including 1,524 children. Tens of thousands more face a slower death from starvation and severe dehydration. Across historic Palestine, there is an escalation of Israel’s killings, including of children, fanatic Israeli settler violence, arrests and repression. Recognizing the risk of genocide, UN experts have called for its prevention.
Despite this televised genocidal campaign, backed by the US and European partners of Israel’s settler colonial and apartheid regime, and the complicity of western media’s relentless dehumanization of the Palestinian people, there is a huge, principled global resistance, and the tide is shifting.
From Japan to Chile, from South Africa to the UK, people of conscience are filling the streets and standing in solidarity with Palestinians. Across the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, millions are marching, pressuring their governments to take decisive steps to stop the genocide and defend Palestinian rights. In the US, hundreds of anti-Zionist Jews organized a peaceful sit-in at the Congress, while thousands stood outside saying “Not In My Name,” “Ceasefire Now,” and “Stop the Genocide.”
The unfolding genocide, right in front of our eyes, and the powerful global protests to stop it are now changing the mainstream opinion. Governments, MPs and experts are calling for a ceasefire, ICC investigation and sanctions and arms embargo on Israel. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, representing 57 states, has called for halting Israel’s “heinous crimes, including the crime of genocide.” A US poll shows most Americans now oppose sending weapons to Israel, and a US State Department official has resigned to protest US complicity in war crimes.
We need to keep the pressure on! An urgent ceasefire and life-saving aid are immediately required to stop this genocide, followed by enacting international law measures to hold Israel accountable for this genocide, as well as 75 years of apartheid and settler-colonialism against Indigenous Palestinians.
5 more actions YOU can take to make this happen:
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Pressure parliaments and governments to call for a UNGA session to debate the US veto and call for ceasefire; life-saving aid into Gaza; and UN protection for Palestinians in Gaza; ICC and other investigations into Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity; and military embargo.
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Continue mobilizing loud, creative and peaceful actions with a cross-section of civil society and bring with you our messaging cards to amplify Palestinian demands. Make sure your messaging is strategic and morally consistent.
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Call on influential writers, authors, sports and cultural figures to join the call for solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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Mobilize institutional pressure campaigns (including boycotts or divestment) against Israeli and international companies and banks that are complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, including apartheid.
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Mobilize your community, trade union, association, church, social network, student government/union, city council, cultural center, or other organizations to declare themselves Apartheid Free Zones (AFZ), ending all relations with apartheid Israel and companies/institutions that are complicit in its system of oppression, as was done against apartheid South Africa.
We need to keep mobilizing urgently to stop this genocide. If not now, when?
