POLITICS | JUSTICE

#1 New Year’s Resolution? ‘Demand a Ceasefire’

Write an OpEd to help achieve peace on Earth

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(Feel free to copy this letter and personalize it for your local paper.)

I write as a Santa Cruz County mother hoping to raise conscientious children in a nation whose leaders have a warped sense of right and wrong.

On the Friday before Christmas, a few of us caroled for a ceasefire in Downtown Santa Cruz. Two families with young children, a mother who is half-Palestinian, and her teenage son joined us in this symbolic act. It was beautiful to see families modeling compassion and activism to their children. These parents understand that to protect our children’s shared future, we need to spread love in this world that’s being torn apart by fear. To do this we must begin by dismantling all forms of oppression — including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and illegal occupations.

Jewish Voices for Peace, 63 members of Congress, two-thirds of American voters, and the majority of the world are calling for an end to the war crimes the U.S. and Israel are committing in Gaza.

The U.S.’s blind support for Israel is setting the stage for catastrophic worldwide repercussions. Speaking on Democracy Now!, Husam Zomlot, Palestinian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, said:

Israel is dragging the entire world into this immoral orbit of wars and oppression and suppression of an entire people. And in the process, the world is losing its own international system, i.e. the United Nations, the Security Council — all the rules we created after the Second World War.

He emphasized something everyone concerned about our shared future at this pivotal time for humanity should contemplate:

Israel has normalized the mass murder of children, the mass murder of families and civilians, and the mass destruction of hospitals, schools, and universities. Normalizing such scenes is going to have severe consequences on our humanity and on how the world will function.

We are witnessing the moral bankruptcy of the United States as the thin veil that once covered our white supremacist systems has been shredded. Biden and Congress are profiting off of the genocide of the Palestinian people. They amplify Israeli propaganda that dehumanizes Palestinians to justify fascist ethno-nationalism. The horrors we’re seeing in Gaza are the George Floyd moment for the U.S.’s racist, imperialist world policies.

When the U.S. partners with fascists like Netanyahu, it erodes our freedoms — even in California.

Pro-Israel interests have whitewashed the California Ethnic Studies sample curriculum, removing all mentions of Palestine, Palestinian-Americans, and even “settler colonialism”.

A fearmongering webinar promoted by our local temple is a sample of how this impacts the Santa Cruz Community. “The Fight for Ethnic Studies in CA” with Special Guest Angela Davis hosted by AROC Bay Area offers another perspective.

As freedom of speech is being eroded throughout the U.S. and the world, everyone should be afraid of the way Palestinian rights activists are being silenced on college campuses and across the Internet.

The story of what’s happening in Gaza is a thousand times more complex than simply standing with Israel or Palestine and — at the same time — as simple as believing we are all human.

I mourn along with families of Israeli hostages and those harmed and murdered on October 7th. However, nothing that happened that day justifies

• The killing of over 21,000 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children
• The fact that people of all ages are starving, undergoing amputations and other surgeries without anesthesia, and suffering in disease-filled disaster zones
• The hundreds of thousands of people who have been made homeless

Calling for a Ceasefire is not antisemitic. It’s the antiracist and morally correct thing to do.

Please join me in asking the Santa Cruz City Council, the Watsonville City Council, and the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors to pass resolutions similar to the one Oakland passed on November 27, calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

In doing so, our local electeds can model righteous action and help to steer our nation and the world away from a future of fear and endless war and toward the only source of true hope for peace on Earth.

Gail Valker McNulty 🕊️🌱 is parenting three teenagers while getting to know herself and her parents who are in the late stages of life. She writes to explore how we can love our way through these times and work together to create the tomorrow we all want and need. If you’re dreaming about the future we can co-create as we save what we love, regenerate what we need, and learn to live in just and joyful ways, let’s connect! LinkedIn • Twitter