Ireland
The world has not done enough to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, the Taoiseach has said.
Simon Harris called for an urgent review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement as he said human rights clauses in the trade pact were being breached.
Mr Harris warned that the world would look back on the conflict as a “time of dark shame”.
The Taoiseach said he asked himself “every single day” what more the Dublin government could do.
Speaking in Dublin on Tuesday, he said: “I find the scenes that are happening in the Middle East to be grotesque and almost unimaginable in terms of the scale of catastrophe.
“I’ve called it a war on children, I believe it to be that. The actions of Israel are utterly disproportionate.
“I’m also very conscious when it comes to things like trade, that is done at an EU level.
“To be clear, I do not believe the world, the European Union, has done enough to bring about a ceasefire.
“I believe when we look back at this period of time, it will be a time of dark shame for the world.
“Because there are levers that could be pulled at the European level that have not yet been pulled.”
Britain
The incoming Labour government wasted little time. Just two weeks after the election, the country’s new foreign secretary David Lammy announced that the U.K. would restore its funding of UNRWA, the U.N. agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees. (Several countries, including the U.S. and the U.K., suspended funding to the agency following Israeli allegations that some of its employees had participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. After multiple investigations into the matter, many have subsequently resumed funding.) One week later, the government announced that it would be dropping the previous governments’ plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court to seek an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes.
As Britain Pivots on Gaza, Calls for an Arms Embargo Grow by Yasmeen Serhan, Time, 8/20/2024
But what of the price of peace?
Daniel Berrigan’s writings and actions were empowering to me as I struggled with the price of peace and decision to be a draft resister at the time of the Vietnam War.
“But what of the price of peace?” the radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan, who was sent to federal prison for burning draft records during the war in Vietnam, asks in his book “No Bars to Manhood.”
Thou Shalt Not Commit Genocide
Visualizing Palestine
The Visualizing Palestine website has many infographics that can be distributed using Creative Commons.
The infographic Five Stages of Grief attempts to speak directly to the American people, communicating shared experiences of grief while contrasting stages of healing and recovery. The people of New York City mourned and memorialized their losses after 9/11, but their counterparts in Gaza are not allowed to recover. They have had little respite from Israel’s repeated military operations, nor from its ongoing blockade on the territory. International efforts are currently focused on ending Israel’s latest incursion. This is vital but insufficient. For the people of Gaza, especially the more 40% who are under 14 years old and have grown up traumatized by violence, they need more than just a ceasefire. This time a resolution is needed that will allow them to heal.
April 15 is tax day in the U.S. The average individual U.S. taxpayer contributes $25.25 towards weapons for Israel each year, adding up to a staggering total of $3.8 billion that fuels violence and repression against the Palestinian people. U.S. Congress is currently considering sending $14.1 billion in additional military funding to further arm the ongoing genocide in Gaza which started in October 2023.
Instead of funding genocide, the U.S. could prioritize human life by investing in healthcare, housing, and other needs. We collaborated with the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights to visualize what $14.1 billion could do if it funded care, not killing.
TAKE ACTION:
Use the Not My Tax Dollars interactive map and enter the information for your city or state on this Canva template. Print it out to use at demonstrations or tag us when you share it on social media.
unflinching 